Short and heavy
it soars through the air

or does it slide into
the lock

it's what you do to me
crossing my wires

one minute I want to fly
be free

and the next
I want to slide in and lock this

us

up forever

whit howland © 2021

I grow older,
my body fails,
it's just what you'd expect:
corrupted voyage,
blossoms turn away as they fall.  
I become convinced
we are unusually alert animals,
drifting in a soft chaos.
I fill my spaces with alcohol,
& with her.
The sun marches away,
saffron step,
& the day is throated.
I just hope that my love
doesn't come too late.
Or if it does,
that I can be wiped away
easily enough.

Breathe in
Now count to ten
Ready your fingertips
Now softly stroke the pen,
Across the page

Don’t write the words
Paint for me
Falling autumn leaves a slight mahogany
Create the sky
Show me the technicolor dreams inside your mind

Call for thunder on stormy seas
Cupid’s arrow one snowy Christmas Eve
Make me believe
Now on my count,
Breathe out

My natural instinct in
this flesh wrapped soul,
is to anestasize the
pain and ugliness of life.
Blackout the brutality and
cruelty in the world.
Close my eyes with *****,
drugs, ***, anything to
stop the oozing pain.

And then it dawned on me,
like the dew soaked morning,
opposite action is required.
Walk through the
pain with eyes wide open.
Let love and YHWH hold my
hand.
Sober, head held high.
Call me sentimental and foolish,
but I'm a real *******.

I'm going to embrace the beauty.
It is all around me.
It's painted in the
sunset of the robin's breast.
It's in the
sublime melody of
the starry night.
It's written in the
faces of all my brothers and
sisters in their pain and
struggles.

Love is the answer to
every question;
I have to die to grow;
like a seed, a cell,
a fractured heart.
Bring it On Life!
If you knock me down,
I'm getting back up.
I'm resilient, and
no longer afraid.
Yes, this world can be
brutal, and we often
lose the ones we love,
but I'm choosing
today, at this moment, to
take this wild ride called
life, and live it, and
love every second I have
left.

Then, I can leave victorious.
What the ****?
Everybody wants to win.

Do you remember the sky sinking?
That fall, when we climbed up our vague tree
and watched the nights burn
     softly on
Those naked arms,
                 and our pricking skins
You told me that
the dark seemed quite obese
I wondered how it could be

remember the dawns
  that lingered before us
and birds with jewels between their beaks
    Sun like a bruise clawed its way out
We never did see— never unseeing
ever on watch, yet the clouds
    grew above
and we only drew forests with our hands

yours upon mine upon
  yours upon—
and down, down plunged it all
First, gold
          then the glass
We jumped in weeping puddles
and forced the mud into birthing birds
Then came
     the silvers
and with them, those malnourished winds
Do you remember

the smoke that descended down the cliffs?
That winter, we melted
            with our pink flames
and slept away those snarling wolves
Beneath forts built of woollen quilts
        our limbs tangled, tangled
     with our tales
You told me the dark
     seemed quite obese
I nodded like
  a broken, puppet horse

then—
Dust gushed out the vessels of air
   and cars coughed
And down, down
                came it all
Dawns befriended our solitary dusks
and moons sped up their dance
I ran my fingers down
     the green of your strands
You introduced a ladybug to my skin

down, down tumbled nothing
       First the browns
then the blues
We buried our barren feet in sticky sands
and you told me
It hurt
where, I asked
here.
and there were you kissed

And blues fell upon blues
’til cold, shivering, stumbled away
And our tree was a painting
    on the lips of a stream
Restless, it lurked out our reach
and the sky
swelled and swelled
till a heavy haze came plummeting hither
And above us was left nothing but—

It hurts, you said
I asked you where
here
     here
  here—
the blues embraced the lonely of our land
and kissed it all over
  all over
Huts, playgrounds, markets—
Wells, trenches, hills and hills
children, the rest
     and voiceless shrubs
All devoured.

Do you remember the bleak stars
as they struggled to flutter
    in the smothering vacancy
Then the summer smiled
and stole our dying skies, and
  all the quiet broke loose
        in our bleached towns
We in a moor sprayed with stillness
    treaded through
the misty of our eyes
        feet upon cinders jagged
where does it hurt, I asked
  nowhere
nowhere, nowhere—