only in my mind
do I put pen to paper

when I'm anchored
in a port

or parked on a street
of long long ago

and yesterdays need
to be filed

and cases need to be
closed

Whit Howland © 2020

Ghosts
are what they used to be

memories

like white sheets
with eye holes
floating
through the mind

but the older I get
the more

I have learned to see
the beauty

in flawed arrangements
and poor executions

and I let the music
play

sometimes loud
sometimes muted

but always brassy
if not

just a little out of tune

Whit Howland © 2020

Let words dance

nothing choreographed
but more

interpretive
and spontaneous

then let order
form

from the chaos that is
the free verse

and dance
again

like water

flowing

Whit Howland © 2020

Often I wonder
not what is on the other side

but why there has to be
one

inexorably

one side is bound
to be bad

while the other
struggles to remain good

in the face of all that
badness

so why not just
eliminate the one side
all together

and end the struggle

Whit Howland © 2020

it's the dark side
that's scary

the fear

that this

is all there is

Whit Howland © 2020

Copper
with a handle and a spout

I could always tell
when it was about to blow

at first
you’d hear what I call

pressure pops

like someone snorting
to suppress a laugh
or a sneeze

then came a low whistle
soon
to crescendo into a squeal

finally
the bubbling over

the troubling concept
of steam

and how one releases it

Whit Howland © 2020

The night we called it 
a day

I remember that night

mostly the day

there've been a thousand of them
in a thousand lifetimes

cloudy gray
with raindrops
as dingy as mop water

so many times
have I been scrubbed
squeegeed and wiped out
of someone's mind

Whit Howland © 2020