Sample Poems by Kevin Hadduck

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Stir

Descend and drown us, vital spirit.
Pour white lightening lore on our dim wit.
Crack our plastered brains with proof.
Ferment our liquored veins until
our blood runs ever clear.
Ignite our wooden hearts
and in thy tender mercy
crash our party.

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That Was the Point

Think back some years
Recall the sudden blaze
Of colors nearly leaping
From the corners and the curves
Of buildings trees and clouds
Recall the fineness of your tongue
The eloquence of your hand
And how you knew
You knew your world
Had fallen into place.
That was the point
Your darkness began
When God sent you
Leprosies in your fingers
And in your walls
Scales across your eyes
Mocking your vision
Turning your Epiphany obscene
Reminding you always
Of your smallness
Under his inaccessible
Sky

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Experience

Maybe God, the con artist,
Cursed him by the year with pains,
Bilked him of his cherished answers.
That was the necessary exchange
Called buying time. Now, in the rain,
He stands groping his pockets,
Listening for the clink of change.

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Somebody Help Me

I’m singin’ to a sandwich.
No more ditties by Manilow.
This is flat-out anthem,
three-cheese-chest-heavin’ song,
and its packin’ meat
like Arby’s, Man.

Oh god, I’m singin’ for my pants.
Barry don’t cut it anymore.
This is hip-waggin-groin-thrustin’
ecstasy in my khakis and tee.
This is dancin’ in the afterlife
at Target, Dude.

Oh hell, my SUV has me howlin’
operatic in the choir.
It’s Mozart ’n Mo’town.
This’ll take me to the arctic and back.
I am Driver hear me roar; hear
the sound of my gasoline suckin’
Saturn, Sistah.

Somebody help me. It’s Prime Time.
Oh God, the Ad Man has me celebrating
my Dickie’s and Deeres.

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Confessions of a Suspicious Character


To be nobody but myself—in a world which is doing its
best night and day, to make you everybody else—means
to fight the hardest battle which any human being can
fight, and never stop fighting.—E. E. Cummings

What the West has thrown on the waters of the world
drifts back to us on a tide of cultural pollution
appalling to behold.—Arthur Charles Erickson

In school our teachers strove
Against the myth of a savage
Naked but for a loin cloth.
They knit their brows and bent
Like sculptors caressing the stone,
Patiently, firmly clarifying
The lines of the eyes, the mouth,
The feathers marking the tribe.
I am late in coming to this:
I am the naked civilian,
Featureless but for my car,
My computer, my power.
In Wales, in Kurdistan,
And Cheyenne River,
People with weathered faces
Fight to keep clothes on.
My neighbors do not mind
Their own nakedness.
They are safe in high-rises,
Warm on suburban lawns.
Still, remembering their lessons,
They lament the stripping of the Navajo.
Still, perhaps, for fear of Yugoslavia,
They will white-wash the world.
I am cold, lurking homelessward
In the uniform twilight, fearing
The guilt of a discriminating
Choice of clothes.