This is based on a true story.

The Book

It is no longer a secret -- the government has been notified.
It towers in stacks to the ceiling.
It fills the tub and slops over the edges.
It overlaps the stove-- embraces the sink.

In this story, I represent reason.
I arrive minus a pen.
The book parts like a sea, spins
me back to the bedroom,
to a small cot.
It covers the cot.
It darkens the windows,
like moths, plastered.

The author is unhappy with me.
I tell her the book must go.
The author is screaming.
Her eyes are unnecessarily large.

Lawyers are involved,
I tell her,
The neighbors hear words groaning
in the pause between brushing their teeth
and turning out the lights.
The hum of electricity no longer
soothes their dreams.

The author shrieks something beyond
the edge of hearing.

Danger,
I tell her,
there is the possibility of fire,
of plague, of tiny bright insects.

The author grabs my hair.
I am prepared for this:
I brought shears.
When I am free, I make the call
and the undoing begins.


www.lulu.com/sharpNpencil

I've got a new poetry page! thanks to C.E. Laine the world-reknown poet. It's not much yet. http://poets.celaine.com/christinehamm/.
I'm trying to call it, "poetry for the angry temp".

So I had another reading last night, and despite the fact that I had a bad flu and stumbled over my words, and felt like fainting most of the time, it went smashingly. It was at Eastside Oral, a series run by the smashing and dirty-mouthed Elise Miller. Everybody loved me! And especially my stockings -- which read "bitch" over and over again in white gothic script. So... I guess I will continue to write. hmmm. And below, made a little ad to go in the back of BUST magazine. If I understand correctly, it's only about 300 dollars to run a small black and white one.



The Gorey quote is what someone told me at the reading. I blushed.

Dear Friends, Readers and Indifferents,

After my experience tonight at the Curious Cafe, I have decided I am not fit to be a poet. Getting the same score as the “mock poet” or sacrificial lamb at the beginning of the slam opened my eyes to the fact that I cannot write, and in fact, should not. Therefore, this is the last piece of writing you will ever receive from me. Perhaps more poignantly, tonight demonstrated to me that I am unfit for human company. In light of this, I am emigrating to Mexico, where I will sequester myself in the dry and dusty hills and live off grubs and roots. I plan to spend the majority of my days squatting, naked and filthy, in a corner, where I will rock, mouth nonsense words, and throw ashes on my head. Please forward all correspondence to:

That Unspeakable Loser
666 Snowball Lane,
Hell, Mexico

Thank you for your infinite patience with what has obviously been my plague of words. So long. Good bye. I mean it. Seriously.

In the meantime, buy my book: www.lulu.com/sharpNpencil