War pigs hackney a response.In other words, the stanza stultifiesat times. I need a break from all high-step injunctions, trottingout routine operations. Killing sprees. Killing.fields.Cambodia. 1969.Mason-Nixon lies.Henry, right in the kisser. Anything that flieson anything that moves. Orders.Who will suffer the dead—a mouthfulof blood and vomit, lobeliaflowers to dilate the lungs?Our challenges liein the price and the promise ofcitizenship, conferred, at first, on us,Mr. President, in 1776, your grateful lotof heathens—three-fifths human being, we so humblycontest. This still wet Constitution and anklebracelet, monitoringperverse as Andrew Jackson’s Removal Actof 1830, the indigenous would situate.As in fig leaves, hagiographiesLincoln’s repatriationof the formerly enslavedin 1863, amid southern mercenary indifference,is what if not placation?Let the dead spit up Cow Islandthe experiment jiggers down Jeffersonuntil nightmares like we come true.Come through, Mr. President.Come true. Come clean.
De Facto
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“De Facto” from DISCORDANT: by Richard Hamilton.
Published by Autumn House Press on October 7, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Richard Hamilton.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Richard Hamilton was born in 1975 and grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Columbus, Georgia. Their first book, Rest of Us, was published by Recenter Press in Philadelphia. A Cave Canem alumnus, their poetry has appeared in Consequence magazine, Steel Toe Review, and Rigorous Magazine, among other print publications. They hold an MFA in poetry from the University of Alabama and live in Washington, DC.
Richard Hamilton’s second poetry collection, Discordant, is a searing examination of injustice both within the United States and abroad, from criticisms of the US military-industrial complex and failing healthcare system to multilayered observations of marginalization through the lenses of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Hamilton’s poems look closely at increased austerity measures, commitment to mass incarceration and private prisons, disdain for workers and labor resistance, the expansion of the US military budget, the disappearance of federal subsidies for the working poor, failing schools and teacher shortages, market inflation and price gouging, and the rising tide of right-wing fascism.
Hamilton’s lyrical writing brings together free-form essays and personal narratives full of keen-eyed and urgent observations. Told from the perspective of a speaker who is unemployed and pensive, Hamilton shows how history haunts us while keeping the present in the foreground, constantly challenging oppression that has long been commonplace.
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