There are currents everywhere you walk,
Slick Jacks, and Typhoid Tims,
and the boys who don’t write,
but who slap their lingua franca on everybody else’s chest,
               in order to be afforded pronouncements.


               Not sure what dance I am trying out here,
               not sure why the contortion feels smoother in this part,
jagged-bellied, berry-smushed,
               a little wave of motion in a steam room,
                              which sprouts into cartography.

I walk too, can’t help it,
               along the dead noise beat,
               yelps and scaffolds from strung-out hoes,
who probably couldn’t have helped it,
who certainly didn’t know.


               Smelted light and tarot readings
in the bar next door.
               We’re smoking as some distant bell chimes,
as if rolled under by a surface gale,
               which gives gifts.

I spot an                                 Arab in a tree,
he’s an Angry Arab               in a tree,
keeping it loud to protect from the wind.
Dressed up, hibernating, feeling good,
                              finger guns at every scrunched-up face,


,
baby,
clang, clang, shuffle, slink,
I probably couldn’t have helped it,
               baby, baby, clang.

Hammer&Hope

Kaleem Hawa

Contributions

Issue

4

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