Richard strained his eyes
and watched his deliverer
merge into misty shadows.
Never would he know
whose strong arms had dragged him
from twisted metal and flames
that used to be his Ford.

At first screaming sirens
and glaring lights
the stranger had risen, smiled
and hastened up the hill.

Haloed in photo flashes
Richard shoved the mike aside.
The lady in a blazer asked again, who?
but Richard only shrugged.
Had he known he wouldn’t have said.

July, 2006

I wonder why - whether I please to or not
and I generally do.

AND IT GIVES ME PAUSE

But shouldn't I act or judge someone
before the moment escapes?
Hey, not so fast my, friend -
I still have some wondering to do!

So my fist freezes
suspended in mid-pound -
leaving the table hungry
for a cosmic collision!

Hold your ears....

SILENCE.

Sorry devil,
the angels made me do it.

*September, 2013

CHRISTMAS TODAY

Christmas comes gently to our mountain town,
     As softly drifting snow draws a glimmering veil
Across our forests, slopes and valleys.

Festive lights of blue, green, gold and purple
    Cast a magic spell on our streets and promenades
Where neighbors bustle about in search
    Of the perfect toy or sweater  
For a friend or cherished aunt or cousin.

The sound of bells cuts the December chill
    Rung by a volunteer Santa at his kettle
Or pealing from a steeple across the valley.

Christmas is here and the time is nigh
    To celebrate the advent of a sacred child
With joyous songs of hope and gratitude.

MEMORIES

Let us journey back to a time when we
     Curled up in the safety of our parents’ arms.

We remember

The aromas of holiday meals that filled our homes
     With the promise of the grand feast soon to come.

We remember

Aunts and uncles poured into sofas and armchairs
     Recounting slightly embellished tales of family lore
While we children dashed about the yard
     Heaving snow bombs and building the grandest snowman ever.

We remember it all -

The sounds, the scents and faces of our kin
     That taught us how to love and be loved -
For after all, memories are the sacred shrines
     Of our origins, our present and our future lives.

MOVING INTO THE LIGHT

Christmas illuminates our souls and transfigures us.
     Lost hopes are re-found and promises renewed.
A better world seems once again within our grasp
   As we bathe in the glow of fresh new possibilities.

This is a golden healing time when
    Disagreements are ushered off our stages
And supplanted by beacons of filial gratitude.

In that hallowed night of silence,
     God whispered his plan for us
And we listen in wonder as we treasure
     That miraculous night we call Christmas.

Robert Charles Howard - 2022

dedicated with hope to all of us

Imagine a Human Family Picnic
where everyone shows -
from every sect and hue and nation -
gathered at a common table.

The Almighty swoops down
to speak the  blessing:
known to all from Torah, Q'uran and Gospels
and countless other books of wisdom -
author of our souls' aspirations.

After supper the Holy One
would call us to the sacrificial pyre.

      *“Brothers, sisters and cousins,
        images of your creator,
        every unholy war
        desecrates the face of God
        and there is no other kind.
        Cast your pride into the flames
        and live together in peace!”

Obediently, we'd toss our
pride into the fire,
recoiling from its smoldering stench.
The Lion would lie down to preen the Lamb's fleece
and Universal Love, released from her chains,
would walk  free in every land.

*August, 2006

You cannot defend your Motherland    
      By ****** and pillaging
Your Ukrainian Sisterland.

Every step you press on Ukrainian soil    
    With rusty rifle in hand
Is trespassing with intent to ******.

If you are in, get out!

If you are conscripted, obey your      
      Sacred duty to defect or surrender
Before the setting of the sun.

What have the Russians given you?      
      A thin tattered uniform and
A rifle that has outdated before you were born      
     And the promise of a
Lonely dishonorable death.

If you are recruited and      
     Prefer not to return to your family
In a flag-draped box soaked

With the blood of your victims,    
     Say hell no to the delusional fool
Who beckons you to annihilation.

If you are in get out!
If called, say HELL NO!

" It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews,
            Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and  
                Illuminations from one End of this Continent
                      to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
      John Adams – July 3, 1776.

