#tomwaits
3:30 yellow jacket
*** with a fax machine
What use to be anticipation quickly soured to loathing
My liver is shriveled like a California raisin
However I doubt it does much singing
But if it did
I bet it would sound a lot like Tom waits
and I mean good tom waits
not that later years experimental ********
Mornings are often hazy
When the milk of last night's sleeping pills
And the cereal of talk radio mix
The results are nauseating but effective
I woke up just past the grants mill exit
"Damn I'm half way there"
Jesus! Who said that!?
These energy drinks don't hit like they use to
Nothing really hits like it use to
This D.i.y. venue isn't ADA compliant
Which deeply unsettles me
Everything now unsettles me
But hey you know what they say
about getting comfortable
3h ago
Jun 3, 2026 at 8:34 PM UTC
On a corner,
smoking cigarettes—
counting regrets—
the wind's cold—
I'm getting old.
There's a girl I met—
ain't told her yet.
She'll say, "No."
Guess I'll have to go.
On a bench,
smoking cigarettes—
counting regrets.
The lighter flashes—
I turn to ashes.
My Newport shrinks—
I inhale—
the years I can't unthink.
My fingers burn—
there's no return—
On a sidewalk,
smoking cigarettes—
counting regrets.
Told her yesterday—
she said yes—
I told her no.
It was time to go.
So I smoke my cigarettes—
and add another regret.
Apr 30
Apr 30, 2026 at 12:40 PM UTC
Beach tunes happy-go-lucky spins around the living room the way you catch me when I launch myself at the kitchen tiles, I just wanted to catch something right like a childhood home and things won’t stop lobbing themselves at the walls like sad, falling existential poets eye rolls bad yarn fingerprints track loosely around this domestic space come in for a slow dance, I’ll tie my hair up and we’ll use the lawnmower as a kitchen table chasing our dinner down the street microwaved bats keep coming through the windows Happy Halloween, my love. Slow lips touch themselves together tiredly at the end of the words fall off the face sliding slowly drum beats pleasantly thoughts die here in this greeting card poster perfection ohh, how nice it would be to have a shootout in a 50’s diner with baguettes the same tune it lollops around the room a little glamorously nothing has ever been this perfectly balanced before I fall off my chair it knows something we don’t.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 1:41 PM UTC
THE PIANO KEYS. KEEP STEPPING. ON MY TOES. THEY DO IT WITH A LOW, GRAVELLY, DOMESTIC APPLIANCE VOICE LIKE THE DAY I CAUGHT YOU DANCING. DANCING SO BEAUTIFULLY. IN THE VIOLET ROOM WITH THE SHAGGY. DRUNKEN. HOOVER. OH. ONE-EYED CARPET FACE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING. I SWEAR MY TINNITUS IS ACTING UP. THE ROOM HASN’T STOPPED RINGING SINCE YOU OPENED YOUR MOUTH THE FIRST TIME. WHAT AN UPSIDE-DOWN BLUES CLUB I WALKED INTO. I ORDER A DRINK FROM THE SINK. IT TOLD ME STRAIGHT OUT TO **** RIGHT OFF. I THINK I JUST LOST ITS NOTEBOOK. THE ROOM OF BACKWARDNESS. OUTWARD. HANDS. THUMBS. I THINK I MEAN. PLEASE DEAR GOD. STOP CROONING. SIGHS THE RUG. TIRED OF STEVEN. STEVEN DOESN’T KNOW EITHER. ANYTHING. NOT EVEN. ABOUT THE CARPET.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 1:43 PM UTC
Big fluffy dressing gowns keep misbehaving and stuffing themselves into un-rounded empty spaces and the spaces are shrinking so excuse me BUT I’M A LITTLE STUCK OVER HERE like the nightmare about losing teeth, about being too small and driving a big van, a massive van down a long hill, it gets steeper and THERE’S NO BRAKES. MAYBE IT’S THE MARRIAGE OF TWO PERFECT ENTITIES, ME AND THE DRESSING GOWNS, that is. But I’d expected it to pan out a little differently than end in the middle of a Bridget Jones film or some other badly frequented metaphor glued together with lollipop sticks. Who are these people who don’t find themselves biting into deep pure, gross, clogged nothing when they have an empty wall in front of them? I bet THEY DANCE FABULOUSLY with toasters.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 1:44 PM UTC
Thomas W Case's
Tom Waits Challenge
She doesn’t represent me anymore
She’s agonizingly apathetic to the core
I live by myself out back in her barn
She can no longer do me any harm
Bedbugs and scratching mice
The bare necessities will suffice
I have no need for greed or misery
I have but one ex-wife
The old windmill has frozen gears
I haven’t tilled these grounds in years
I drink and drive my old beat up truck
To the bar to try my luck
Oh those gals
With sweet love swells
All a man can use
Drunken blind
And feeling fine
And I'm not afraid to lose!
