Black Rook In Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

The Response*

Even while flashbulbs go out, every now and then, we all must gather our arms and legs in a heap of human kindling, to rap tap tap on the downstairs neighbors door- for a set of candles, perhaps a chance to go completely insane for one terse moment when the hyperbole of vowels *just don't matter anymore.

And speaking of the sordid state of griseous gull-like creatures. Ravenous ravens gnawing outside the window of the kitchen table. How boring life can become, for at the moment, when we are not biting our nails, playing dress up, or playing doctor- all *******. Or maybe even burying our heads in the looks of rooks or with our noses brimming over with the tops of books.

The tea we have set in the study awaits us, as we all have to drink our tea some time.

Just don't leave the lights on baby. Who needs lamps at full lux at high noon any who? You, Mrs. Sylvia Plath Hughes? Maybe you ought to buy a book of stamps- at the nearest Hobby Lobby, pack a paper bag with an apple and a 'sammich', and list formally your complaints.

We can't all waste our time narrating other people's lives in the third person.

People plugged in everywhere
To ipods, games and phones
Like non-existent robots
The world is full of drones
We're now made up of circuit boards
We've lost all of our bones
Be different, and unplug yourself
Grow a pair of stones

Your life is electronic
on a tablet or a chip
You run your life remotely
you give people email lip
you wouldn't dare go jogging
you might fall and break a hip
Be different, and unplug yourself
And give technology the slip

A record made of vinyl
now it's just some bits and bytes
It's a relic in an antique store
Along with other sights
Like cameras using flashbulbs
when taking shots at night
Be different and unplug yourself
Show digital your might

It doesn't matter where you go
A text, you have to send
If you're going to the shopping mall
Or just walking 'round the bend
You've more holsters on your belt loop
Than gunfighters would depend
To hold onto their weapons
Before they met their end

Turn off the boxes, read a book
Do something that's old school
Don't follow all the others
Acting like a dumb pack mule
Don't rely on electronics
Just use it as a tool
Unplug yourself from everything
Be a leader not a fool

People plugged in everywhere
To ipods, games and phones
Like non-existent robots
The world is full of drones
We're now made up of circuit boards
We've lost all of our bones
Be different, and unplug yourself
Grow a pair of stones

if you look up in a room
the complete spectrum of light
flashing over your shoulder
like flashbulbs sparkling
first of all
turn around
the stage is the other way
if as you careen the 180
notice all the funny faces
grinding and wide eyed
flailing and stamping
you don't look too dissimilar
now the man bouncing
behind the music he
made last week
jumping
like you
wide eyed
congratulations
you are there
the dubstep show

now calm down

I.
Nothing lasts long enough
To out live its time line
So I weave mine into
A concert celebrating the sound
That our bodies beat to
This organic clockwork armada
Of single cell ships singing lions roars
Before time aligns my spine with the dirt

And though I know gray hair will claim crowns
Overthrowing the royalty of youth
These ball headed blessings
Are nothing more then a water park river slide
We must all ride toward oblivion

So my fatal flawed form
Speaks a beautiful broken clock symphony
For these poems to fill up
Facing the future as if it was an old friend
To bed down with
Laughing at how long it’s been
Since we claimed tomorrow
As a carpe diem doctrine
To rock in

And I hope that when the waterfall of my life
Meets rock-bottom-spray-mist-rainbow-prism-old-age-epiphany  
My grandchildren will cling to me
Like vines to a towering oak tree
So I can whisper to them through a white Walt Whitman mane

"I may be a washed up old lion
But you
You are the roar of a crescendo
To an aria arranged before the birth of music
As if each note was placed purposely to hang in harmony
With the budding of your bones
They sing in the same key as the fickler flashbulbs
Of the stars you were forged in
Who sweet talk to you in your sleep nightly"  
Saying
        Listen my lovelies
        To the lullaby of the universe
        As it sings itself toward salvation
Which when translated into night
        Says come gather your dreams
        In the concert of my body
Babies
You were born
        As a single rift
        In the solo
Of some Charlie parker bird flight ascension
So let this bedtime word weaving remind you of the halo about your head
For you
Were born as angels
Back when the big bang band first leaned how to blow

So if you stagnate
         Like we all do
Fearing that you are all alone in the prison cell of your skin
Remember the old lions still roaring in your gut
Listen close
        For there has never been a moment of silence
        And there will never been a moment of silence
Cause there is music buried beneath your bones my children
Come sing in the choir of your forefathers the winds
        Your solo is about to begin

Flashbulbs. Microphones.
A circus has invaded our home
And filled it with strange, jeering faces.
Reporters, you once called them.
And I remembered.

Avarice. Questions pour out of their incessant mouths.
Like a metronome invading my brain.
The thudding  roar of my heart transforms their gibbering mouths into a silent movie.
Funny, I never knew you were famous.

With a jaunt in my step
And my smile fixed in place
I saunter away to my room to weep.
I throw in a skip.
You would have applauded my decorum.

I fantasize that the mask slips off my face
And shatters onto the floor.
What a mess. Someone should clean that up.
And a reporter asks me, "Excuse me, little girl, did you drop your face?"
To which I have no answer.

Fast forward 5 days to
Labyrinthine hallways
Filing cabinets for the dead.
My tiny footsteps resonate in that pristine expanse
Though you no longer walk with me.

How can it be
That I can only remember you
As a wisp of smoke
On a fickle breeze?

I am only 10, and yet I know.
That I will dream of your loving touch
Your silken voice.
Your gentle way.  
But not from memory.

I will weave this tapestry of imagination
So strongly, So warmly
That it will provide permanent shelter
From the bitter chill of your ghost.
From the truth of you.

I smile once more as I leave that space
Of ineffable loneliness.
Why not?
All is well again.
You would have been proud.

For it was you who taught me to lie.
It was you who taught me to fear.
And it was you who taught me to forget.
Mother.

details slip through busy fingers
but still warm the wistful touch
and time over-exposes memory
like a photograph left in the sun

so I don't recall what you wore
or the music we played that day
or where we were driving from
or the photographer counting down...

but I remember the flashbulbs when you held me:
the way they spun your hair gold
and star-bursted my vision
like we were the models of love

and this is picture proof
that the sunlight captured our moment
and I haven't forgotten what you said,
"write a poem about this."

time flows slowest
around galactic centers and our worst moments
black holes and dying parents
foul, putrid and humid in
acts of betrayal and cowardice
pooling around loss like van gogh’s whorly stars snickering
voyeuristic time crept in at my point of least courage
subatomic tabloid photographers flashbulbs cracking
when I broke your heart one january afternoon
and there was enough time gathered for me
to store all the details of the scene
the way your shoulders slumped and the
straps of your tank top slid a little to the sides
how you looked up and to the left hoping the oak tree out the window
would grow a mouth and explain my sudden departure
if only you could see it through tears coalescing
like soap bubbles summoned between thumb and forefinger in childhood baths
“I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,” you said
and it took me years of vanity to understand you’d known;
my accumulated guilt and sadness had not been subtle

i named my sin at an awkward dinner out
millennia after a stellar collapse in a one bedroom apartment
where I lied and told you it was me
not you but it was you
still burn inside me cold
when I’m alone
warm on days I know I saved our children
from the sad gravity of loveless parents
silently begging of them greatness
to validate a vacuum-empty marriage born of
supposed-to and should in the absence
of desire or at least the resignation
of married friends or Jovian planets unignited

maybe time cups our worst memories before us
in greedy luminescent starflesh hands woven of personal apocalypses
laughing outright when the memory burns away
in solar flare fingers
warps in the distorted fabric of how
we edit and redact those moments to survive sane
and we panic realizing
after breaking or being broken
we have remade ourselves entirely of
shame and misery and misfit parts
devoid of structure beyond weeping
brittle bones of future selves
stolen or relinquished  

or maybe time holds these memories for us immature
baby skull soft
too delicate to be picked through with angry desperate hands
while distance and growth or
maybe just forced perspective
lets the memory or
us harden into something we can pluck
from its hands lifetimes later and lazily
browse like any other casual catastrophe

The oscars are a few hours away
For some it'll be quite the day
All dressed up in their favourite attire
Ready to set the red carpet on fire
It will be a starry affair
Some will experiment with fashion and choose to dare
Flashbulbs and interviews will be the order of the day
While the sun shines the broadcasters will make hay
The nominations are once again a white affair
Makes everyone want to question and stare
The nominees will all be here
The crowd and the audience will cheer
But in the end it is the winner who will give that speech and shed a tear
When the winners' speeches get long
The men with the violins start to play their song
Later the victors will pose with their awards
For the hard work they put in it will be for them deserving rewards
Just wish for the awards to be filled with a little bit more diversity
It would only strengthen everyone's belief in equality

the chandelier in the Venetian Room
   crystallized tears, perfectly shaped
   and transparent
alive with the glow of ancient candles
   reflected on mirror walls

I hear the mirrored gaiety
  of well-clad people

  imaginary music playing softly
    ancient tunes
  keen flashbulbs working
    to transfix the moment

I remember the separating laughter
  in the downstairs hall
  bland smiles and secret glances
words unspoken
occasions pass into history
  possibilities remain
forever

"And how rewarding to have had all
  of you here with us!"

Hugs, taxis, kisses, busses
  early breakfast
"Write to me", " Send me
  the photographs"

  "Of course"

The man who
can barbecue some
poor dumb animal

Fix your car
put up a shelf
for the romantic books
piled on your floor.

I am not that man.

I am not that man
to carry you over
thresholds garnered
in new gold and tiled
from byzantine shores.

I am not that man
you dream of
dripping money and
diamonds
flashbulbs popping
your every red woven
glide coiffed and coutoured

I am not that man

I am real

Flashbulbs light, an inspiration for the lion in the enclosure who then dies, too much exposure for the king.
That's the thing,
we want it all, can't live without it, then we get it and the paparazzi come to knock upon our door, it's such a shock, but then we die to lay or lie beside a king who didn't do a single thing and that's the thing.

I can't be certain when it happened.
The day the moment or the year.
I suppose in the end it doesn't really matter
The outcome will inevitably be the same

I wish I could somehow go back and change the script
erase a few lines here, cross out a chapter or two there
redefine my story
Streamline it to be just how I imagined

I always admired it when I saw it
that way it has of turning a person into brightness
the light you just can't help but notice
As if a thousand stars are twinkling relentlessly just beneath their skin

I swear I had it too
one moment I could feel the steady pull of it pulsing through my limbs
burning me on the inside

you know the kind of heat I mean
the kind that walks that fine line between pain and pleasure
like you're staring into fire that you can't help be mesmerized by..
still knowing that at any moment you could turn your hand
to the cheerful crackling and feel the deceit as it bleeds angrily into your skin.


It burns in that satisfying way of a just healing sunburn across your shoulders
tender and raw enough that you can feel every ounce of your vulnerability
But you can also feel your resiliency. your ability to heal
And it reminds you of how the torched sand felt beneath your shoulders
And all you can see is the sun on the back of your eyelids
like a desert of fire the stretches the span of a lifetime
And suddenly it doesn't seem so bad

It's not important what it came from
back when it was this fragile, breakable thing
What's important is the twisty sinister path it took to get there

It could have been my naivety
my refusal to acknowledge as my vulnerability turned so eerily into a condescension that dripped like honey from an equally naive paw

But here's the thing, our lives are only a series of moments.  
One moment, or a thousand, that have the potential to change your life, if you let it.
Flashbulbs exploding constantly. Light so dazzling that if we took the time to stop and examine the endless possibilities within each one, we'd almost certainly be blinded.
The problem is that each moment is so easily forgotten or misimagined.
Neatly packaged away  and efficiently lost in the trenches of time.

Like I said.
I don't know when it happened
The day the moment or the year
but I know what it felt like
and I know it's worth it.

now that I am in my seventh or eight decade,
(not particularly sure when you start counting)
memories bust out like the flashbulbs on olden cameras,
briefly bright as hell, illuminating and annoying as hell,

this flash came to me this morning and don’t know why,
but it was worthy of writing down for no particular reason.

when I was a child in one of those indistinguishable early grades,
my teacher informed my father at an annual parent teacher partee,,
that I was “not particularly smart,” which angered him greatly.

He went home undecided whom to hide (1) p,
the teacher or hide me.
unsure, he was, which was the smarter course of action
(for my mother had passed and he without a consultant),
but informed me, who promptly hid (as in escaped)
in the only place suitable in our tiny house, behind the couch,
that was my mother’s pride an joy.

more tired than angry, he reflected while sitting on said couch,
listening to my breathing/panting, he decided that perhaps
the teacher was kerrect, and furthermore, I was not to blame,
(told to me years later by his serious drinking buddies)
“given the stock he came from, it was less my fault, and more his.”



this too, is only a love poem…



(1) hide as hiding, a countable noun, if you give someone a hiding, you punish them by hitting them many times).

obscured by ink
only wide eyes
and an outline

lightning
popping
like hot flashbulbs

I fumble
in darkness
for a key

before
he
flies away



Whit Howland © 2019

the lightning tonight, when it came
was hidden behind the clouds
like old fashioned flashbulbs
those boxy ones, we used to steal
and setoff under the bedsheets

the rain came and went
in a windblown front
pasing through without
taking the heat from the ground
just making the evening more humid

the thunder lived up to expectations
loud and growling at the world
but brief like a dog called to heel

now it has passed out to sea
and the water drips from the leaves
and the humidity continues to rise

Some of the leaves have turned
To a perfect, Popsicle orange
While some are drenched in purple
Like a sad cleric that mourns
The hills are dressed in brightest yellow
Like flashbulbs going off
And varied reddish lipstick shades
Some fiery, and some soft
Coppers I see, like an old tea kettle
Or suntans on the beach
And mauve, ah sensuous mauve,
Like the skin of a ripened peach

I'm standing where I admired the leaves
As a child way back when
The colors, I think, must still be the same,
But they look different now than they did then

Your eyes were chalkboards as you stumbled into your room
Blacklight flashbulbs
Work uniform untucked and licking at your shoulder blades
With each step you kissed the floorboards
That's what the autopsy said anyway
You clawed through the spit and spatter of perfume samples and photo booth mishmash
And pulled yourself up with white lightning
The strip mall pleasantries
It snowed deep enough to **** your autobiography into the mountainside
And we never made sugar cookies again

Lightning strokes the greenery,
flashbulbs
and the scenery shifts
the curtain lifts
and brings on the rain.

All this from a bedroom window

it's like a book once read,
but
the character assassination
is only you killing you and
you're still in bed,

'the show must go on'
'yeah,
on trial',
the audience screams,

and it's often like that
in dreams of greatness.