I love these pieces
of bakelite they

call bones
full of wonder

and prophecy
as opposed

to shards of glass
that implies

wreckage

and careless living


Whit Howland © 2020

More a meditation
than a description
of a scene

a window
busy with Christmas
figurines

tinsel
ornaments
and streamers

a tiny tree with lights
stands next
to Mary Joseph and Baby Jesus

you’ve got me on a tight rope
walking gingerly
over troubled terrain

love on one side
hate
on the other

but I come with good news
and that news is
it's been mostly love


Whit Howland © 2019

A salty wind not
a breeze

blows through this
one

topping the crests  
of sandhills

filling my eyes
my craw

with grit

as I continue my shifting
and unstable walk

toward the timpani
of crashing waves

punctuated by gulls
cawing

gliding and
dive-bombing

there is nothing
really

to see here

except for
a lot of sweeping

bagging and
burning of trash

possibly some
stitching and

a little bit of
taping and

bandaging

Whit Howland © 2020

You say it's late
maybe too late

to save this and you add
it's a sinking ship

and that there was never
any luster

or gild on the lily
so what do I say

AHH

it's what I ask that's the real
kicker

how does a ship sink
when it's never left the bottle

whit howland © 2021

A once bright and
red

now

a little deflated
wrinkled and faded

and it's an arm wrestle
or a battle for the soul

but the scissors are there
sitting

on the counter

to lead you to where
the air is much clearer

whit howland © 2020

Three cars long
a passenger a box
and a flatbed

pulled

by a stocky
blocky locomotive


the caboose

has long since given
way to the ellipses

Whit Howland © 2020

I was so angry that day
crazy
from the heat

it's in the eyes
the grimace
on my face finally

leathered and lined
with crow's feet
you captured me with your lens

at my most naked and exposed
my stoic plaster mask
now smashed

swept away
in whitewater and rapids
you captured me


and I've loved you ever since

Whit Howland © 2020

When evening sets in
and there's a bite

we put on sweaters
and shawls

because we feel it in our bones
of something we've never felt before

Whit Howland © 2020

Things that I want
or things that I need

you weren't there
I called

but you were
gone

A lurid yellow
world

where light is pale
and sick

and those lives that are
saved

are no longer worth
living

I'd leave it at that but
for the sake of humanity

I'll talk you through this

tell her that yourself

and if God willing
you'll see her tomorrow

Whit Howland © 2020

who are you
she demands

i answer her
with silent letters
and vowels

my voice
left years ago

on the last bus to
Pittsburgh

Whit Howland © 2020

Flapping
like a pennant

on opening day

it propels
the little skiff

oversea
and chop

topping white
caps

offshore
in crisp Spring

so with that

may the wind be
always

at our backs
and never

from our sail

Whit Howland © 2020

for most  
it's a big overstuffed suitcase
and not one with rollers

it's something we lug
through airports bus stations
and at midnight

because we never travel by day
it always the last coach
or a redeye flight

Whit Howland © 2020

All the things
I see
in fiction  
the mental jetsam
of dreams

I can no longer say
this isn't happening to me
that this

is the stuff
of others

this is real

and I am here for
a little while longer
maybe just another hour

© Whit Howland 2019

One side of my face
is masked

in shadows

the other's
draped in gray

out there somewhere
a tablet
has been written on

soon to be found

Whit Howland © 2020

Turquoise blue
or coffee brown

or did it matter

as long as it spun
on its axis

and was life ever
really the same

when we unhitched it
like a wagon

and watched it bounce
down the stairs

only to have it collide
with other alien worlds

Whit Howland © 2020

Between these two points
it usually comes down

to where I've been in my life
when I've arrived

mostly in late August
a hazy day

on a trip
and last hurrah

staring at the bend
in the highway

as crooked as
a drinker's elbow

Whit Howland © 2020

Classic red

a sturdy chassis

plain

front and back axles

tough rubber wheels

and a functional
metal black handle

simple
perfect in design

a blue print
and a vision

only for
the naked eye

©  Whit Howland 2019

To understand
what I'm driving at
you must go beyond

words sentences
paragraphs

and let all

the punctuation
float away
like dandelion seeds

then think
and speak

about the symmetry
of the thing

like say

a leaf

is it a heart

or is it a diamond

and ask yourself
why I'm looking
at you

wanting you

to see



Whit Howland © 2020

Archie,

out here,
in Seligman,

this wind
does not whip your face

there is no wind;

just  hot white heat
that makes it hard to write--

but I do it
even though the sun makes
the paper

a mirage-- or mirror
I don't know which

if a mirror,
then it's your reflection I see

not your face
but your lines your words

and how you'd best
describe the emptiness

and your sense of it.

Ah, the Southwest!


well,
that's all for now

All the best,

Whit

A dream
buzzards
fly overhead
eyes like spotlights
cars bumper to bumper
I know you are out there
and you know I'm still
that guy it's just that
he's buried deep inside
you are going to have
to dig deep to find him
but do try to reclaim

whit howland © 2019

Frankly
I prefer the rippling white sheet

with eye holes
floating down the hall

instead of what tugs
at my conscience

like fingers pulling on that
tiny strand of hair

whit howland © 2020

The clock is set
to a time

that like many other
things

is something we
had to not only
bite

but bite down
hard

on the bullet
and settle on

similar

to how
your face your
hair my

mismatched eyes
reminds

us both
that

there is no such
thing

as the perfect
Christmas tree

Whit Howland © 2020

With blind
trust

as though
through the Chunnel

under the English Channel
we will travel in darkness

to greet
the new year

meet
and pump the hand
of fate


and it will seem
as normal as the day

before
more of the same

jokes songs
and stories

but there will
be a feeling that
we cannot shake

a momentum
pulling us forward
causing us

to look one last time
and salute all the things
that served us well

then bob for other apples
and trust
they’re more juicy crisp and new

Whit Howland © 2019

Perhaps
not an impasse

maybe
at two opposite ends

I find myself writing
the same poem

over and over
again

because no matter
what bus I seem to take

and even though
I mean to go crosstown

to get to you

it always drops me off
at the same stop

usually
in the dead of night

Whit Howland © 2020

With a cup of steaming
muddy coffee

much

like what is splashed  
up from the street

and what rises
from a manhole cover

I'm sitting on a stool
at the end of the counter
and reading a newspaper

just the facts
nothing more

and nothing less

Whit Howland © 2020

it's ok
I read you
I get you

I feel you

your nervous
desires
anxieties

your passionate pleas

but mostly
it's your hopes
and dreams

that are laid out
so plainly in panels
of sequential art

replete
with conversation
and think bubbles up above


whit howland © 2020

The image a face
ripples

or contorts

when something
maybe a pebble

dares to disturb
it's universe

before it's restored
as though nothing

untoward ever
occurred


Whit Howland © 2020

In the not so distant
future

the yard

now brown

will be green again

and shortly after that

Dandelions
and Butter Cups

will pop up
like planets

and once more

orbit
an invisible moon


Whit Howland © 2019

I so wanted to be you
wanting

the rotting wagon tongue the
lunar dust

I wanted your west
your dying towns

the salmon that swam
upstream

and the girl that giggled and scissor kicked
in your drink

because

I'm a poet and what might
have depressed others

was lush and fertile landscape
to me

but when I traveled your America
I saw saw it

through much cheaper sun glasses
the kind

you might buy at a truck stop
or someplace

like Wall Drug
or an Indian smoke shop

with a neon war bonnet
and that

made all the difference

A look
to the future

while reflecting
on where we've been

how it all started
and why we started it

I got my start with
crude meaning simple
nursery rhymes

in order to salve
some deep cuts

either self-inflicted
or made by others

and then I  built from
the ground up

the structure
substance developing
overtime

Whit Howland © 2020

Difficult
to explain

why you
and I

clicked

strange
odd

like something
from the Sunday Funnies

whit howland © 2020

Slots buzz and ring
coins clatter

neon
splashes

like spilled paint

they say


New York
is the city that never sleeps


it's a caffeine-fueled insomnia

but in Reno
you're lucid dreaming

and frantically searching
for the door

the one that leads
back

to consciousness

Your flavor
a candy-flake daydream

so sweet

but no
you did not complete  me

and it wasn't for trying
I chewed on all of your words

your every word
that inevitably

I know that now

lost their taste
in a matter of minutes

it's when your mixing
paint
and metaphors

