Slithering
gummy worms

a cricket
with a bad case
of the sniffles

and not a swatch
of tissue in sight

a marvelous tin windup
robot that squawks
DANGER

so loud it'll power wash the freckles
off your face

bubbly brown-colored soda
in a sweating glass
no

not a frosty mug
that says Pepsi

COKE

because
things always go better
with Coke


whit howland © 2021

knee ****
or reflexive
response

by

visual
stimuli
designed

to get a reaction

you always
back
me into a corner

leaving no choice
but to push
to click or flip

whatever is convenient
immediate
expedient

or red

Melting
broken
twice right
cat's eyes
swishing tail
stuttering
stammering
seconds
making
solid minutes

Whit Howland © 2020

So close
I can smell your
breath

a *** potpourri
of whisky and decay

so close we can almost
say

good
bad

up
down

zenith
or  nadir

though

the debate
could rage
for days

but we're so close
the swans  
are tuning their trumpets

but maybe
not near enough
to call it a

Whit Howland © 2020

Chicago windy
blustery cold

frantic
crowded human

silver  liquid amorphous
bean

cloud gate Chicago
beauty eye behold

love adore maybe
but some will drink

another
cup of tea


Whit Howland © 2019

So lovely a moniker
for one in a fleet

of many silver bullets
on rails and tracks

and while this world
is ever-changing

please
we plead let this and other

chrome and art deco
wonders

continue to be
constants and treasures

in our lives

Whit Howland © 2020

Father Christmas
red-cheeked and drinking
from his pewter stein

the milk
of human kindness

but was it really better back then
or am I just remembering it
differently

I close my eyes
and I still see those bulbous
Christmas lights

strung along the front
of the house
I want I want

I want
what I can no longer
have

torchlight dances
on the aquamarine
blue of a hotel pool
deep in 1963

when happiness
was still on the Hi Fi

coulda woulda shoulda


Whit Howland © 2019

I'm sorry

I wish I had an answer
but if I did

I'd be a brain trust

and

uneasy is the head
that wears the crown of thorns

glasses clinking
a drink slides down to the end

a blue brocaded curtain
ripples

where did I come from

I've been here all along

I'll sit over there if you like

what time is it
the windows are blacked out

so

it might be morning

Whit Howland © 2020

October's slimy kiss
of wet

the air peels away
the layers

as it harvests this year's
summer crop

the soul

whit howland © 2020

Yesterday
the weather was warm

with the sun sunny
side up

and the sky was a solid
blue

and now
I must honestly ask you

what just happened
a cold snap

ok maybe
but seriously

ginger
preferred

Not a ginger snap
but with a bite just as sharp

how you doing

better than I should be

for some reason
I am feeling very chill

good music in my earbuds
will do that to me

everytime

Oh how it howls
like through a glass
jar

dark is the sky
and days much
darker now

where did it go
you go
we go

when did the worm
turn it was a fat one
but for someone else

other than us

Whit Howland © 2020

No spotlight
that disappeared
years ago

now

just you wearing a madras jacket
loud shirt
and a polyester tie

leaning
against a varnished wooden rail
speaking into an old radio mic


trying to talk
over the Rolling Stones
on a Wurlitzer Jukebox

to no one
in particular

Difficult
to explain

why you
and I

clicked

strange
odd

like something
from the Sunday Funnies

whit howland © 2020

Tonight the moon is full
and as always
it's a ball of green cheese

if we are lucky
it'll be here all week
so

in its honor

what say you and I
do a Chinese Fire Drill
on 42nd Street

because like Slinkys we must bend
and twist ourselves
to prove

and plead
that we are human
and should be called such


Whit Howland © 2020

The mask is
plaster

with a face that
droops

and the one that laughs
drips

with joy
at the pain

and misery of the drooping
plaster

face

Whit Howland © 2020

Head to toe
wall to wall

Jazz, blues
rock and roll

bouncing
up and down

on weak springs on
a saggy couch

15 minutes of fame
I'm lucky at ten or seven

and that's
with the squirting flower

Where even the doorman
has a joke

and no one
is straining gnats

or swallowing camels

because they're too busy
swatting them or smoking them

while trying to scratch
an itch

that is next to near
impossible

to reach

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

Outside

a wrecking ball swings
to and fro

pretty soon
the building
will be nothing but rubble

you're not as subtle as you think
you are

in fact
you wear your thoughts
and feelings

like an ill fitting suit

Whit Howland © 2020

It's not you
me

or about a place

but more to do
with what exists
beyond

the structure
and can we trust
each other

until we earn
the right and the ticket
to ride

Whit Howland © 2020

False
like the front
of an old west saloon

not broken
like Mom's favorite vase
she told us oh yes she did

not to play
ball in the house
we promised

she promised
and we blinked
it was sleight of hand

and now she's gone
a swindle
or was it buyer beware

you once said
i had rapier whit
as exemplified

in my letters to you
one summer
when we were young

you are now long gone
but that gleaming silver knife
your gift to me

still sits on my desk
cutting sharper
than ever before

Whit Howland © 2020

They're just
decor

copper coffee
tins

more cans
hanging

from hob
nails

over the stove
***** reminders

of the front porch light
still

bright
after all these years

Whit Howland © 2020

I have drawn no
conclusions

or lines

and one might
conclude

that this is
skullduggery

or outright theft

but for now
I can only know you

by speaking your words
even if I have to

steal them from your mouth
or

from the page

it was sunny today
almost muggy and warm

again
I'm pilfering

your moment

your thunder

and the description
of a place

that not I and only
you

have ever been

Whit Howland © 2020

Let's talk about
mustard and burnt orange

while we sprinkle a couple
of flakes

then let's move down
to brown

slugs snails

and after that

melt

fade
to black and white

blobs

but pity them not
they were here to destroy

our gardens our
trees

ok,
I'll stop beating around the bush

us

they came to destroy

us

whit howland © 2021

Usually spooled
pink fluffy

sugary stuff
it's there

in your mouth
then it dissolves

here
then we're not

parting
is never sweet sorrow

senseless
maybe

pink and sugary
your words
so lyrical

and yet
so fleeting
they dissolve

in my mouth

I don't want to believe
but I do believe

you sold me
a bill of goods
though I'm not bitter

how could I be
with such sweet
salesmanship

Cotton whites

sock shirts
and drawers

still fresh with the scent
of laundry soap

flapping

in a crisp March wind
on a gray weathered rope

they say pictures
last forever

but not this one

fading fast between
the plastic and acidic pages

It's a deep cough
a wet

or is it a dry
whooping cough

maybe
it's more of a hack

so much tissue
oh so little time

life is such
a struggle

but
would we have it

any
other way

You speak to me
now
in apologetic verse

a lyric born
from
way beyond

your cadence

a bent soldier hunched
over cups
of scalding coffee

frosted donuts
sprinkled
with the shots

its very sepia
in its cinema
and

very
tormented
in its song


and yes
you’re still
alive still present

and yes
we're tethered
still forevermore

but no
we’ll never meet again
face to face

so let’s
just cling to what’s
concrete

the image

an orange
gritty
rise and shine


ordinary
though
resonant

with
a workmanlike
musicality


Whit Howland © 2019

we search
and search and

search

for a voice
anywhere

we can find it
be it

on billboard signs

advertising
aftershave

nursery rhymes
knock

knock jokes
we throw

spit wads
against the wall

hoping someone
will hear us

and that we are
distinct

Whit Howland © 2020

still brown suede but now scuffed
they're older than our marriage
and I still look at them like they're new

staring at me from that plateglass window
down in rummy Pioneer Square

I won't let them go just like I'll never
let us go and I'll never abandon old Seattle

like Coney Island
it still exists in the mind

Whit Howland © 2020

I've come to love

and know
the color blue to mean
not a Blue Monday
Blue Note or joke
and don't much care to sing the Blues

or for that matter
give them
because truth be told
most of the time

I want to caucus
with those
pumping and stumping
for a Blue Hawaii
or the warm blue waters

