I live in one of those small
mostly untainted towns
not trendy, just funky and innocent
the kind that’s becoming rara villa en terra.
No Starbucks.

But modern winds bring dust and particles
from larger cities around.
They have infected our fauna
which are morphing before our eyes.

Last week I was at the pond
where the deer come to drink at dusk
and my heart broke.

There was that huge seven-point whitetail buck
the one I so admired
huge, taut and fast
but instead of hooves
he was trod with Goodyear offroad tires.
He saw me see him
and embarrassed turned and sped away into the trees
leaving rubber treadmarks in the loam.

What to do when you’ve got the blues
Was it me or is it you
My plans are simple
To love life and be loved too
Their must be some kinds of deception
For you must love life and need one too
Or be one of
Billions of bricks in a grand pyramid scheme
But where in the mirror thee one on top
Is the one of thee ruse
Whom is under all
And who saves all fooled
Is there one among you who is more
Or less than precious you
Come on you’all
What would you be kidding me for
Like my lies to and about you
Like I could live without you
And rather forget or shout rat at ya
Have you scrounge through ******* that ye’
may you eat
or wire tie tire scraps to the souls of your feet
For we’ve come such a long way
To be here today
While it’s not been to long
Or far to go with squabble, plunder, resource **** and plow it under
That climates are for shifting
Seasons without reasons
Masses are off for the drifting
Our earth without our gratitude we sure aren’t 'a pleasin’
Thee oceanic cradle of conception 'tis sewer now
Like could I be without thee sky above me
Would thee auto or truck eat the one last bean
And every brick without a home
Not a hunting ground
Some tillable earth or seed to sow
Toxic fish in the untamable sea
And She will do as she wants
She will do as she needs
She’ll easily come and suddenly recede
Upon her eggshell basin we drill siphon pump poison and bleed
We blow holes in the ionosphere
Magnetic shifts and solar flairs
Does our wild kingdom wish us well
Or rather see us off into exile from our hells
Of dust bowls and Goodyear treads to save our souls
Journey on wayward ones
Is not a thing sacred not a one
Holy  liars say anti-christ better hurry fast
So saviors come to condemn our past
And free us from, to us what’s been done
Seven say there is the Savior
And six are sick evil ones
And we can not agree of the one
Seven times to the nth degree is what we will need
Till our actions are thee savings grace
As Great Exemplars have professed
Each of us must overcome
And Holy Creature become
In the stregnth of forgiveness
We undo to thee and us done
We are the ones to feel to see
That Love is the fire
Which is pure bravery
You forge in the now
Without the forgetting
Tomorrows you desire
Where love will rise
And set as thee One in all

Clouds
drifting across the sky
in imaginary forms

Clouds
making imaginary images
that only the mind
can put together

Clouds
of varying shades
and shapes

Clouds
metamorphosing

Clouds
morphing
into the unknown

Clouds
metamorphosed

Clouds
floating
like the Goodyear blimp
off on the horizon

Clouds
lost
shapeless
meeting
and reforming

Clouds
like foam on the ocean
endless and everlasting
but empty in their
subtlety

Clouds
like cotton candy
pink then white
shifting shades
of gray

Clouds
filled with rain
or as
ephemeral
as infinity
ethereal
everlasting

chutes of straw lean
in the wind, the way they tap
gently on my knee,
or on the table.
they extend, slender,
and pop when they bend
back to a point
at the goodyear blimp

When I switch his bathroom light on
the fan starts to turn
a rumble and a whine taking him back through time....

Kaufmann starter kicking off
crack like thunder smoke and cough
from the man on the extinguisher in the smoke
laugh at his cursing you lip-read what he spoke
Wide track rumble to the strip
don't be long she overheats quick
airbourne twenty-four cylinders yell
thank you Rotol Goodyear and Shell
you might sigh for a merlin maybe
but fear this awkward sleeve-valve baby
nothing faster in the sky
get it wrong you are going to die
Fly off track to where she is staying
as you pass you feel her praying
then out across drowned Doggerland
skimming waves speed to command
December greys from sea to sky
hit the coast then climbing high
not trains or targets in the  rubble
today your flying into trouble
Their last big throw to claim the air
put all theirs up from anywhere
trails in the sky mark souls that fall
just men who answered duty's call
over Holland's blasted ports
remember rocketing those forts
now a maelstrom fire and shell
into modern Dante's hell
you picked a speck to follow down
moving fast this chap's no clown
kicking rudder yawing mind
he doesn't see you down behind
A TA 152 now you know
see now howbloody fast they go
push the throttle out to the stop
break the limit wire hope she won't pop
sees you know and spirals round
gaining height you're gaining ground
an elegant sight for both to see
but this is the last thing he will see
Twenty millimetre rounds
make an evil dreadful sound
a mockery of alloy and steel
pulls it apart like the fruit you peel
was that a puff of red you saw
made you gasp a nerve still raw
as the shells chewed up to his cockpit
where a frightened human being sits
gone now in a shower of flame
war and fear this was never a game
low on fuel and cold inside
keep low for home above  the tide
A buzz for her again to show
you made it back but yet you know
however much she has to pray
her heart is breaking every day
A month or two and war will end
Europe for now you did defend..

