Here I lye with you-
you don't listen, so my words
write reversed haikus

I don’t need your drugs,
but I do need you to know
no one deserves this.

I choose to let you
treat me like I’m blindfolded;
Still, I gift to you-

Graphite and color
a blank sketchbook (with this piece)
Inscribed in the front.

Art is all I know
so this opportunity.
to express it all-

Has such strong power,
you might never truly know…
Still- I hope you do.

From soon all beady my dove and romance
plop buys me a radius of monthly advance
and gives abstract expressionism a chance

we tremble to book so softly their witness
the tiny push bras like nobody's business
collarbone funnybone and studio fitness

how can a lag dinge for a slow digestion
just dreaming low their next suggestion
to be or not so beat, that is the question

walkabout it doesn't make much sense
my verbal byronea about to commence
as two bold eggs sit on a cake and fence

three olding hens sit on the fent and knit
five juvenile retenders rolling out their kit
artly and hostanously thart spliffing in a lit

zuckering freudily Alsberta around the bend
onder mist blontentious wick willet harksend
and befending our liblyhord to the bittery end

Sister Magdalene had her own parking space
in the lot of the church where my grandfather
placed his hand on my shoulder.
Over the other, Joan of Arc whispered a joke
about the Father.
Something about bad breath.
I giggled a fragmented
Amen.

As a young girl I dreamt of the honor
of battle and the burden
of armor. Each morning I’d awake,
my wrist sore from painting fields
menstrual red. My thighs ached.
My horse's name was Gust.
She was the color of overcast.
Once, she got so tired
she kneeled. When she stood
her stomach held the night sky.
I laid beneath her and named stars
from bits of her fur
until the field began to whisper so loud
that I woke.

Sister Magdalene sat in the first row of pews.
Her skeleton hands held a candle. The flame
tip-toed up her habit with the resolve
of a field of corpses rolling their eyes
toward salvation. When the flame
reached her chin I bit my lip.
Joan asked what’s wrong
or what’s right.
My mouth was full.

The flame grew to reach the Father,
kneeling at the feet of a cadaver.

I listened to the church bend
in the heat until Joan begged that we leave.

MAD

don't write about it

paint a scream

a pen not a brush
only corrupts the scene

turn paper to canvas

let colors cry
flow tears and bleed





whit howland © 2019

A cape on my back
And a trigger next to my index finger
I look around at the world
It is a hell on Earth
The trees in bloom, the water azure
The sky cloudless, orange and purple

I look like I'm from the future
Maybe I'm from the future
Or maybe I really did come from Saturn
Since this is all so alien to me
Take me back to where we were
Take me, Ra. Take me, Jhonn.

But I'm here. I see the world
The old building blocks
The ferris wheel moved by radiation
I look at the gun in my hands
It's matte black. Brand new, like me.
Brand new, like the blood from the body on the ground.

Maybe this never happened,
I say to myself questioning the audience.
I look at the cubes. They are all different colors.
Some explode. Some expand.
Some implode. I feel at home with those.
This feels safe.

The world I came to is different.
This world is not a rhapsody.
This world is made of skin.
There's another body inside.
Like mine, but pitch black.
It is my shadow.

Suddenly I am at home again.
I feel the shadow pulling the Earth apart.
I feel my face. I'm dusty.
I report to the Mars of the World.
They tell me to head back in.
I resign myself to fate.

I look in the mirror one last time.
I see a woman.
I'm content.
I get in my bed, as I did yesterday.
The night shortly falls over me.
I crawl into the void, as I live and breathe.

I wake up in the different place again.
I look in the mirror.
It's a dusty, white face of no expression.
I put the cape back on and leave.
As I leave the zone beyond time, I remember again.
It is time to find something of value.

**** the objective.
I hear knocking on the door.
I open it. It's the courier.
"Welcome back."
"Thank you."
"Are you ready?"

We leave for the yellow zones.
But I'm tired of the courier.
As the bullet exits his brain, I feel free.
So does his blood.
The desert around us stares at me.
The cubes cry out.

I'm in the green zone. I'm looking for the child.
He greets me with a smile.
"You have realized!"
"I am finally back.
I have killed the ones holding me back."
"Welcome back to reality. I love you, Mother."

The industrial zone around us starts feeling distorted.
The cubes lose their shapes and scream.
My son grabs my legs tight.
The trees are all dead. The sky is gray.
The water runs green, with purple bubbles.
I missed Saturn.

Rattle on
And do so backwards
In the insular hole
Strangle lo’
To and fro, in herds
Build for me a pole

Wail along
And do so sweetly
In my crooked glyphs
Sail strong
To lands discreetly
A flintlock at your hip

Walk across
And do so sideways
In a tiled oasis
Count the cost,
To hands that play
Deal out epistasis

Swim away
And do so upwards
In a veiled monsoon
Drown the day
In Carinae
Seek its vagrant moon