pickling poetically
the clam shell white bottom

of Palancar Reef

Whit Howland © 2019

but what we need
maybe just one little
thing

like a crayon
magenta
then

viola

a picture

the loaves
the fishes
to feed the soul

with seven baskets
left over

A phonograph
or
an object

more poetic
say
a Victrola

a metronome
accordion
a Dictaphone

whatever the device
you're in there
pulling wires

plunking keys
blowing wolf tones
anything to skunk up the works

and if I were smart
I'd brace myself
for your ghostly visit

your
attempt to cramp
my style

to drag me clawing
gnashing
to the junkyard of naked language

to make me face
the paint and music
like you always did

but there's a problem
it's small
but very significant

I don't believe in ghosts
nor do I think you
to be one

and if you do come
it won't to by the light
of a beastly moon

nor will you be bathed
in spooky green
glowing paint

but
with a presence
better than the one I knew you by

one with
even more depth
and perception

and you will
bear
just a soft

new brush
fresh cans
of paint

simple
nothing more
nothing less

© Whit Howland 2019

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

This morning the air
bites like apple cider

and my mind is as clear
as a blue sky

with just a hint of cirrus
and stratus clouds

I have no regrets
nope

none whatsoever

Whit Howland © 2020

A curt thank you
as I bite

into this spring
morning

of red and
orange

crossed with strands
of pink

you want more but
to give

would be to take

from the dry brittle
yet

pleasing taste
of this dispatch

Whit Howland © 2020

Wall or painting
and do I really care

they say every house settles
mine is no exception

and I've come to realize
maybe by kicking against the ******

that it's better to pin a gold star
on a mediocre pig

then chase a fast greasy one
and get dragged through the mud

Whit Howland © 2020

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

Without it
we are pedestrians

at a crosswalk with a redlight
that never changes

awash in petty laws
and ordinances

always afraid to risk
the tightrope of absurdity

but with it
the sky's the limit

and we can shed things
like old and tired cliches

the way we do clothes
that have long gone out of fashion

whit howland © 2021

Black as the ink colored
feather in my cap

an eye
opaque and shiny

streaks make the body
an abstract impression

where the mind connects
the dots

and gives form and meaning
to the thing

and if and when it can't
we can't

then we **** it

Whit Howland © 2020

what was it we
drank

and before you
get too glib

it wasn't
the kool-aid

words matter  
words mean things

who said they didn't


Whit Howland © 2020

In a pinch
I always retreat
to my Grandmother's kitchen

that's not only a room
but also a 3 D polaroid
of 1971

turning to sepia before
my very eyes and
right now

I'm spinning on one of the mustard
yellow
nogahyde chairs

so fast I'm getting dizzy
but then I remember something
I learned that year in school

about ballerinas

to keep their balance
and grace they
focus on one thing

so I fix my gaze
on the ornate cuckoo clock
hanging on the far wall at eye-level

with its dark brown flourishes
carved curly cues horn-blowing hunters
and the piece de resistance

the hart's head with
fanning antlers
it wears for a crown

I wish I could remember more
and I always tell myself
details make the case

but they too
have been washed out
by time

Whit Howland © 2020

twice a day
and I'm such a broken man

unwind
rewind

set back
turn back

be a dad
what a joke

pull my finger
my string

yank
my chain

whit howland © 2021

This is as much about me
as it is you

our erratic rhythms
giving original meaning

to a Harlequin Romance
as we both run

like hamsters on a wheel
or better

around like rats in a crazy box
trying to navigate life

whit howland © 2021

No surface tension
as it is filled
just below the lip

and it rests
on a coaster
sitting on a T. V. tray

what is there more to say
except
that when you met me

you thought
I was a tall
cool drink of water

of which you never sipped
let alone
ever even drank

On the shelves they sit
this way and that

an untidy mass

some discernable
others abstract

conversations
with myself

or those
who are no longer here

cup a stein
a mug

a ballerina
folded hands

things to see things
to feed

our desire
to know more see more

metal army men
a die-cast VW Van

a dime a dozen a blessing
in disguise

a spacesuit
doll clothes

"Beware of looking for goals;
look for a way of life."

a cupie doll a shrunken
head

as someone once said

we are the things we gather
or in some cases

scatter

whit howland © 2021