Henry Goldkamp
from Spill Life With Hammerspace
We march / to bring all men paradise. / If we fall, / millions more rise up / from below. / Earth’s
emblem will be / the sickle / on fire / with the hammer in the rainbow’s bow.
—Vladimir Mayakovsky, “Third International,” trans. by Peter France
11
let's be real let’s unseal our produce
capital gnats being the beast of our problems
whose soft bodies sharpen minor annoyances of inconvenience
a petty for your boughts
they didn't have that one in the color I wanted
they didn't have this zero in anymore XLs
painting by number being some
-what unnatural
20
how can you put handcuffs on a pomegranate
i mean they're obviously breaking the law
51
what i wouldn’t give
to come back as
a blade of grass
couple hundred years
after we’re gone
just hammin out, listening
to crickets, the wind
all up in my shit
58
still life, night life
ever-at-odds
yet all on black
i'm all for
combining materials
in the dark
63
slice of life
implies a knife
a hand
a hand of a thief
65
how polite the skull
its offer to shade the brain
on hot summer days
ars est celare artem
erm
i’ve already said too much
69
i’m on my oxygen break
toss my tin canister on the concrete
i step on my pep
and flutter into the world of production
70
public policy
written in the wars
“see you later, succor”
111
my first fiddle is a second banana
the clock with its zillionite flurry of hands
its white glove service
my greasy casket
112
the top dog critic
describing the material
as “fruitfully ham-fisted”
113
reading books on “the fool”
like slotting pennies into
a gucci coin purse
116
posh poets weep the loss of free speech
as if anyone is coming for you and your ode to macaroons
your elegy to puppy dog tails
your fabulist speculation on the existence of other dimensions
i want blood
on the outside of an evil-doer’s body
the ink in which i teach my children
to fingerpaint
Henry Goldkamp lives in New Orleans, where he teaches clown and cartoon at Louisiana State University, hosts the reading series Splice, edits intermedia for Tilted House, and acts as communications director of the New Orleans Poetry Festival. He is the author of Not My Circus (Ursus Americanus, 2025), JOY BUZZER: A Clown Show (Ricochet Editions, 2025), and Balloon Animal (Cloak, 2026). More at henrygoldkamp.com.