It's bleak outside
Drawing me inside
While I wait
For a clearing

Selmhem Naise

Ive been thinking--
and theres
     something
I just cant  shake off

its your eyes
    they give you away
  and its your very own  smile
    that they betray

They carry in them
  a cry
in almost  every
picture of you I see

    Your smile is genuine
    but your eyes dont agree
    
    .. and you have  no
    idea   what it is doing to me

I picture your life
    happy
with a fullness
of its own

So why do my  eyes
well up with tears
when I look into  those
beautiful spheres of yours?

Im not such a fool
to think its about me
but the pull  I feel  to
hold you close--

why cant I let that go?

For your sake I  try
to keep it all to myself, now

as I glance up and
smile at you--

   truth-hidden  behind
   cheap sunglasses

You just won’t let go
he said
as he tightened his grip
on the rope
he placed
around my neck

Dribble
care
luscious

against
a blinding white
refrigerator door

no

I don't care
that juice is dribbling
down my chin

it was so luscious
tasty
and flavorful

whit howland © 2021

Here it is right at hand
nothing startling or grand
but it seems such a climb
to simply take….. my……... time.

Put me to sleep
I says put me back to sleep
and lock the door


I got some place to be
Got someones to see.


You can't understand
You surely can't understand


I needs to dream my same dream
I needs to dream my same dream I says


This old life does me no good
My eyes, they need to be closed I says.


Finds me a woman I met sometime last night


No madder how I tell it,
You can't understand this thang I know fo' certain.


I says put me back to sleep
I says put me back to sleep
Can't you see
I got some place to be
Got someones to see