"howard" poems
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
285.4k
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to slake its upward ******
A single heedless step is enough
to breech that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless soul
who fails to guard his steps.
Fragile calderas also roil
buried in dark crevices of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in fiery pools
of self-consuming misery.
To dress and salve our wounded souls
we plant fertile gardens of reconciliation
with beauty, trust and charity
and kneel to gods of grace and solace.
But a despot’s practiced eye
knows how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot,
and reason has no district.
Friends and siblings - my flesh and kin,
this world is ours to lose or save
so let us seal well our Sacred Calderas
from bitter foes that stalk us from within.
July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 12:40 AM UTC
Through an open window, I hear
the Big Thompson's steady music
drifting up from the valley below.
May breezes and gentle rains
coax the snow-capped peaks
to surrender their alabaster cloaks
downslope into gathering streams.
Silhouetted by light from the waxing moon,
a cinnamon bear lopes along water’s edge,
pauses for a draught and meanders on.
A bull elk newly coifed with velvet antlers
folds his legs beneath its belly
and kneels into grasses beside a tranquil pond.
while the Big Thompson rushes on.
Spring beauties, calypso orchids and geraniums
shake off their winter's sleep and
dot every vagabond trail and verdant hill
while fresh new leaves adorn the aspen boughs.
The Big Thompson inexorably presses on
bound for rendezvous with time and space
and tumbles into the always patient sea.
© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 8:57 AM UTC
Our first date at Rise
Holding your hand at the Firehouse Theater
Eating bagels you brought back from Montreal
Having lunch at Salata
Going to the Arboretum
The way you peeked out children’s house
Cuddling on the couch
Watching Game of Thrones
When you fell asleep in my arms
Drinking Amaretto Sours
When you would be silly
The sound of your voice
The maraschino cherry stem you tied with your tongue
The Forget Me Not Flower Kit you gave me
Exchanging texts
The sound of incoming WhatsApp messages
Diner at Howard Wangs
You wearing bunny ears during Easter
36-28-41
When you posed for me
Your blues eyes looking up at me
Seeing your smile
Touching your lips
The way you smell
The secrets you would tell
Showing how you care
Hugging me tight
Letting me take care of you
When you cook Arepas
The gluten free Clafouti
The time you had the flu
Wearing Calvin Klein underwater
Your dainty feet
Your goddess like figure
Your cute accent
Typing in the door bell code
Hearing you answer
The emoji of puppy heart kitten
Knowing you are my Bijou
Calling you Minou
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 7:21 PM UTC
Memes! Angels, aberrations of opposition super standing
overseeing you,
The screamin' heebie jeebies.
Yo, where you wanta go, you axin me we just go
with it, the flow 'know?
What I mean is, are we memes or mes or messes of yeses
gone all johnny rcome late-rotten scarred scared, some thing not so far
from sacred when you put your mind to the whole idea of life being
at all. Thinking this is not easy. We are Able. Our belly's living waters cry out,
you are your brother's keeper, yes, you are.
Be leavin' that be, I am is, and you is,
too. When you apprehend the meme named
war.
That meme has led the me-me mob for as far as men
remember, but
now, machines remember for us, all the facts, just
the facts, ma'am.
Why'd the d go into a comma, Pop?
Welt (Duetch, bitte) Enshaung, glaube ich, vie leicht, aber
are we ever going to filter out these German bleed-overs?
stay tuned, next week the meme beacon is pulled down,
who shall pre or post or ex maybe vail, travail, like
trip
wow, I hate being a 20 year old vet back in the U.S. of A.
FTA All the way, Airborne
******** Herman Hesse ********
Jorney to and fro the east to west, and soon, et
cetera. Siam is a mere myth now, eh?
As the Narnia thing not called a heathen lie was allowed
allowable in mere Christianity.
I've only seen the English POV's on PBS, they may be filtered through
feedback, meme belching bursting bubbles from new wine 'nold vessels about to plode into eternity, singing along.
Thank you, very much. May I introduce, duce, intro duce, y'gittin this?
Duce means 2 if you see e squeen between, you see that?
Fun. No reason for fun? Who here, now, believes that or, no,
bees leavin' those lies be told?
Hunh? Y'know? Watch man, waht of the night?
See, what I mean? All this from me hearin' some guy say,
"Come and see, like that was okeh. For any body, n'me, too.
Thinking, as a past-time, is pointless. You know, if you act like it.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 1:21 AM UTC
Howard Dully was twelve years old
when Dr. Freeman felt so bold
to dig around inside his head
a wonder that he isn't dead.
The year was 1963,
when Howard had his lobotomy.
He never even had a clue,
of what his parents planned to do.
ORBITOCLASTS
The name Freeman gave to his personally designed
lobotomy knives.