Webster Groves - 2016

The Townhall fountain dances
cheerily in the morning sun.
The red-white-blue shirted crowd
rises as one for the colors.
Laughing children scramble for
tootsie rolls and sweet tarts
tossed by a strolling  clown.

         Philadelphia, July 3, 1776

        Carriages sped toward Philadelphia
        where resolute patriots
        would turn the pages of history
        and tell an unsuspecting world
        that a new nation had given birth to itself.

Sousa strains peal from the marching Statesmen,
Girl Scouts guide their well-groomed mounts -
hooves echoing through concrete caverns.
Vintage firetrucks and autos
sound their horns and sirens
as candidates work the crowd, pressing the flesh.

        Each crass insult from the British crown
        had tightened the noose on the colonial neck.
        The middle ground was soaked with patriot blood
        and revolution was the only course left.

Barbecue clouds drift over Pat and Lee’s farm
Horseshoes spin and clang and frisbees fly.
A ***-luck feast with beans and franks
interrupts the pop and glare of bottle rockets.

        One by one, each patriot quilled the parchment
        resolved to endure the costs of liberty -
        knowing to the marrow that defeat
        would spell certain ******* and death.

We reach the lakeshore at dusk -
unfolding chairs - spreading out blankets -
strains of Americana drift over the lake.
then a pyro-technic extravaganza
blazes across the summer sky.  

        Washingon’s tattered and bloodied men
        cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown.
        Then surrender - all British claims
        to American soil banished to the tomes of history.

The grand finale pummels the darkened sky
raising cheers and whistles from the crowd
Toddlers collapse in parental arms,
car doors slam, engines ignite
and head-lighted caravans, turn for home,
spiraling off in every compass degree.

“Happy birthday,” America and endless happy returns
"from this time forward forever more!”  

Robert Charles Howard

I gazed into the dark of night
     At a solitary beacon of light.
It might have been Polaris –
     Guiding ships in their courses
Or perhaps was our red-dwarf furnace
     Peering back at me from
A thousand light years beyond

Or maybe it was just that
     Tiny smoke detector bulb,
Beaming on our ceiling like a sentinel -
    Shielding us from fortune's fickle wheel.

Jerry Singing at his Lathe

Slim and mustached
Jerry sang his heart out
in overalls at his lathe –
the Mario Lanza of Kent-Moore Tools.

Curled metal gathered at his feet
as he cut hard steel into usable parts.
He glanced at the prints,
reset the turret to take a second pass
and belted out another chorus.

Jerry retro-dreamed of New York,
of lessons, certificates, Juilliard
and arias finished with outstretched arms –
visions derailed but unforgotten.

Global madness sent him to France.
With a pack and an M1 in place of scores.
Jerry helped set Paris free
yet never left a song on its stages.

Kent-Moore paid him well
and masked by din of colliding metal
Jerry sang and sang and sang all day
for rivet guns and turret lathes.
His voice would melt your heart.

*July, 2006

Beethoven once said of the cantor of Leipzig
“Not a stream but an ocean.”

Sebastian Bach wove sonic tapestries
and scoffed at notions of genius
“Anyone who pays the price can do it.”

Whether for Sunday’s choir or *****
or for a palace fete of state,
The fountains of his bounteous spring
embellished every age and station.

Yet he could crack a joke or two
in a cantata to coffee’s pleasures -
sipping from a sturdy cup
of nature's matchless brew.

Flutists, fiddlers, singers, organists,
children and masters alike,
have netted hearty sustenance
from the seas of his boundless vision.

But modesty forbade him boast
the importance of his station -
affixing to his noblest works,
a trio of humblest words,

“Soli Deo Gloria.”

December, 2007

for the 2016 Estes Park Elk Fest*

They call me Wapiti or Cervus Elaphus
      but you can just call me Bull.
Momma raised me in these peaks and valleys -
      and I owe it all to her -
showing me places to graze -
     taking me to trumpet lessons -
guiding me to the choicest watering holes.

And now I am a man-elk
      and have the rack to prove it.
Fall is here again and some of the ladies
      are looking mighty sweet.
( Just last week I saw one making eyes at me)
      so I gave the rut another go.
It worked out a bunch better than last year
      when I left half my head gear
lying in pieces on the grass.
       but life is good this year as you can see
from all these ladies standing by.

