The smell was sweet
when you dropped

the hammer on that roll
of red ribbon

making the gunpowder
puff

and it almost smelled like success
when you watched

your imaginary foe
grab his chest

and fold over
that hitching post

Whit Howland © 2020

"The thing about sht, is it rolls down hill"
My grandfather told me that.
He was a chemist.
"I know about some sht," he said.

"You get sht on by the people above you,
and you sht on the people below."

"Some may let sht slide,
some can't let sht go."

But you never sht on someone beside you.
That's how you make sht grow.

Music might be
poetry,
sung in grief,
in joy,
in sonorous voices.
With high pitches,
and tones.
Leaping much too deep.
A loud and clear,
periodically wordless tone.
A music piece
might be a love note,
with pure emotions
running deep.

A piercing of life's purity.
Of trust's transformation
into pitiful betrayal.

Dirge's death tune.
An ode, a praise song.
An elegy,
with instruments finely shaped.
The result of an innovative
craftsman's energy.

Mothers come gently to our rooms, the sunset kiss on the forehead,
Woven homilies from their baskets of forgiveness and spools of yarn.

But for the grave, this heart its coiled sunset unspools, so long entwined
In woods and seas that redden now into the soul of all sunsets combined.

There’s always someone
Who you’ll be able
To make smile.

So if you won’t believe in yourself,
Then believe in the me
That believes in you,
And your dreams can come true.

There it lays,
my tear soaked
pillow case.

In clouds unseen
where they visit me
every night since thirteen

What am I to do
with no avenue to pursue
when they deny my inhibitions
and tell them they're forgiven?

I see what I can't change and
I can't change what I see

I want to want their vision
of tender, loving, harmony
but it feels like swallowing poison
treating my actions remorsefully.

I take each day
one at a time
unyielding to divulge
what comes to me as I lay
every night
on my tear soaked pillow case.