such as

being a bottle
lost in a sea
of eternal sunshine

then
all of a sudden

the light
on the projector
pops

and the world
simply

and beautifully
fades

to black

Whit Howland © 2020

Chekov said if there's
a gun

then it must go off
so

BANG

and if a body lies
on the floor

and no one's around
is it really dead

is the private eye always
a drunk and why

is the frosted glass on his office door
spider-webbed

did he hit it with his fist
or was it once

a bullet hole

lastly
where there is no damsel

was there ever any
distress


Whit Howland © 2020

It could be thunder
or sunshine
yet you always remain
at your desk

looking out the window
musing

about quotidian things
like chirping birds
and if they know you exist

and the stuff
they might say about you
behind your back

that is if you're not too busy
typing up pages
of the emotional weather report

Whit Howland © 2020

Just one red candle
******* into a log with peeling bark

burns

with fresh wax
dripping

down the sides

so much could have been said
should've been said

but now's not
the time

We are arm and arm
leaning
against a street sign

Jack Kerouac Blvd

we are smiling
triumphant
it might seem

because that year
you almost lost me

but don't worry my love
I'd have gone down swinging
and would have taken a few with me

Whit Howland © 2020

Every time I tried
to draw a straight edge

there was always a bump
in the road

I stopped so long ago
trying to be exact

it only takes one burn
that scars the hand
to never again

want to cook
or go near a stove


Whit Howland © 2020

The morning sky is streaked
with plum

your hair's as fine as
cornsilk

and your lips are sweet and
tangy

like tangerines

you always said words failed me
I set out to prove you wrong

how'd I do

Whit Howland © 2020

a soft pale glowing
sliver

over the bedpost
or through the bathroom door

for when we need
to be creatures of the darkness

it's nothing to bark at but more
to read by

a beacon
to guide us through the night

Whit Howland © 2020

Robert,

I’m writing to you
because

you’re the only one
who

would get me
and this,

driving three hundred miles
and not

remembering

why,

and in an attempt

to get in front of panic
and paranoia

you let the neon
and the smell of fry grease

hand you
your story,

your purpose,

like a plate of barbecue
and flat beer.

All the best,

Whit

I'm out of the loop
an outsider

so they they say

and that's perfectly ok

last night
I dreamed of Dilbert

not in his cubicle
but onstage in a jazz club

playing
sultry saxophone

with enchanted blue smoke
rising up

around him

This melancholic music
in a twelve-bar sequence

my baby left town
and left me nothing
but my sneakers and her wedding gown

this melancholic music
in a twelve-bar sequence

my cat is scratching  at my bedroom door
I can't give her any more
than I gave her last night or before

this melancholic music
in a twelve-bar sequence

whit howland © 2021

One side
of your rubber face

sags

but  you're still hot
and pink

with a carrot
inching ever closer

to your bucktoothed
mouth

and the plastic valve
in your **** is open

so I could lip lock
and just blow

my cheeks puffing out
like Dizzy Gillespie

Whit Howland © 2020

you say the things
i want to say

but lack the mustard
to voice

we are guided by crazy trumpet
playing

there's a method
but

even if it's deceptive
does that mean

there's
no madness

Whit Howland © 2020

Goggles
a lambskin helmet

scarf
and a wand

to leave a chemtrail of bubbles
as I go

I don't need much more
than that

because this life
has always been piloted

by the seat of my pants
with no real plan

except for
an occasional barnstorming

here and there

What I remember

most

was the glass globe

covering the pieces of bright
lemon pie

sitting on the teal green counter
long

before it was burned by
everyone's

cigarette

did we trade or did we
barter

Whit Howland © 2020

For better or
worse

hallway vision
speak

nothing of a tunnel
the issue

is that of clearance
of cobwebs of clutter

a piece of mind at
any price

Whit Howland © 2020