I turn the light out the fan slows down
notice the tears and then your frown
feel so helpless as you lie
in your bodies prison longing to die
missing so badly the wife who is gone
could you  fly to her beyond the sun
So sad to see you sitting there
your world a bathroom a bed and a chair
we needed you seventy years ago
now it seems nobody wants to know.....

I am teething on a future
as thick as a Goodyear
I hold on as it spins
and burns out
creating smoke and mirror finish
I make much ado
about moving in place

I listen to the static
on the stack of TVs
in the back of a Goodwill
Turn your ears to the proper channel
and you’ll hear the whispers
tucked under lo-def signal
Your eyes will adjust to the fuzz

Unexpected
not something expected

and I would add to that
unplanned

my title
and good name

are all that I have
you have

let the images
play out in your mind

whit howland © 2021

He was weird to me at first. I thought he was an immature kid. Then I saw him a couple other times and he was sweet and made me laugh. Then I started to notice him more and more. I noticed when he was and wasn’t at youth group. One time we were waiting to go into the youth group room and I was across from him and he was staring at me with his beautiful baby blue eyes. We made eye contact a lot throughout the entire time. Then he didn’t go for a couple weeks, but he showed up with two black eyes, he told us how he’d been jumped and it was by then that I noticed I liked him. On our ride home, there was just me, him, and a couple other people left to be dropped off, and I started talking to him and I gave him my email, and he gave me his number. I was so excited I literally ran upstairs when I got home and told my mom about it. Then I created a facebook and added him, then on my sisters 18th birthday, I told him I had a crush on him and we’d been talking all day and I went over to a friends house and we talked all night too. We got together that night. The day I went home from my friends house, we stopped at Save-A-Lot and he was there with his mom and dad. The moment I saw him my heart stopped and my whole body got warm. I ran back into the store after we’d put the groceries in the car, and I talked to him and told him that my mom didn’t know I had a boyfriend, and that I loved him and gave him a hug and ran back out to the car.
Maybe like a week or so later, I went to the library and he was there with his sister. I hadn’t met any of his family at the time, so I had no idea that it was his sister. She’d been jumped by some girls, so we stayed there, she talked to me and asked who I was so I said “I’m Jennifer, Lj’s…” and he said “Girlfriend!” His sister was shocked, and somehow she was like kiss her… it was so cute all he did was say “Hey look at me.” So I did and he kissed me. We walked her home and I got to meet his mom and dad. At first it seemed like they didn’t like me, but eventually I grew on them. I started going over like everyday after school, and we’d usually just hang out at his house. His dad started calling me Goodyear, his sister became my sister, and his mom started treating me like I was her kid too. Him and I grew closer, we broke up over something stupid then got back together. May 18th, 2014 was a special day for me, and it was with him… We were together for the rest of May and part of June then we broke up, but we acted like we were together even though we weren’t. It was a brutal process of getting over him. I wouldn’t eat, drink, I wouldn’t talk to anyone, I’d barely leave my room. I cried myself to sleep every night even the night I slept over at his moms house. I messed up and went over to his moms house with him and his dad started giving me **** so I ran out crying. He chased after me with his dad right behind him and he calmed me down. I went to  his grams house, where his parents were staying, after I’d taken off, and his dad walked over to my house and told my mom I was at their house, and his dad got my meds for me. Then later that night he walked me home while his parents stayed home, and I told him how I felt about him. I told him how he means the world to me and that I’ve never been able to love anyone else. Then my mom told him to back off and he did. He acted like he hated me for almost an entire year. It was brutal for me, and now almost an entire year later, we’re back to the same ****, then feelings I forced myself to bottle up are back, and there’s no way I can bury these feelings again. It’s not the same thing as it was with Everett and me taking him back every time. I haven’t been able to love the same since He broke my heart. And nobody wants to see me that way again. He doesn’t even know the half of it. Every time I even think about him I smile, cry a little, and I get butterflies in my stomach, and my heart starts racing and my mind goes into flashbacks that I can’t control. I see him the way I use to, the way I forced myself not to see him. I see him again, and he’s all I want to see. I’d literally **** for him and his family. He was my world and always has been, nothing has changed towards him except the feelings getting stronger. I just forced the feelings to be bottled up, but only so it didn’t hurt anymore. He hated me or so I thought, and all I wanted was him and everything we used to be. And I want it even more now.

