Hammial, Philip

USA/Australia, (b. 1936)

Of Pigs & the Carts They Pull

  1. As the total fishing due eventually adds up to enough
  2. to completely compensate for a soft sell in the readership so
  3. the hog in our body finally recognized & treated as such is
  4. as good a reason as any to nip up behind
  5. & steal a nurse. All traffic in
  6. the various &, to be sure, nefarious disciplines thus
  7. come to a screeching halt, we can now cross, skirts
  8. hiked, safely over to that other, greener side, a slow
  9. grind while they lay hard
  10. on their horns which, the
  11. other side, proves, alas, but a mirror
  12. of the former, that hell from which, like a sermon
  13. from a pulpit, we were insinuated into a congregation bereft
  14. of faith but as eager for the social graces as Madam
  15. Truffle is for the trance where the good Mathew
  16. will speak through her those healing words that we having
  17. seemingly crossed for nought must hear if a feathered lord
  18. is going to splash unimpeded through the surf
  19. of our iniquitous hearts like a model
  20. of schizophrenia from which a fisher
  21. for men might work to achieve the perfect response
  22. for this &, indeed, for every occasion: ‘Tobacco
  23. heels!’ Tobacco
  24. heels? Good
  25. Mathew, is this really what you meant to say through Madam’s
  26. puckered mouth? Given the difficulty of locating truffles
  27. in this age of the pre-emptive aside I somehow
  28. doubt it. Best, I think, if we just overlook
  29. this socially inept invitation to dance to the music
  30. of a hog-heavy bassoon & get back as gracefully
  31. as possible to the original premise – that a nurse stolen
  32. for her readership & set to the task of soothing
  33. a soaked & ruffled lord won’t by any stretch
  34. of the imagination justify the loss of whatever
  35. it is that Mathew can’t say because of censorship, downed
  36. wires, broken connections, unfettered foundlings, etc. The
  37. point, if
  38. there is one, being that if
  39. we’re five ways smart but seven
  40. simple we’re in trouble & it’s time (at last)
  41. to call up Pigtime
  42. & ask Them what it is.

© Philip Hammial. Black Market in The Wild Life. Melbourne: Penguin Australia (1996).

Jane

  1. of her Jacks, Latin
  2. if they please
  3.  
  4. of speech
  5. held while they fondle her map
  6. of the hog mine with its engine
  7. of snout in heavenly pink seemingly
  8. insatiable
  9.  
  10. of body
  11. they’ll ask her to leave, her shame
  12. if she does while they quarrel
  13. over veins, while they nibble
  14. & nip
  15.  
  16. at her Jills, pig
  17. whom they please.

© Philip Hammial. Squeeze. Sydney: Island Press (1985).

About the Poet:

Philip Roby Hammial, USA/Australia, (b. 1936) a poet, publisher, editor, sculptor, painter and art curator.

After three years in the U.S. Navy and a degree in English Literature and Philosophy from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 1963, Hammial subsequently travelled the world for nearly ten years, visiting seventy-three countries. In 1972 he arrived in Sydney on a tourist visa and nine months later was granted residency. He is now an Australian citizen.

Hammial’s achievements include thirty published collections of poetry, poems published in 118 journals in fourteen countries, thirty-four solo sculpture exhibitions, and a position as director/curator of The Australian Collection of Outsider Art with twenty-six exhibitions of Australian Outsider Art in five countries.

In 2004 Philip was awarded an Established Writer’s grant by the Literature Board of the Australia Council. He has represented Australia at twelve international poetry festivals: Poetry Africa 2000, Durban, SA; The Franco-Anglais Festival of Poetry, Paris, 2000; The World Festival of Poets 2000, Tokyo; the Festival International de la Poesie, Trois Rivieres, Canada, 2004 and the Micro-Festival, Prague, 2009. [DES-04/18]

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