The Memory Palace

Colin Hamilton

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 1998
• Print ISBN: 9780873385916
• eBook ISBN: 9781612779089
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

"Colin Hamilton has combined the visible and the invisible into a truly unusual first book. In three poetic sequences, The Memory Palace weaves layers of psychological narrative into separate versions of an inner biography. The writing is exquisite, the mysteries engaging, and the result original."—Marvin Bell"The poetry, page after page, is of the kind that keeps the reader on the critical edge, both ecstatic and lucid, both active and illumined… . What began in the first part of the book with the evocations of a struggle to unclench a rock-locked fist' is projected, in the end, on the geography of the continent itself, desolate yet lyrical. Nothing more exotic here than the beauty of utterance set free."—Stavros Deligiorgis

THE MEMORY PALACE

“for here there is no place

that does not see you …”

—Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo”

THE DOORKNOB

extends a hand in greeting.

Like your hand, it’s scarred.

When you shake it, you know:

someone with small teeth

has been trying to get out.

THE DOG

beats time against the wall:

thump-thump thump-thump.

She needs you to see past

her wet, dark gums, past her tongue

to the place where these hot,

scented storms are brewing.

Your eyes aren’t windows after all.

No matter how close she pants,

they don’t steam up.

THE JAR

filled with seashells sits in a corner.

Sand dusts the inside of the jar,

but who can say whether sand is becoming glass

or glass becoming sand? Past

the sand are shells, each perfect and

the same: polished, slit cylinders speckled

black and brown. When you uncork the jar,

the sound of waves doesn’t drown the house,

but fireflies dim beside your bed.

THE FAT WOMAN

is not as fat as her name suggests,

though her thick thighs weld

into a single trunk, cut above her knees.

Beneath her arms, flesh hangs

without folding over. She links

her arms behind her back

to express what a hardly-featured face cannot:

it isn’t shame which turns her head,

but a sad, unexpectant coyness.

You take her in your hand.

As her head slips between your fingers,

her body fits snugly into

your palm. You almost know

what a hand feels waiting to be poured.

THE MASK

is stoic in its misfortune.

Who would ever wear such a thing—

tuskless, bald, ungrimaced, no

hideous eye ogling out? This is the face

for feeling nothing—wooden, flat.

Why waste a mouth upon it?

Only the wall on which it hangs

could gain some expression from it.

THE LIGHT

doesn’t shatter the window,

but takes its form, tunneling through

the room to cut a brilliant patch

of carpet. Ten billion particles

of dust, of skin

inhabit the light, yet this far end

of the sun, cast before

your feet, burns unspeckled.

THE SADDLEBAG

is too rough for the couch.

Woolen strands arch out from

its stitch and finger through

your shirt. You’d need

a camel’s back, a mule’s indifference,

to lie against this bag in peace.

You’d have to fill it instead

with rice or wheat, then open

this room into a mountainy

desert. The only water

would be the small well inside you.

THE KITCHEN TABLE

A circle divided in half, like a flat

world with a single river.

This is winter: the riv...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• An Unfinished Figure
• The Memory Palace
• Two Men of Cathay