Passengers of scarcity.

Hi through dark and space to you my friend
Cause yes I know you
As you know me;
We’re both passengers of scarcity, guessed it huh?

I’ll begin like it started for me. I want it to be honest this time
-As if poets could be honest-
But let’s try my friend.

My evening sky doesn’t talk to me like it used to.
It talked louder then.
Before, I remember the before when my legs were fast, my heart full of hopes
And when we –you know- looked at reality only and only within the lenses of dreams.
Distrustful of truth, world-paintor inside the cupboard of our mind, schemer of realms of now and there...
Time has flown
Remember
Time has flown
And now my evening sky grew rarer.

But today it came to me
Almost as loud as before
And I could see once again
In crimson and purple.

“Soon I’ll come back, ma!”
The children play! Madman you hear

Don’t you look back in wonder sometimes?
Don’t you look back at you like at a stranger
Passing by. Walking on the sidewalk of your notice
And you turn and you look at his back
As he steps away, eaten by the crowd
And you wonder ‘This man...’
Whose face you’re not really sure
Whose air, maybe... in a foreign country...
But through your voluntary mist something knows
It was you.
Little shame, little laugh.
Little forget, little lie
Let’s add another mindless night
To twenty thousand others.

“Oh man! Such a spastic.
Crippled.
How can he walk along with that big
Too big!
Can’t he see it is showing
runny, weeping,  noisy, babbling
Heart.
Man, it’s showing!
Hide it;

Hide it.

Hide it!”

It was you;

Now I’m hungry for your light
-Jealousy gnaws at the sheets of my memory –
My belly roars at the table. The neighbour she told me. She heard it from her bathtub.

The hairdryer is still hot.
"Sombebody was killed here man!"
Can’t see the body... But, I can smell it.
The hairdryer is still hot
"Why do you smile girl"
There was a ****** here.
See the hairdryer.
Don’t you... Why keep you smiling?
We really need to leave before...
The hairdryer you know
I wish you’d stop smiling girl!
See!
See!"
A hand
-I can’t move-
Creeps on
-I can’t move!-
The Hairdryer
-Please, please, stop laughing heart!-
It’s my fingers.

The mirror got broken.



Now you’re with me, I dropped a few lines between you and this
Like antipasta.
If I had an airline company for truth, I’d call it
‘Delayed’


Passengers of scarcity
We are.
We can see now.
Hungry for some light, always on the lookout
For the outside glow, to warm up dead bowels.
But
Passengers of scarcity
We were.
You just couldn’t see.
Your eyes mistook you.
For what were the words and dreams but the ailments of our locked-up souls
Already burning from within
Alone
Covered in the rags of self-deceit;
Ashes to the old

So little are you
So nothing you were.
Eyes breeding monsters
In your decadent corpse.
All your lies, all your animals
You put them here, not me!
Hunger has made its way through thy heart
And they have died in your cage.
Empty chuckle.
*** pause.









It was a poopause. At least one in your useless life.(just kidding)


So scarce.
The forced smile. The faded ‘hello’ to passing stranger
The hours of mindless thoughts and petty hopes.
Criminal mediocrity.
Vessels of going somewhere for
Going somewhere.
The to-do
To do.
To do something.
But really nothing struck you.
Desert.
A little too much food won’t fulfill it.
The phone fell silent with my lips –oh friends I need more than you-
The smoke of cigarettes is powder to your eyes
But nothing else.
Walk
Walk
Without purpose
Without even an idea of purpose
.
Isn’t it eternal Justice,
That those who have less
Have less.
Isn’t it eternally Just.
Of course, it’s hard for us the passengers
But there can’t be winners without losers though...
Still,
Reasons of the thirst...do not quell the thirst.

So what! What can we say! What can we do!
Oh! Who will save me.
Gimme some light sweet mamma!
Gimme some light!

Somewhere in the distance, two things:
a baby is born
-Blue-eyed-;
A gambler rolled the dice
-Eyes closed-;
A light sprung and a light dimmed
-You need black and white to draw pupils-
And my evening sky turned a dark pale of night.

There is a bullet in a box of crayons with really strange names like Parkland Perrywinkle, Sandy Hook Sanguine, and Great Mills Green in a place where children play Russian Roulette with their school supplies when they reach in to grab one and they’ve been learning about probability this week Forrest Gump will tell them you never know if you’re going to finish the lesson or turn into a statistic my sister likes to create mosaics by putting a hairdryer to crayons melting cascades of wax down a blank page sometimes she reaches in and it’s the one lead crayon at the top of the page and it’s only one color that seeps down into the crevices of the cafeteria’s tile floor that proceeds to wash away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers washes away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers I see another child reach into the box and I write another word problem I write another word problem: “Zoey reaches into a box of crayons. What is the likelihood she will not get to hang her drawing up on her kitchen refrigerator? What is the likelihood her funeral photo will hang there instead?” Draw students’ attention to the key word “likelihood.” Tell students This word shows that the question is asking whether or not you will live to tell your parents how your day at school was. and I wonder when school desks will take the shape of caskets in a place where both screams of laughter and screams of terror
are permitted

In this household there’s far too much noise!...your mobile, your pager, your palmtop, your laptop, your desktop, your land-line, your radio, your plasma screen, your mp3, your ***** driver, your GPS, your audio-books, your lawn-mower, your toothbrush, your stereo, your play-station, your VCR, your hairdryer, your podcasts, your DVD player, your digital clock, your analogue clock, your juicer, my *******, your drill...

Daddy belongs to
an exclusive club,
out beyond
the rules of atmospheric
pressure.

On our precocious little fingers
we count,
on tracer paper
Mommy checks our figures.
Being she was never clever
with math,
she consults with the slide rule.

No crystal ball needed,
we all know where Daddy's been:
at the apogee of his ride,
hanging out in zero orbit,
checking
on his own figures.

He must be
lonely up there, fishing off the dock of a satellite,
until the moment he reels one in.

He does his best philandering
once we've shuffled off to school
and Mommy's found her solace
underneath
the hairdryer.

She's stopped looking up
at night
to observe the starry heavens.
They only made her cry,
which, in turn, made us cry— for her.

One time we heard Mommy tell Daddy
she knew all about his long division
and how he misused
his slipstick.

With the cruel turn of a smile
he reminded her
her math is routinely
wrong.

"Usually...but not always,"
Mommy whispers in her sleep.

Tomorrow is lift off again
for Daddy,
hunting exponentials
from
heavenly bodies.

For us,
the ones left behind in the wake
of his rocket trail,
it's
addition by subtraction.

1)
my wife came out of the shower
last month
still unwashed and dry as a bone
You’ve forgotten, she snarled, haven’t you,
to pay the water bill?

Ooops! I’d done it again!

2)
last Monday
she came waving her hairdryer at me
and she screamed;
You’ve forgotten, haven’t you -
to pay the power bill?

Ooops! I’d done it again!

3)
last winter
she was trembling
and she said, shivering:
You’ve forgotten
to pay the bill for the gas heating ,
haven’t you?

Ooops! I’d done it again!


4)
and yesterday
when I returned home from work
I found everything in the house floating -
the chairs and the sofa
and the oven and the dog
and my wife too, upside down
up there in mid air
And she hollered:
You’ve forgotten, haven’t you
to pay the gravity bill?
And she reached out for my neck
as I levitated too

*Help! Somebody
Help! Anybody
Help us get back
down to earth!

It's one of those days
where you wanna get
home and fill the tub
with nice warm water,
get naked in the
dark of your bedroom,
play some Chet Baker,
dive in the water,
melting away (melt!),
open a gallon
of whatever wine
and chug it down slow,
turn the hairdryer on,
softly toss it in
your cooking *** and
let the jolt massage
take you someplace calm.

i think i'm starting to figure you out
little by little
maybe, possibly
the pieces fitting
like plugging my hairdryer in an outlet
i'm learning to not absorb the shock so much

you push me away
on purpose? subconsciously?
it works, occasionally
until i realize it's a test

and you know how anxious i get about those

i guess i pass though, because then you come back
all smiley that way you are

do you not believe i like (love?) you?
despite all the ******* you claim

i **** at sports but i win gold medals at mind games.

Records melt as the past
Turns over in Her bed,
"Listen to me you lousy lay!
I made you what you are and
Without me, whatever you do
Will be nothing! HEAR YOU ME!
NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING."

The sign read do not disturb, but
At the time I wasn't able to read.
I didn't know how and I was not
Ashamed of it.

She screamed this as I left and the mirror
That lay beside her bed was covered
In half eaten french fries and a
Short leopard skirt with a tear down
The right side; it appeared she had done
It and I was surprised by both her taste
In clothes as well as her rage and strength;
I had never met anyone that so closely
Resembled my brother Patrick before.

As I closed the door, I heard a loud SMACK
Against the wood. "Perhaps a hairdryer?" I
whispered to myself, the other tenants of
The motel now coming out of their rooms
Trying to see what the hell was going on.
"It's nothing," I told them, "I entered the
Wrong room and it was my fault and
I feel terrible, everything is fine."

Another loud BANG against the wooden
Door occurred and a screech," NO
IT **** WELL ISN'T NOTHING YOU
PEEPING ******* TOM!"
The other tenants eyed me down as they
Closed their doors to call the police.

Mistakes are made and remembered and
Forgotten and memorized and go down
In history everyday, but it's the ones
That involve loud bangs and screeches
From women you wished you could have
Gotten to know better that always count.

My arms are tingling with nervous energy
There are too many words swimming in my head
WRITE THEM DOWN, my mind yells
But the water’s too murky
And the waves much too turbulent
I can’t find them
Where are they where where where
The thoughts are vehicles of reckless drivers
Speeding, screeching, crashing
Are you sane -
Maybe the medicine’s working -
It’s been 2 weeks, right -
Write it down -
The medicine should’ve kicked in -
You’ll feel emptier than before -
I knew since Year 1 -
Just a thought -
Are you okay -
Is mum still mad at me -
I don’t know -
Are you going to pass -
Is something wrong -
I like your art -
Would she appreciate my art -
Why is my head so full of noise -
Should it be this way though -
I don’t know -
Why don’t you know anything for sure -
I don’t know!
Leering, laughing, screaming
Thought the noise was from the hairdryer
So I flipped the switch off
But the noise didn’t go away
It’s all in your head, dummy
Looks like your medicine’s working
Shouldn’t have taken in that caffeine this morning
You’re always in my head
I can feel my heartbeat at my fingertips
Throbbing with frustration and fear
I bite my tongue
And this doesn’t feel good
But I don’t know what to do about it
And neither does anyone.

After that, the floor had to be
dried for several days
using a hairdryer,
iron
and wiping,
keeping the window permanently open.
During this time the purchased roll
of new floorcovering
managed to reach room temperature.
New planks were quickly installed
instead of the stripped ones,
and then the entire floor was lined
with 6 mm plywood to avoid leveling.
A new monotone polyvinyl layer
was placed on the adhesive
and double-sided tape
(for fixation).
The seams were joined by silicone
sealant. After that,
the repair was completed,
as it is common to lay the lino
at the end.

I dream in longhand. Watch slasher movies to control death. No I will not be doing anything for my mental health. God was the first weapon meant to heal time. We don’t all live here. Blood reads but not with all this blood. Be last, be small. Hide your stomach from emptiness. Check your children for bones. Hairdryer for pills.

sticky with ****
resting

in its dish

the shower
running full blast

with the mirror
fogged and steamy

then

the hairdryer
blowing

more hot air

yes it's true
we've been having moments

but I'd like to think
of them

as growing pains

the stuff
that shapes and molds

Whit Howland © 2020