Now let me slip a friendly tip
      just from me to you.
If me or one of the other guys
      have that look in our eyes
and seem perturbed or fidgety.
       Don't mess with us!
Never forget  we outweigh you five to one
       and can book along at 35 miles per.

The same goes for the ladies
       when the babies come in spring.
They love their own like you love yours
       and will abide no wrong to come their way.

Mostly your folks and mine get along fine
       amidst the hills, lakes and other critters
so let's share our common miracles
       in thanksgiving, peace and harmony.

Robert Charles Howard
     *Estes Park, October 1, 2016

Light bulbs are redundant
When Kayla walks in -
bathing every person and surface
with the flood lamps of her smile.

She smiles when she dances
and smiles when she sings
while two grateful women
who precede her in lineage
draw their bows across the strings.

None would ever suspect
that this fountain of joy
had once wanly trembled
in the valley of shadows.

Yet no matter how vilely
leukemia fought and clawed
to claim her for its own
it never really stood a chance

for Kayla had steps to dance
and songs to sing
and millions of smiles to smile
and would not be denied.

February, 2008
Robert Charles Howard

Light bulbs are redundant
When Kayla walks in -
bathing every person and surface
with the flood lamps of her smile.

She smiles when she dances
and smiles when she sings
while two grateful women
who precede her in lineage
draw their bows across the strings.

None would ever suspect
that this fountain of joy
had once wanly trembled
in the valley of shadows.

Yet no matter how vilely
luekemia fought and clawed
to claim her for its own
it never really stood a chance

for Kayla had steps to dance
and songs to sing
and millions of smiles to smile
and would not be denied.

*February,  2008

The griffin outside my balcony
squinted and shook
flipping Kansas City
upside down and back.

Giant flakes descended
like softest down -
coating the plaza below
with a mantel of frosted white.

The griffin is squinting once more.
Watch out; hold on tight!
Here we go again
whirling about in a cyclonic flurry
of magic fairy crystals.

*August, 2010

High atop the mountain
a boy crouched alone in the vision pit – waiting.
Raising his red stone pipe to the four directions
he sent clouds of willow bark smoke
skyward toward his ancestors.

Naked beneath his star blanket he wept a man’s cry –
crying for a vision to come
that his people might live!
Chanting with eyes fast shut he waited and prayed.

First came the cries of the wind,
then the whisper of trees.
Birds swooped and circled about him.
He shook his rattle crying,
“Tunkashila, grandfather spirit, help me.”

A voice spoke in the call of a bird,
“Your sacrifice will make you
Wikasa Wakan, medicine man.
We are the winged ones and we are your brothers.”

In a swirling cloud his great, grandfather came and spoke,
blood dripping from the hole
where a white soldier’s bullet had found his chest,
“You will take my name, Tahka Ushte, Lame Deer.”
The new man on the mountain rejoiced.

Quietly entering the vision pit,
kind Old Chest placed a hand on Lame Deer’s shoulder,
“Four days have passed, it is time.”
and led Tahka Ushte down to the valley.

*June, 2006

If I had a flying carpet,
I'd fly you to the falls
to watch the rainbows shimmer
in the rock-spewn mists
of Niagra's reckless plunge.

Or share the blazing sunset
at Big Bend's mystic window:
gazing at pastel layers
merged with the western sky.

Or we'd lower a canoe
in a Missouri stream
on a star-jeweled moonlit night
and hear the dulcet songs
of gentle shore-bound waves
and the hum of an insect choir.

But I have no magic carpet
to whisk you off to peaceful vistas:
only these feeble runes
scratched on a field of white.

Still, I wish that we could get away -
that is -
if you can spare the time.

*September, 2007

Robin will see Dr. Siegel now
whose deft and practiced hands
will dis-veil her clouded vision.

When I see her next and soon
A new portal will open gradually
to show her a world of reborn acuity.

The leaves will sing
With new-found lucidity.
Vivid color and detail
will wash over her horizons
And the world will be
a more dynamic place.

It all begins now
With Dr. Siegel's deft, and very practiced hands.

