Three Poems by Bradley Mason Hamlin

Donald Duck Eats Turkey Legs

If we could ever
keep in mind

all the strange
things
we’ve done

lifetime after lifetime
maybe we’d go mad

swimming
straight up
against that waterfall
crashing
down

roaring
like endless drunken
dreams

another beer
fearing
one more bare-knuckle
fight

the right woman
wrong town

singing, laughing
killing
sometimes

falling
to earth
and praying
to gods unknown

or gods
terrible close
to heart

suffering
for the mind
body,
spirit

crying
floating
on astral planes
of fresh coffee
whisky, wine
and tantric sex

here we are
again
transcending

before
we fall.

____________

Employee No. 23
Society
the irritated faces
atrocious attitudes
unkindness incorporated
and me working
within their system
infected
changing
molecules screaming
I
me
a monster, too
and I
swing my fists
of fury at them
constantly
kicking
jumping off cliffs
with little hope
for survival
crying mutiny
as I mutate
again
becoming more like
them
accepted
at the water cooler
now
and therefore
useless.

____________

Wings of Hell

 

in the middle
of dead dark morning
waking to sound of horrible wings
crashing overhead

heart beating wildly
leaping off bed
trying to let eyes adjust
expecting to see
a monstrous succubus
and flying straight for me

I fumbled with flashlight
beaming into high corners
of the room …
but found nothing

In the rest room
I pissed out some rum
heart beating irregular
then shuffling back
to blankets
closing eyes
and thinking of crows

impossibly loud ravens
outside
overhead
somehow
couldn’t have been a bat from hell
couldn’t have been actually
inside
anything
other than my own mind

but in daylight
my wife said
it was obviously Satan.