................,,.
Jun 19, 2020
Jun 19, 2020 at 7:17 AM UTC
When I think of you,
I hear a marimba in my head.
I'm lost like a stray cat.
Baby, I swear I'll hop a train
and head west, to roll away
from the memory of you.
This mad hatter moon lights
my way, and I'm done
holding on. I'm getting a
bottle of whiskey, and drinking
it until you become a
blurry memory.
Then I'm jumping that train.
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 7:55 AM UTC
Passing by those
owners of sad lost eyes
like Rubin's faceless
slumping on kerb ridges
body bridges
between pavements and
shuttered shop cages
where the cast of a streetlamp gets swallowed up
by dime bag shadows,
30 to 1 outsiders
and washed up wannabe beatniks
too wild for Kerouac pages.
I'm sure there's a beauty somewhere there
below the crust of the surface
late in the a.m. between
stiletto heels clip and echo
and the strike and flare
of cigaretted fingers
if I only dared
to thread and seek out
where a different twist of choice nearly led.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 7:35 PM UTC
I was living in this
flop house above
a **** shop in Amarillo.
I had a one eyed cat
named Walter, I'd bet
a sawbuck that when
I slept,
he drank my whiskey.
I sill love him though.
He stuck around longer
than those old painted up
ladies that strolled through,
and tested my bed springs.
I got two shots of Wild Irish Rose
left, then it's back to these
***** streets of broken dreams
and sick scenes.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 12:48 PM UTC
Twelve
end of summer
1982
mom dad
in
the background
I do all the talking
what I'm saying
is brief
an off-hand question
so to speak
on its face
the whole scene seems pedestrian
though it carries a bit
of restless magic
me fidgety hard
nervous eyes
especially golden
when I turn sideways
and crack
a wry
smile for the camera
the videographer
summer camp buddy
a kid named Terry
from Pensacola
he's still around
though he might
not look the same
it's taken a while
and many carousel rides
to get around to saying
something
I thought I'd never say
to myself
I miss him
me
that kid
the one who had
yet to put a pet
to sleep
or got the news
about his brother
the merchant marine
© Whit Howland 2019
Sep 5, 2019
Sep 5, 2019 at 9:29 PM UTC
gentle water
lapping the hull
bossa nova
clinking glasses
a tickle
of the piano's ivory keys
and you're lost
in giant strawberries
of a daiquiri
dribbling down your chin
onto your palm frond top
and shorts while you
swing and sway
poolside
tomorrow Ocho Rios Jamaica
but today sun and sea
tonight the crown stars
and a ruby juicy
fingernail moon
Whit Howland © 2019
Jul 14, 2019
Jul 14, 2019 at 4:54 AM UTC
She wore her red shoes to Romeos funeral
and misssed the stale smell of his cheap cologne
and that his lips had always tasted of whiskey
she picked up a card and some flowers and a strange ballon
for $29 and some spare change from the drug store
on Kentucky Ave. where someone had stolen
her favorite alligator purse
somewhere in the distance a train pulling box cars
whistled to the magpies with their wings spread up above
just hanging there like kites
and she wore a pretty blue gun strapped to her thigh
right over where he had left his teeth marks on the forth of July
the one he had given her on the Valentine's day
he had spent in jail for attempting to rob the jewelry store
for the necklace she had wanted for Christmas
the December before
the same Christmas all he could give her
was his favorite skull and crossbones ring
tied around the broken piano string
he had once tried to wear as a tie
they had meet the night he stole her record player
and she had happened to be on the wrong side of the road
as he made his way from the scene of the crime
completely unaware she would steal his heart
before he would see another sunrise
but that was all before he took a bullet to the chest
after avenging his brother that was left to die
without his knife
they had found his body in the theater
with his shoes full of blood and a smile on his face
and she knew as his body was lowered
into the cold cold ground her new favorite color was going
to be blue come next Valentine's day
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 11:29 AM UTC
It's dangerous when your biggest role models
spent their lives
drinking, smoking and gambling
but maybe it's worth it
if it inspires you to write
something
that is at least 1 % as great as their works
cause 1 % of their greatness
is ******* amazing
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 11:39 AM UTC
We blew the brains out
of midnight
under a root beer sky
and followed the tawny
streetlights like a spindle on a B-side.
