Walk through my soul forest
and sense
Anciently evergreen and wise
Fresh dampness deep with life

Rocket through my mind galaxy
and know
Burning nebulas of inspiration
Infinite dustings of thought constellations

Fall into my heart ocean
and taste
Tides brackish with emotional brine
Love foaming on shells and shorelines

Breathing life into my body
Blooming peace into my life
Take a moment to see me
And these natural forces of mine

Arctic Seasoned Disguise


Winter breathes in sepia tones along a lonely two lane street
divided amongst the sweeping frozen dunes
now forced into shouldered amnesty

Street lights shiver in snow capped bonnets
while sidewalks sleep ‘neath blankets of flittering flakes
The air, frigidly crisp…moves of tiny chiffon sparkles dancing

Rooftops, plump and soft, show off their frosted padding
as evergreens find alabaster fingers tickling their branches
in chilled teasings and frozen dustings

Footprints, once there are gone, covered and recovered again
all evidence of life is erased beneath pearl clouded skies
and faint outlines of distant thoughts

White on black stripes drape in glacial wanderings
spanning the slush of asphalt weavings
in straight line piercings across the wintry landscape

February reigns brutal, sub zero ponderings swirl
from high above the icebox wasteland, once brimming with color
now opaque in its arctic seasoned disguise…

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Brutal eyes,
Lament in the melody of hope.
Diverse imagery rolls on each soul
Defining the core of their music –
A genre that is one of a kind
With dustings of masculinity
Making a legacy for this generation.

Each voice has no nerves –
And they’re like a formless water
Searching for an everlasting container.
To showcase the exquisiteness of the Pearl,
The backbone of their glory.

At first, they find no one to understand them
Even branded with hostile names
But they never surrender their flags
And raised the Nations’ banner so high
Even if all their villains did belittle them.

Their chords were like no other –
Their skills, they never hype about
And yet both the moon and the stars
Collided for them
And now is their time!

Some say: maybe it was their destiny…
Maybe it’s just for a while.
But their passion and thirst for their craft are unrivaled –
Always exceeding their best
As if their competitor is their living mirror.

Today, even if the Sun has exposed their grandeur,
Their modesty becomes a plus factor.
The world is their stage,
While A’TIN is their steady sustenance.

They had sleepless nights before
But tenacity led them to so many doors.
Many clowns had backed down
And some even turned from villains
Into aficionados who call them their ‘masters.’

They were born to be a standard –
And they deserve mad respect from every Juan.
Coz they’re not just stars but kings of their kind,
World-class vanquishers that we all look up to!
And this is just the beginning
Of the unfolding to the world of their God-given stories!

I love you
came out of your mouth
for the first time
without the dustings of
obligation.
at 23,
for the first time,
I believed it.

summer is all

bare feet on concrete
diaphanous heartbeat
dustings of sand
and holding your hand
sun bleached hair
monarch winged air
prismatic sprinkler spray
and long, hazy days

bored, we scratch our legs
with blades of dry grass
watching the clouds in the slushie blue sky
eating our fill of cherries (they stained my dress!)
and floating, floating, floating away
on the dandelion seeds of childish wishes

I, too, dislike poems.
I’ve tried runes (and rampikes)
but that’s affected
rather than merely effete.
So I call them
figments.
When people query
What do you write?
at a barbecue or birthday party
I say soliloquies,

fractals,
fragments.
Self-similarities,
singulariti­es,
sculptures (scriptures), geometric shapes and series,
three dimensional triangles, spheres
and differential equations,
fractured fairy tales,
Rocky and Bullwinkle,
****** impactions.

On the other hand,
bits, bots, bytes
remnants, scrap, earth
gobs of phlegm in grains of sand,
shards of glass in a slice of hell,
hunks and clumps, curds and whey, sleet and pain, slap in the face
sub-atomic particles, cell organelles,
chunks of energy, cookie crumbs,
rusty trucks stuck in mud, dustings for ghosts,
just plain dumb luck, rocks, concrete, but not tweets.

Prom is two days away
and I’m telling Charlie to get a ******* move on
because this equipment won’t set itself up
and that his **** guitar needs tuning
for the billionth time
and that we only have time for three songs
(the three that we’ve been practising)
in his uncle’s garage for the past month or so
and how we need to get a **** move on
because we’re faffing like stupid flies around a stupid light

I am the drummer
at the back whacking the cymbals
   Charlie’s front and centre
all Jagger-strut spit-flinging
giving the microphone an earful
   Paul’s on bass
body popping like Flea
fingers red-hot fiddling the strings
half pro half nervous tic

the staff have given the go ahead
first track’s a la Jerry Lee
beat careening off from the gym walls
rockabilly kick that’ll pull the girls
away from their ******* phones for a while
then we’ll segue into something more grunge
Kurt Cobain half-slur moan and groan
that’s if the night hasn’t slid
into some hazy hive of idle teens
awards for most attractive
most likely to end up on reality TV
doled out before the limo back home

that’s when they’ll blink at their ceilings
in the first dustings of morning
their ******* bodies aching
from robotic dancing and kebab shop crap
know the names that danced on their tongues
will vaporise before long
and you know
I’ll be one of those poor suckers
but first there is rock followed by roll
if we get a ******* move on

Hardly enough snow
to call it Winter

but dustings here
and there

made islands
in thought

which heightened our
awareness

and augmented our
quest

for a warm touch

and a personal
connection

Whit Howland © 2020