poetry – Catherine Hamrick

Twin Flames in a Divine Wind (poem)

The electricity buzzed out, Snuffing the dinner party; My mother frowned on linen napkins Carelessly thrown aside to drown In gravy dribbling porcelain plates; She died—what does it matter now? I divorced embossed stationery. The movers shattered my collection Of cobalt blue Haviland plates During my last run to nowhere. […]

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Immersion (poem)

image of pink, coral, and green succulent resembling the interior of a shell fish

I never toe-squished from a rocky shore To wade into a duck-and-water cover That would salvage my muddy, sidestepping soul. The Mississippi sun’s baptismal fire Plunged me into chlorined, green-tiled bliss, A state of grace fogging my plastic goggles. This daily meditation ran long and lean, Broken by 32 concrete-grazed […]

Estimated reading time: 47 seconds

Fear Gags a Poet’s Voice

W. D. Snodgrass collected the Pulitzer Prize for his first book of poems, Heart’s Needle, in 1960. However, with early glory came career pressure, ego issues, loss of relationships, and writer’s block. Nonetheless, he persisted, even when his art fell out of fashion. An interview with the Paris Review offers an intriguing […]

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Let Your Content Soar!

Welcome to my blog, a canvas for short reflections and poetry. However, if you seek the services of a storyteller, editor, and writing coach adept in print and new media, click on the menu in the upper lefthand corner. Let’s explore taking your content to new heights.

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

“The naming of cats” by T.S. Eliot (why I call my cat kitty-kitty-kitty)

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily, Such […]

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

My Other Blog: Random Storyteller

The Shadow of My Father’s Beard

It’s the small things, After a person is gone, That keep him alive, For a time, The things unnoticed Until they rise Out of memory’s grave. My father’s beard, Always a shadow, Even at 5 a.m., Briefly bristled my cheek, While my mother Lilted, “Rise and shine,” In the dark Of day number four […]

My Father on D-Day: Why Do You Ask This?

They made movies of our memories,

Of what they thought they were:

German mortar and exploding artillery,

The strewn wreckage

Of flipped, ripped jeeps,

Of wire,

Of bodies, whole, some with faces yet,

Of twitching pieces, arms here and legs flung there,

Of middle parts, spilling guts, oozing.

What was I thinking?

The sea foams, so does blood.

Then my hands did the thinking, and doing, on semi-automatic,

What the doctor ordered:

Stanch bleeding,

Apply dressings,

Sprinkle sulfa powder,

The lone wound antiseptic.

And dwindle the morphine—

On who has the best chance?

The hands became the machine

That patched the broken living and passed them to other hands

That stretchered them up the ramp.

To My Mother: Origami Storm

Although I previously published a version of this poem, I revised it with a certain precision—in keeping with my mom’s handiwork. A science major turned homemaker, she lived joyfully and creatively. I opened cereal boxes upside down And absently stuck them on a fridge shelf, Defying the precision strokes of my mom, The domestic engineer […]