      Let there be light;
           Let there be color;
                Let there be visual truth!

The artist leaned in slowly
to his daughter’s sculpted visage,
placed a slender leaf of gold
across her ceramic brow
and gently pressed it with his brush.

But for all his art and craft he knew
no gilder’s foil was half so dear
as the child with half-closed eyes –
with mother’s tender brush
caressing strands of finest gold -
singing her to sleep.

Somewhere or rather everywhere
     Out there in the cosmos,
The God of justice and harmony weeps
     for his fratricidal children
Playing another round of **** or be killed.

This time, delusional russian lunatics
    With mass homicide in their DNA
    Have decided to slaughter
Their brothers and sisters to the west.

People of russia, throw off theses assassins,
    Bring your soldiers home
    Along with their killing machines
And leave the Ukrainians alone.

Ireland's emerald hills
     fade and fall into the sea.
        All my world is blue.

When proud ones boast
Of all that is loftiest
In his faith,
In her flag,
In the hue of their skin
The Devil licks his chops
In lustful salivation.

When caring souls
Reach out to offer
A bowl of rice,
A healing dose,
An understanding ear,
An open heart
Satan clutches his dry throat
Gasping for air.

*August,  2006

Courageous Phoenix, what do you know
of past and future conflagrations?
With wings afire, do you sense
the embers of your renascent soul?
Is your savage life-death vortex
as mysterious to you as it is to us?

Although I'll never fly on Phoenix wings,
or share your tortured falls and resurrections,
I feel I know you as a brother
for we all have Phoenix games to play
with each dividing and perishing cell
its own ancestor and descendant -
tomorrow's joys born of present sorrows.

Who among us has never tasted
the bitter gall of enmity -
or been driven to our knees
by the searing blade of failure?
But time is the most physician -
stirring new life from the ashes of despair.

Noble Phoenix, in our barren seasons
when scorched spirits tumble to the earth,
soar down from your blackened rock
and restore the feathers of our tattered wings.

*March, 2012

in loving memory of my mother

Three simple cello notes answered by horns,
rising and falling winds
shine like the dawn of a luminous day.
Emergent violins wash the hall
with mystic Austrian radiance.

Looking across the stage
I meet the eyes of my Philharmonic friends
uniting in affirmation
of the matchless largesse
of the Brahms' second -
our collective soul vaulting the Atlantic
to the azure Danube's shore.

          *It's 40 Christmas morns ago
          and I am "20-ish" tearing floral paper
          from a large green book and lean
          to give my Mom a thank you hug.

Three quarters of an hour
brush by like an autumn breeze
and I close that same green book
and turn to greet the audience -
searching beyond the walls
for that sacred somewhere
where Mom smiles down
from her eternal resting place.

*August, 2013

Resting couched and cross-legged
by the hearth at Old Faithful Inn
I read of fire-seared Montana.
My restive mind roams back
a century and a half
to when flames ruled Yellowstone -
cracking open Lodgepole cones -
spending seeds on blackened soil.

Youthful pines soared skyward:
tutored by seven score seasons
of showers, frost and sun
nourished by leaf-meal and char.

Then loggers came to notch their trunks
and sent them arcing to the forest floor.
Carpenters fixed them to the wall
where the moose head stares me down.

Montana pine cones crackle as I read.
After soaking rains have quenched the flames,
those seeds will rise to giant towers
before yielding to the whine of chainsaw teeth.

A gray haired man will enter
a rustic Montana lodge,
a coffee mug clutched in one hand,
the morning paper in the other
and sit fire-warmed by a granite hearth
set in a wall of Lodgepole Pines.

*January, 2007

A looking glass seems such a simple thing -
     a boomerang of sorts
          (here's looking at me, kiddo).

So many me's (or you's) to view -
bucked out in natal garb
or gussied up for the corporate ball.
Better fix my Medusa hair,  
Should I opt for the purple shirt?
Just who will I seem to be to you today?

Take a breath - a really deep one
meet those soul panes
gazing back from the other side
emissaries from an inverted universe -
romancing the past - stalked by
tomorrow's "shoulds" and "maybes".

Who will I chance to serve or sway or fool
     between now and the evening star?
          Will one of them be you or me?

A looking glass seems such a simple thing.
     So many me's (or you's) to view,
          Just who should I seem to be to me today?

A looking glass seems such a simple thing -
a boomerang of sorts
(here's looking at me, kiddo).

So many me's (or you's) to view -
bucked out in natal garb
or gussied up for the corporate ball.
Better fix my Medusa hair,
Should I opt for the purple shirt?
Just who will I seem to be to you today?

Take a breath - a really deep one
meet those soul panes
gazing back from the other side
emissaries from an inverted universe -
romancing the past -
stalked by tomorrow's "maybes".

Who will I chance to serve or sway or fool
between now and the evening star?
Will one of them be you or me?

A looking glass seems such a simple thing.
So many me's (or you's) to view,
Just who should I seem to be to me today?

Poetry just might be love
     or just so the other way around.

I tell you,my dear
a day never passes without,
     (well hardly a day)
without a thought or two of
you and you and you,

bound as we are
      by blood,
              by tears,
       by laughter
or some common dream or enterprise.

You sing in my poems
       and my neurons fire for you.

Either I love you because I cannot forget you
       or the other way around.

So, my love, I offer you this poem.
      (So, my poem, I offer you this love).

*December, 2015

Prigozhin was furious
      And for the first time
      In his blood-soaked life,
Told his country the absolute truth.

So he left Ukraine to
      March his troops toward Moscow -
      declaring the true reason
for the war (yes war)
      Is to massage the sick egos
      Of a few russian elites.

So call it off, russia!

Go ahead, scapegoat
      shoigu and gerasimov
      Whose lies heap up like piles of
bodies of ill-equipped russian soldiers.

Call it off in the name of Justice!
      It was always a mistake!

There were never
     ****’s to purge
Nor Ukrainian attack plans to repel.

It is not Ukraine
      Who bombs civilians.
It is not Ukraine
      Who wants to steal
Someone else’s homeland.

There are no shining
      Russian successes to glorify
      Only shoigu’s and gerasimov's
bloated egos to feed.

Why **** and die
So scumbags can have a blast?

Let the March to Justice continue
      In the re-purposed soul
             Of the russian people!

When men cry, “Battle!”
And bullets are flying,
How dare they call “Glory!”
While children lie dying?

Spear shafts splintering beneath its hulk -
the mastodon crashed to the earth,
roared its final lament and fell silent.

Shouts echoed across the ravine.
Dark-haired Clovis hunters converged:
stripping the hide,
carving the flesh.

Others frenzied about the carcass,
tracing broken shafts
to salvage the flint for tomorrow's hunt  -
retrieving all save one.

A triumphal fire hissed and snapped,
hurling heat and smoke
high into the mid–day sky.

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

      *The archaeologist knelt to the ground.
      Heart racing, he scraped dirt from flint,
      brushed away the millennial dust
      and raised the projectile to the sun shouting,
      'Clovis point! '

'Clovis point' - an epiphany in the dust:
found inches from the bones of its prey.
Khaki and blue jeaned hunters gathered quickly
to read the epic written in flint and bone:
Mastodon and Clovis united by the point of a spear.

July, 2006

Maya slept here, there and everywhere -
and sadly now, the sleep is perpetual.

But more to the point,
Maya awoke us all - starting with herself
and what she awakened in us
can never sleep again!

When she spoke, her kind healing voice
kneaded our souls like a spiritual masseuse.

When she spoke,
          presidents listened.
When she spoke,
          the oppressed took heart.
When she spoke,
          oppressors changed heart a little.
When she spoke,
          America said Amen
          and so we will forever.

Thank you Maya for being so good at being.

I’d jump at the chance to ride shotgun
on Henry’s medicine wagon
rolling from city to village
hawking 'Stickin’ Salve' and 'Oil of Gladness'.

We’d ride into Elmira’s County Fair
and set up over by the lake.
I’d fix old Diamond a pail of oats
and draw her a bucket of water.
while great, great grandpa
squeezed on his Union coat
and arranged his potions on the shelves.

Henry’s voice would boom
across the water like a megaphone
and people would gather close -
lured in by the old codger's
hypnotic banter of miracle cures -
and perilous Civil War battles.
  
He’d swear on his mother’s lumbago
that 'Stickin’ Salve' works just as fine
as the lead and powder
he’d fired at Cedar Mountain.

The folks would shake with mirth
whenever he bellowed,
“I’m Henry Howard from Bunker Hill -
Never worked and never will."
Women would tug their husband's sleeves
and they’d bring me pennies and dimes.

After dusk we’d tally the coins
and latch down the wagon for the night
then sleep side by side on the grass
beneath the New England stars.

At sunrise I'd wipe his brow -
to ease him gently back
from the thunder of enemy shells
still firing in his restless sleep.

We'd cook up some bacon and biscuits,
hitch Diamond up to the wagon
then head south through the rolling hills
along the Tioga valley.
We’d breathe in the fresh country air
and tip our caps to the farmers.

If Henry would come to tap my shoulder
some promising morning in spring
and whisper "the wagon's hitched outside,"
I’d go in a Tioga minute.

*December,  2006

Bending forward against the winter chill
I clutch my jacket collar tight.
against the moan and whistle of the wind.

A speaker clamped on a holiday post
crackles a hymn to a midnight clear
releasing from the vault of time
memories of another winter's day
when a happy boy on a Christmas bike
caroled that same Yuletide song
to a swirling snowflake congregation
tuned to distant steeple bells.

A phantom in a store front window
startles me back to now
and arrests my curiosity.
Just who is that gray haired fossil
clutching his collar like a shield
against the whistling wind
and why is he staring at me
this blustery mid-winter day?

for the Webster University Jazz Quintet

A tripod of piano, bass and drums
was spread across the stage
weaving chords and counts
into finest sonic cloth.
trumpet and tenor intersticed between,
dazzled the sound-scape
with vision and calculated risk.

Solos poured out like fountains
with swaying, clapping and bobbing heads;
Eyes closed to let the light of imagination in.

With colors as sharp and vibrant
as the cut glass windows behind them,
they painted memories of Miles
back-lit by Solar flares
and took a pleasant hike
in Shorter's Footprints
to the jazz realm's distant borders.

Having journeyed so many Miles,
we paid them sincerest thanks,
steered our engines homeward
then slept – tapping our toes in our dreams.

April,  2007

confessions of a newborn

It's been something of a while
      since I tumbled down
from warmth and darkness
      into this strange bright space.

I see you coming towards me
     and curious parts of me
begin to dart about in all directions
     because I remember you.

Every time you're here
     something glad happens:
           you hold me to your warmth,
           you bring good food to my mouth
           to ease the ache inside,
           you make pretty sounds
           that tell me I am safe -
           that tell me I am not alone.

For reasons I cannot say
      I know that I am you -
that you are me.

The beauty on your face
     tells me you know it too
and like you, I smile.

*© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard

Take me to a miracle
I asked of "no one in particular."

Give me a philharmonic in the sky
And a blazing talking bush.

Let me see a ******’s ghost
and a lame man dance a jig.

I’d like to catch the show just once
before I flee this vale of fears!

Then no one in particular chided me
called me “vanity’s clown.”

Still, I tried to call him out
in the realm where words are born.

I thought that if I could crack the code of
how a vision breaks the void.

or how a proud and callous tongue
can raise a sanguine humor

or how a toddler breaks the silence
with his first astounding word,

then I'd topple “no one in particular”
from his lofty station!

But alas I failed to own the source
of a solitary thought or word

or what it means to care or conjure
or why I came to seek a miracle.

A hidden voice from nowhere in particular
gently slaked my feeble pride,

“Surrender to each dawn and dusk;
they're all the miracles you need.”

*December, 2007

A lost and thirsty wanderer
          sought oasis on a parched and dusty plain
                   where spectral mesas
                merged with pastel stratus clouds -
            quivering in the summer sun.

                    A slender blue ellipse emerged
                            along the horizon's edge,
                          taunting the traveler’s arid throat.

                    Recalling child-day afternoons.
                         splashing in the pond behind the barn,
                              his legs urged toward aquatic deliverance.

                                       But knowledge seized his boots.
                                   Wary of loving a delusion,
                               he chose instead to seek a road or farm
                           or chance upon a horse-backed rancher
                                tracking down an errant calf.

                                       Still he looked back to his phantom pond  –
                                             never to know if an oasis flowed
                                                   less than an hour’s walk away.


                               December, 2018

A small skiff drifted in the harbor
guided by the eazy oars of a fisherman
standing in the hull to better view
the shimmering reflection
of the orange circle hovering overhead-
dancing with the gentle waves
in the morning mist.

Monet had to name it something
so he called it what it was:

          "Impression, soleil levant."

A critic, wanting poison for his pen,
seized Monet's title to squeeze
a lethal dose into the radical veins
of the artist and his fellows of the gallery

          (Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne).

With scathing indignation
he dubbed the lot of them,

           "Mere Impressionists."

The label endures (minus one word)
but how many recall or care to know
the righteous critic's name?

*November, 2011

A halo of transfigured light.
     spanned the hills and autumn gold
of scores of aspen groves
     basking in the morning sun.

But what is this thing we call a rainbow?
     For all our science talk of vapor,
refraction and angle of the sun
     we surrender still in willing captivity
to its beauty, mystery and myth.

Rainbows beguile by their fleeting rarity
      as ephemeral as life itself -
temporal blessings suspended in time
      unintended and undeserved,
spectral bridges between here and there -
       between what is and what should be.

In the stillness of a winter dusk
     softest snowflakes begin to fall -
draping the western slopes
    with delicate veils of purest white.

The rising moon faintly glimmers
    veiled by swirling clouds
and towering peaks swiftly vanish
      beneath the storm’s frigid advance.

Winter has come to the mountains
     painting a snowscape wonderland.
Winter has come, winter is here
     and rules the high country once more.

Howling winds merge with the poignant cries
     of distant coyote laments.
Deer and elk bed deep in the woods
     gaining warmth in the sheltering pines.

From dawn to dusk the snow cloak deepens,
    wind-sculptured drifts sweep over the hills.

Through the long night the storm presses on
     lashing sleet waves against our window panes.
Homebound, we gather close to our hearths -
     braced to wait out the storms final frenzy.

By morn a few lingering clouds remain -
     spreading vibrant prisms of violet and gold
and shimmering crystals across the valleys.

Winter has come to our village
    and with it a snowscape wonderland.
Winter is here, winter has come
     to rule the high country once more.

*© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard

Imaginary home plate was just off the back stoop.

I tossed a rock up a yard or so and as it fell
I whacked it with my stick

and watched its skyward arch -

conjuring fantasies of Tiger Stadium.



      The phantom crowd stood and roared.
      “It looks like a long one folks - going, going ...”

CRACK!

Mr. McCrary’s garage window
splintered into a thousand shards.
My stadium vanished and I was naked in the garden -
desperate for a fig leaf.

I fled into the house (where I could not hide)
shaking with mortal dread
and not being catholic, I had no choice
but to confess my sin to my actual father.

Dad cradled my terror in his hands
and led me to Mr. McCrary’s back porch
where I knocked then stammered out my sorrys.

Soon, with dad as foreman,
I chiseled, measured and glazed away
until Mr. McCrary’s window
was entirely healed and restored.

Pushing the mower a half year later
I sensed movement across the fence
and looked up to find myself
staring into old man McCrary's eyes -

My guilty heart shivered as I
braced for the verbal thunder to follow.

But there would be no storm.
The old man's face softened into a smile;
he tipped his hat and pressed his *** into the soil.

MUSICA ANTIQUA

I - Time Keeper

Prize of a difficult hunt
fresh meat seared in the fire pit:

The ****-clothed victor
severed pieces with his flint
to feed his mate and son
then idly stroked a hollow log
with his crimson tinted club.

He picked up the pace
when the child began
to laugh and whirl
about the flames -
his mother' contented smile
telling, that for a spell at least,
serenity ruled the glade.

II - Found Flutes

In a time too early for telling.
one of our kind unearthed
a dry hollow bone and blew.

Its tones were pleasing
but many more could be found
by scoring several holes in its side.

Though carbon dating may tell
to a millennium or so, when,
no one can ever say why.

III - To Build a Lyre

A Grecian soldier on a cyprus stump
cut holes in a bow too lax for arrows
and gently swept his weathered fingers
across the new strung cords
then composed a lyric to Pan's amors
and a second to brave Alexander.

The soldier, well pleased
resolved to fashion a nobler frame
for his dulcet strings
and raised worthy songs
to Apollo and Terpsichore.

MUSICA MODERNA

IV – The Music Press

In his modest shop in Venice
Ottaviano Petrucci turned the wheel
and pressed notes to paper
for music's first edition.

Squares and diamonds peppered the staves
and tunes of Obrecht and Josquin des Prez
soon graced the salons
of Europe‘s most elegant palaces.

V - Sonata Pian e Forte

From a desk at St. Mark’s in Venice
Gabrieli pondered a question,
“How can an echo’s diminishing sound
be shown in a music score
so that one group of brass
can reflect the other
across the cathedral's nave? '

With two simple words he shifted forever
the course of music’s stream.
For the leaders he marked down “forte, ”
and their its echo marked down, “pian.”

VI - The Master of Cremona

Stradivarius extracted a maple sheet
From his curing vat in Cremona
and hung it to dry with the others -

Then taking his carving knives
He sculpted a cello's scroll
while a golden sheened violin
awaited his finishing cloth.

His secrets expired
when his time was fulfilled
but his magic sings on forever.

VII - Theodore Boehm, designer - flutist*

A gifted precious metal smith
desiring a more supple flute
applied all his art and skill
to its maze of rods and keys.

Each trial was scored
by his ears and fingers
until the door was unlatched.
to euphonious efficiency.
Clarinetists then coaxed him
to fashion their keys as well.

So behind every dixie licorice stick
or Debussy’s pastel faun
stands a persistent man
with a silver flute and
a jeweler's patient hands.

December, 2007

The phone rang after 2: 00 am.
Taking the steps in pairs
my legs faltered at his door -
paralyzed by denial.

Forcing myself inside,
I saw father's lifeless frame,
wired to synthetic everything -
a cold white line
still against the black.

My grief-racked soul
railed at that liar screen,
knowing his true lifeline
danced with passion  -
precision cutting with his lathe,
strumming passing chords
on his Gibson Les Paul.

That morning I knocked a ball
through a neighbor’s glass
I learned what honor meant.
With dad's steady hand
on my  shoulder,
I stammered  apologies
and learned to glaze a window.  

We'd play catch after supper.
or down franks and pop
at Briggs where the Tigers played.
Detroit is flying high this year:
God, how I wish
I could give the old man a call.

*September,  2006

I look to the east
    beyond the Catskill ridges
        bathed in dawn light hues.

It wasn't supposed to go like this!
Julian and cousin Henry
fled breathless down the alley
Henry turned and fired two shots
toward their uniformed pursuers.

                             "Late breaking news:
                              Police interrupted a burglary
                              in the 300 block of Hastings.
                              An officer is down and has been taken to
                              Blessed Sacrament Hospital."

Henry and Julian raced in
through his Mom's front door
scrambling for the basement.
Henry mad beyond himself said.
"I know I hit him, man, I saw him drop!"
"Get a grip you fool,
you winged him and we got away

                             "The slain officer's name has been released.
                              Brad Kravcik leaves a wife, a grown daughter
                              and two teen-aged sons.
                              Witnesses identified two youths and police
                              expect an arrest at any minute."

Julian's mother exploded
down the stairs. "Your pictures
are on the tube. You idiots
killed a ******* cop.
Get the hell out of my house!"
The two boys tried for the door
but bullhorns, lights
and a forest of rifles barred their exit.

                             "This just in: two suspects have been arrested
                              in the shooting death of officer Kravcik.
                              Julian Lewis and Henry Behrens
                              are believe to be responsible
                              for a string of north side break-ins.
                              The whole community is
                              breathing a huge sigh of relief."

The governor made no eleventh hour call,
so Henry banished all thoughts
of the plastic tube silently
dripping terminal liquid into his vein
He felt the world go hazy
then felt nothing - nothing at all.