It's that time of the month again, your rent is due.
You'd better pay up or I'll beat the hell out of you.
Don't try to get out of paying again, I don't want to hear an excuse.
Stop trying to get pity by saying you were a victim of ****** abuse.
I want my money, I don't want to hear excuses or lies.
When it comes to giving me an excuse, don't even try.
Do I get my money or do you get a beating?
Pay me or my fists are what you'll be eating.
You just insulted me, you said that I'm so fat that I look like the Goodyear Blimp.
I just punched you in the face and you've started crying because you're a wimp.
Stop blubbering like a two year old, be mature like an adult.
And I will permanently disable you if you hurl anymore insults.
I'd like to avoid sending you to the emergency room and myself to jail.
Just gimme my **** money, I'm getting tired of having to raise hell.

Walking in the school hallways
A living hell to me
People staring
Or is my mind
Playing tricks on me?

I'm losing my sanity
My anxiety kicks in
I can bearly breathe
I stumble around the corner
And see the exit
But there's a group standing there
WHY THERE!?
I'm being tested by god
And I'm offended

I try to find another way out of here
I see an open window
Guess this is a Goodyear

I climb through the window like a total ******
And as I look up
I see 4 busses packed with kids
Looking through their window
Straight at me
Oh god
Why me
Why today?

You think you are so tough
You act rough
Your mannerisms are enough
Everywhere is your turf
When it comes to the beach and swimming, you don’t even know how to surf
Your diamonds say bling
You are playing the big and bad thing
You think you are like a ****
Some see you as the Goodyear blimp
Contrary of your mind
Women no how to tame
You are just lame
You might act tough on the streets
Gangs are strong and they know how to bring you down to defeat
Your aim with a gun misses the target every time
You are gentle on the inside
Yet show exterior of power on the outside
Your demeanor tells a whole different story
You think you are in your glory
But wait
It will be shown that you are not tough at all
Power is what you think you have
You can’t control which you don’t own
You are acting full blown
The streets have your number
Be careful where you slumber
You are like an hour glass, your time is almost up
Mr. You know who
A total nobody

No matter I sustained multiple contusions about the face and neck and minor head concussion after the missus tossed an unopened box of five apple pie stuff'd oat bites in my direction (what got whisked - as clocked by yours truly at lightspeed), nevertheless (whew), no permanent damage prevailed regarding the cherished goods.

While recuperating in the hospital bed,
I decided to craft incident report,
(yet refuse to implicate the missus)
quickly letting fingers
skitter across keyboard
couched with divine intervention,
cuz yours truly nearly got declared dead,
thus the following words quickly typed
before creative juices fled
despite skeptical readers,

who might immediately deduce
that I rightly ought to be
declared out of my talking head
thankful caring empowered
stalwart connections qua invaluable friends
gifted with emergency lifeline when pitted
with suicidal ideations, predilections,
utilizations fostering existential crisis,
hence resilience taught to thwart
self harmful and hurtful modus operandi

thru the dogma, ethos,
and faith of worthiness
and in remembrance of JED,
(whose founders lost
above mentioned son to suicide),
thus inadvertently halting epidemic,
whereby teens and young adults
offered mental health resources
by building resiliency and life skills,
promoting social connectedness,
and encouraging help-seeking

and help-giving behaviors
through nationally recognized programs,
digital channels, and partnerships,
as well as through the media
spreading the word
to cope against desire to annihilate self
(think nihilistic existentialism)
receiving immediate access
to forge an excellent outlook
reliable material broadcast

across social media platforms
exemplifying and identifying linkedin
ingenious and innovative modus operandi
such as promulgating hotline
flown like the goodyear blimp
videre licet zeppelin made of lead
clearly displaying credo
(which unfortunately never came to my aid -
just another statistic courtesy anorexia nervosa)
summed up as Ned:

A character education program that uses a cartoon character named NED to promote kindness and excellence in schools. NED is an acronym for "Never give up, Encourage others, and Do your best".