Ever effervescent
we tango on piano-key pavements
dancing like febrile bacchants
under a tallow moon.
And we might amble into
crepuscular philosophy
whilst alley dwellers
Do their best to stem
the global water shortage
and graffiti artists
sharpen their spray cans.
Inevitably we perambulate in to lamentations
ruminations on ************
over those we loved from afar
like jackdaws gawking at carrion
we just don’t put it in so many words.
Later we get home and ****
because once you’ve murdered midnight
and the doves come up
and dawn is born
it’s the only thing left
to
do.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 12:20 PM UTC
I tried to keep my focus on the out-breath,
to the things I can offer
rather than what I keep inside.
I have tried yoga poses
at the crack of dawn
with nothing but my underwear on;
I tried to drink eight pints
of water a day
to ensure that my veins do not rust away,
to fill myself with the basic essence of life-
but I could not handle the broken sleep
each time I woke, desperate for a ****
in the depths of the night.
I tried to blu-tac unfinished songs
to my wall, emulating product-placement
but with nothing left to sell.
I know I cannot keep smoking ****
to emulate a stalwart companion.
These broken streets
look more second-hand to me,
and I have tried to find
that sober sleep,
that wide-eyed wonder
outside of these stale, chemical dreams-
but all I get are cold sweats
and cold shoulders;
people growing all around me
like stalks in a cornfield,
blocking all but a circle of light
that hangs over my head;
the bottom of a well,
the bottom of the world.
I am doing my best to keep on top
of all the things
that threaten to bring me down.
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 5:40 PM UTC
****** in the afternoon,
Orphans brawling in stereo,
hometown ballads of unseen terraces,
bar stool swallowing peanuts, pretzels,
salted anti-depressant,
the foul smell of life amongst
folded towels, synthetic apple,
the Magna Carta of Suburbia.
The allotments buckle and spread,
fragile sexuality, the April sun;
quick to heat, quick to tears
after a long winter of recovery.
Grit in the carpet, art in the air,
it comes too thick to catch a breath,
too thin on the lungs
to turn it to a song, or prayer.
This G-dless drug,
hippie theories, old self-harm habits,
slanted handwriting to prove a point;
intelligible fears for acceptance
as words form like train tracks
in my disappearance from this:
the peak of the day,
at the bottom of the world.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 5:56 AM UTC
Train track sonnets, the drunk piano,
old trumpets and dreams of West Virginia;
gold tobacco in an antique pipe,
finding a new look in outdated surroundings.
Patients of self-hate stand in bandages,
long sleeves, and in brickwork formation,
all this to the beat of the white man blues,
a country guitar, harsh vocal, the sleepless smoker
on the bedside; new speakers for old tunes.
A new look amongst past disguises, ancient lies,
angry blisters on the road to recovery,
pathetic bottle of emptied red wine.
Tom still sings Hold On through bad hands and lotteries,
he will stay to drink with me, when on a winning streak.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 5:05 PM UTC
I need to clothe this manic obsession
for acceptance and digital affection.
The mornings turn to midnight
before I have started my day,
and the wind is blowing reminders of Newcastle;
the lack of warmth becoming prominent
in the absence of loving flesh.
There must be a better life somewhere,
beyond uncertainty and marketed freedoms.
Beyond where only question marks
punctuate endless months
of Novembers and displacement;
the chasm between who I am in the doorway,
and who I really mean to be.
I hear you are carving a living
out of the ways you almost died in the past.
You are signing forms for others,
you are making tea for trembling hands,
all the while wondering how it came to be you
sat on the right side of the table,
and away from the wrong side of the bar.
You told me an operator will find me,
a receptive ear to put me through
to someone who will know how to help.
In the meantime, you said, I should love music,
for when the shop-fronts have closed
and friends grow fat and indifferent,
Tom will sing Hold On until I can find sleep,
or at least a viable dream.
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC