It doesn't take much
to escape

a black suited
thin tied piano man

his jazz hands
pressing on the keys

and blue swirling smoke
as if someone rubbed a Genie's lamp

but the second question
though

just as simple

has no easy answer

where
do you want to escape to

corollary to that

what if you can't
come back

© Whit Howland 2019

He makes his own shadows
in an ocean of amber light

a fedora obscures his face

his dark suit melds
with the leather of the couch

and an outline of fingers
caresses an amber drink

the fragment the  hanging participle
the remainder in long division

and the business
that's never finished

Whit Howland © 2019

it was the one
that roped me in

the picture
you sent me long ago

the one with
your bright smile
and eyes wide
with anticipation

you are standing
among other revelers
on Spring Garden Road

there's a beer stein
in your hand

you must have
been celebrating
something big  that night

what was it
what was making
you so happy

that one thing
I could never crack

your happiness

anyway
I've kept this one around
even though I shouldn't
and

today I'm older
and right now

I'm standing in a
harbor side gift shop
in Catania Sicily

a new wife
and happy life

she just bought some
post cards of the city

pictures of side streets
and ally ways
scrubbed so clean
and shiny
they almost smile

I'll keep one
replacing yours

because it just hit me
like a blinding beacon

what you were doing
that night and why

you looked so happy

You must be sure you know
just exactly where we are

two swarthy males
wearing El Padrino hats

and ranch wear
playing Flamenco guitars

in front of a peach
cream colored matte

leaning
into their strumming

you must be sure you know
just exactly where we are

but where we are
is lost in a network of caverns

made of stanzas
line breaks syntax and

other pesky devices
and useless knowledge

these men
their music

are the bread crumbs
we'll follow

no questions asked

Whit Howland © 2019

deep moody
red

compliments
his plain black suit

and black
broad-brimmed fedora

at his fingers
on the mahogany bar

just
slightly out of reach

a dry martini
with a drowning olive

it's a solitary scene
and we are lost

in somewhere else in
some other time

in a moment
maybe private or otherwise

Whit Howland © 2019

Almost as if
I need to put my fingers on his hands

and feel the prints
of the nails

last night
I remember my cat curled up

in her bed
a gray heaving ball of fluff

also my other one
a tabby

caterwauling
at another feline beyond the glass

whose face was pale
in the baleful moonlight

and if I try hard enough
I can still  hear and smell the burnt English

muffins popping up
in the toaster as well as

taste and feel the butter
in its nooks and crannies

there's so much
on the surface that needs

to be explored
I doubt I will ever be able

to get much deeper
then the night before

Whit Howland © 2019

Why didn’t we do this years ago
all that time now gone for good

it’s green it hangs
flaccid on a door jamb

it's beauty only apparent
in action and the act of shopping

and its fabric
rough to the touch though strong and trusty

but seriously why didn’t we do this years ago
all the time spent now dried up and blown away so

why didn’t we

flush out all the  purple and excess verbiage
and flense the fat and grizzle

my goodness

so many plastic bags
and not enough manure to fill them with

Whit Howland © 2019