They went under Howard's eyelids 3 centimeters
from the mid line and parallel with the nose.
Driven to a depth of 5 centimeters he pulled the handles
laterally, returned them halfway, and drove 2 centimeters
deeper. He touched the handles over the nose, seperated
them 45 degrees, elevated them 50 degrees, and at this point
he probably
smiled to himself.
For now they were parallel,
and ready for photography before removal.
An angry stepmom arranged it all,
she made the final judgement call.
They labeled Howard as insane....
opened him up, and juggled his brain.
Howard survived because he was still growing.
Not fully developed,
his brain would keep going....
off in directions he couldn't control
but never condeming
the depths of his soul.
Not long ago I read his book.
I felt intrigued to take a look.
I hope, dear reader, you do the same.
Remember his story,
remember his name.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 6:05 PM UTC
We're born, we live, we die.
That's called life. What is life
about? For so many, it's just
about survival. For a tiny number,
it is about acquisition of things.
For the blessed, it is about love--
love of self, love of another,
love of all. I wrote once that
the greatest thing you can ever
be is your real self. To be true to
your real self is to be true to all
others, true to the Cosmos.
Fame is a social cosmetic.
Wealth is unconscious com-
pensation for lack of self-love
and thus for lack of love for
others; political power much
the same. Leadership is an
amalgam of real power, self-
love and love of others, and
the courage to do the right
thing. It is uncommon and
precious. To live your life
fully, you must be fully
your real self.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 20, 2020
Jun 20, 2020 at 11:21 AM UTC
They gathered by Williamson Road at sun-up
from neighboring spreads across the Tioga valley.
They came with carts laden with lumber stacks -
with saws, adzes, hammers and sundry tools.
They gathered with the homesteaders bond.
to co-build their neighbor's' dreams.
Sweet music of community echoed off the hills.
Chisels clanged into rock, shaping the foundation,
saws sang into boards to frame a timbered skeleton.
The staccato syncopation of hammers fastened walls
that soon would shelter plowshares, stock and grain.
A smithy leaned over his fire and forge -
chiming iron into sturdy latches and hinges.
Children scurried about mixing squeals and laughter
with exuberant fetching and lifting whenever called.
In two short passings of the sun the deed was done
and a handsome new barn, decked out in a wash of red
was silhouetted tall and proud against the fading light.
Homesteaders gathered at a celebration table
to share a hearty meal adorned by the music
of fiddles, grateful smiles and easy laughter.
Then one by one they steered their wagons home
gazing back at what their labors had wrought -
knowing to the depth of their communal souls
that we are more together than we are apart
Listen up, America! This is the music of community.
We are more together than we are apart.
© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 10:16 AM UTC
Morning Rainbow
Myriad prismatic crystals,
refract the morning sun-streams -
painting layers of spectral arches
across the misted horizon.
Eyes turned to the western skies,
we suspend our meteorological selves
acquiescing to miracles unveiled before us -
un-beckoned and scarcely earned,
proffering thanks for the radiant epistle
of healing, hope and promise,
artfully encoded in transfigured light.
Synthetic Refractions
A luminary ballet takes center stage
when synthetic refractors come to play:
crystal pendants bathe our foyers
with dazzling swaths of color.
Hazy coronas encircle streetlamps
discovered by headlights through the fog.
A science class prism slices light rays
into pre-ordered spectral strata.
If the sky denies us a rainbow,
we can always fashion one of our own
and we do!
Spectral Sound
Before there was music,
bird songs brushed our souls
and the murmur of woodland streams
held us captive by their banks.
Soon we learned to sing and tint the air
With prisms of wood and wire and metal
and to color soundscapes in our spirits
With songs of wonder, joy and longing.
Before there was music,
bird songs brushed our souls.
Robert Charles Howard, 2019
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 1:14 PM UTC
Writing poetry is like making love:
if you have to force it, stop.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 2:24 AM UTC
When the arc of his watch hands
reached the top of the hour
Sam pushed the throttle forward.
Engine 138 thundered
out of Blossburg station
like an iron dragon
breathing smoke and steam -
whistle shrilling over the Tioga valley.
Powered by coal
the train carried coal
to the waiting city of Elmira
where Sam would press his mother's hand -
perhaps for the final time.
The wheels churning iron on iron
across Pennsylvania farmlands,
turned like other wheels before
moving settlers west
to break its ready earth -
wheels beneath his grandfather's oxcart
turning toward Lycoming's verdant hills.
New wheels now carried America
to urban landscapes
drawing us like electro-magnets
to streetlamps - factories - dry good stores -
new crops for a modern age.
Elmira’s silhouette expanded on the horizon.
and Sam pulled the train in on time -
brakes screeching through billowing steam.
His wife, Jenny and his sister's Sam
came in a horseless carriage
with Zoe, Marie and Edward,
children now grown at their sides.
They all gathered by Hannah's bed
now approaching her final hours
soft voices and fragile smiles
cradled the truth beyond all telling:
Time, ever advancing
like the hands of a fine old watch,
holds us all in its circling sway
© 2006 by Robert Charles Howard
Aug 25, 2017
Aug 25, 2017 at 10:58 AM UTC
I met Joan Baez in my sleep.
She whispered her poems and
sang her songs. I fell in love
with her instantly. DIAMONDS
AND RUST she sang in my
dreams. Linda Ronstadt sang
LONG, LONG TIME to me.
I cried in her hair, so fair was
she. We made love for eternity.
Ingrid Bergman came into my
life a long time ago. I was
mesmerized by her luminescent
beauty. She walked into my
life 20 minutes into CASA-
BLANCA. I was transfixed.
But it was Audrey Hepburn
who stole my heart. Tiny and
radiant, Audrey saw and
held and fed starving
children around the globe.
She entered my heart and
kissed my soul and never
left my life. Bless you, Audrey.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025 at 3:57 PM UTC
We sense it because it comes inexorably,
this is the beginning of good-bye.
Her eyes avert his, a touch with no
feeling, a caress more cautious than
caring, a kiss when lips do not meet,
this the beginning of good-bye.
A perfunctory placement of the hand,
a conversation moribund, sipping
scotch and sodas in silence, a call that
never comes, memories that have grown opaque,
this is the beginning of good-bye.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 17, 2019
Jun 17, 2019 at 2:37 PM UTC
The way we cry, and
if our cryings be heard,
the way they are attended to
will set the walk. The way we
are treated as toddlers, the way
punishment may be meted out,
will further the course. Kind-
nesses, magnanimity of spirit,
love--all will determine not only
the paths we are led down, but
also the paths we shall set for
ourselves and travel ourselves--
pathos, bathos, ethos--until
death deals an end to our
earthly peregrinations. These
spoors--the lives, the lanes,
the passages we shall be
traveling--will tell us, and
others, about who we are,
and were, and if we were
befriended ever by others,
and by ourselves.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 15, 2019
Jun 15, 2019 at 2:50 PM UTC
So I am about to be a free man again, to wander where I please.
I find the prospect nauseating.
I think that tonight is the night I will hang Howard W. Campbell, Jr., for crimes against himself.
I know that tonight is the night.
They say that a hanging man hears gorgeous music. Too bad that I, like my father, unlike my musical mother, am tone-deaf. All the same, I hope that the tune I am about to hear is not Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas.'
Goodbye, cruel world!
Auf wiedersehen?
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 1:02 AM UTC
I cried for two years.
every day, all day.
Cara wanted to marry me.
I was hesitant. At that time,
I didn't know why.
Much later, when I was
in therapy, I came to realize
that, in the past, I unconsciously
feared that if I married,
most likely we would
have children, and quite
probably, we would have
a boy, and unconsciously
I feared I would treat
my son the same way
my father had treated me.
My father had treated me
harshly. He never told me
he loved me. I will spare you
the details. Cara grew increasingly
angry toward me for another year.
She used jealousy to try to
get me to marry her. She
swam in her swimming pool,
but when she dried off, I saw her
bruised ***** which I knew
I had not caused. When I saw
it, I went into shock and suffered
involuntary kundalini, which lasted
six years. After all those years
of excruciating pain, I finally
recovered. All this happened
45 years ago, but some days
I feel as though it happened
yesterday.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 9, 2025
Jun 9, 2025 at 5:18 PM UTC
We have mined our mountains,
we have fished our seas,
we have felled our forests,
we have gathered our grains,
but we have not yet embraced
the infinite energy of our souls,
which is love.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 8, 2019
Jun 8, 2019 at 9:30 PM UTC
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to stay its upward ******
One errant step is all it takes
to breach that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless wanderer
who fails to guard his path.
Fragile calderas also roil
buried in darkest hollows of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in molten pools
of self-consuming misery.
To dress and salve our wounds
we sow gardens of reconciliation within
with beauty, trust and reason
and bow to gods of grace and solace.
But a despot’s studied eye
knows just how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot
and reason has no district.
Sisters and brothers of our flesh I pray
we find a holy and transforming alchemy
to convert our heat to light
and shield our sacred calderas
from enemies that stalk us from within.
July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
If only one man
walked across a barren field
and with each step
a bloom of hope arose,
then all who had the courage
would walk behind him
leaving fields of fortitude
and forgiveness and love.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jul 17, 2025
Jul 17, 2025 at 11:36 PM UTC
Some say, we don't need black history month.
When in truth we do.
Would the contribution of African American be taught truthfully.
If we had to depend on you know who?
Obviously, they very unaware of several successful black that contributed to America's greatness.
We, very well aware they edited down facts to be turn into fiction.
Like that president that chopped down that cherry tree.
Many doesn't know the plight of Washington, Dubois, Carver.
Let alone know their first name.
It's hardly taught, if it's about us.
George Franklin, Grant-dentist
Ernest Everett, Just.-Scientist
Josh Gibson, one of the greatest baseball player.
We know very well about George, Thomas and James and John Q.
Some say, we all Americans
And in truth, they completely right.
But for reasons very well known.
We are not all equal in sights of others.
When needed, they call upon us to join in.
Some still, say-why do Black history month exist?
But all cultures knows none was eliminated through times.
Than those captured to come here and renamed after their masters.
And facts be told, this cultures lives to embrace into their children's if nothing is ever mention by certain teachers about their cultures.
Than they will keep it before them.
Matthew Alexander, Henson-Explorer
Billie Holiday-singer
Duke Ellington and Count Basie and Cab Calloway.
Greatness, we can't let fade.
Vernon Jordan
Shirley Chilsom
And hosts of present days teachers that push the issues to educate.
Those that say, we don't need Black History months.
Be crying , if we try to eliminate theirs.
Cause that's all they ever known.
Howard University.
Tennessee State and Fisk and various others came to be because of discrimination.
And has turned out some brilliant African Americans.
So our history is needed.
Cause it's about us.
Like Latin History and various others is about other cultures.
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 10:12 AM UTC
Tonight I stayed at work until 7:00.
It was dark when I locked the front doors.
Winter approaches again, soon the great coat
huddled like a rug around me. The streets
were active as usual, block residents
hanging out front steps. I said goodnight
to Nydian Figueroa, after school counselor.
I bought a beer at the deli on Third Ave.
from the Arab owner. He’s a bit upset about
the bottle bill.
Collecting bottles from small groceries
could be a useful youth employment enterprise.
I walked down Fifth along the park in the dark
drinking my beer and looking at women. I need
a good **** badly. I tried to decide whether
to go to the movies, a Hopi film Howard recommended,
or just go home, watch tv and light a candle.
Maybe I’d meet someone at the film.
Can I handle
the malady of going home tonight? If I die,
I die alone.
I turned west toward the subway
past the museum, through the park.
I can’t look at the myriad lights in buildings
large enough to hold a small town. It increases
my anxiety and anonymity to the breaking point.
I hoped to be mugged, for the human contact.
Two big guys looked me over, but I lowered
my center of gravity and they passed quietly.
Survival proves I am alive.
The white pines
in this corner of the park hold a cool, earthy air
reminding me of coming winter, that mortality
is restful, of the black bear and swollen river I saw
500 miles away and only one day ago.
Jul 6, 2022
Jul 6, 2022 at 6:30 AM UTC
In that night
there was a deeper night,
in sorrow a deeper sorrow,
in your sorrowful eyes more
more sorrowful eyes I descried,
the deep night of your eyes
as I lay beside you, your head,
then your head lying on night's
pillow, deeper than a hollow hole
filled with tender tears, as you told me
of the night, the deeper night of your life,
your hair wet with deeper tears
on night's side of your visage,
when you had to leave your son
to save yourself and him, a hurt
that still hurts, a deeper night hurt
you shared with me through deep night
sobs, deeper sobs, wetting your cheeks
and neck and night hair, the hurts,
the deeper night hurts that robbed
you of yourself and him, of how you
had to go in order to return, the sinuous
path, convoluted and constrained,
to leave the night, to come back in
the day. You knew day followed night,
but your hollow heart howled at the
rending end that began a deeper night.
All I could do was hold you in the deep,
the deeper night, and let you sob and
shake, only to awake to that brighter day.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 10:55 AM UTC
A long time ago,
I used to lie on my bed
and look out my window
and watch the big elm tree
as it died slowly.
And I used to watch the cars
as they traveled by,
some fast, some slow,
from right to left, and left to right,
and wonder where they were going to
and coming from.
Once from my window
I hit a bus with my BB gun.
I was scared,
because I knew I wasn't
supposed to shoot buses,
even though it was kind of fun.
And sometimes I used
to hide behind my curtains
and watch the pretty
girls walk by my house
coming back from
the pool in the park.
But mostly I used to lie
on my bed and think,
and watch the big elm tree
as it died slowly.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 9, 2019
Jun 9, 2019 at 12:09 PM UTC
The poem is not for a contest. It is for sharing.
The poem is the prize.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jul 10, 2023
Jul 10, 2023 at 4:26 PM UTC