"howland" poems
I'm sorry if this seems long-winded but everything I write is short
because I'm not used to speaking without you cutting me off mid-sentence and I must get these weights off my chest before they crush my lungs
like the pressure that surrounds me as if I'm a deep sea diver
and you are the ocean. I used to liken you to things like that.
The ocean, the color blue, famous women that have courted my heart
from their places in the history books:
Jeanne d'Arc, Bonnie Parker, Amelia Earhart.
But the wars you wages in my name were lost and my name could never rally the troops like God's.
And the banks we robbed never satiated your expensive taste when everything I could offer you was more brass than gold
and for that I am sorry.
I never wanted you to get lost in the ocean. Your plane crashing somewhere in the vicinity of Howland Island where you sent out your last cry for help
and it choked for life in the static of my busted ******* stereo.
I know that this is coming out in pieces and my stream of consciousness
lacks the stillness that Nature tries to instill like a watchful mother
but I can't help the way all of these words and sentences keep bringing
you back to life and I know now that I will never stop
because what can Nature tell me about the way your lips moved
when you whispered my name.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
I am tired, and I am tired of making it beautiful. Petals flung over the edge do not soften the fall. Adjectives do not halt decay. Spinning corpses in sugar is a sticky, pointless ordeal. If I let the moonlight paint me in all her violet shades they begin to look more like bruises. A single star, a gunshot wound. I think about how small I must look from all the way up there. I think about how I won’t live past twenty.
It’s such a dramatic scene, a fanciful notion ripped from the history books by a girl who doesn't know how she’ll fit into them. There was one like her before, who dug her palms into the rails and stared out at her burning Versailles, and she wondered how it could be so cold when there was so much light. Another kisses her daughter and son’s shining cheeks goodnight, sits on the tiled floor of the kitchen with her head in the oven. There was the one who painted and broke, loved and broke, painted and loved and shattered and broke. The other flies all her life and goes down at Howland, sinks for its remainder. All of them, statues with shards of rose colored glass transfixed in their eyeball sockets.
Maybe we were made to be romantic and lovely and tragic. Maybe we have no choice but to carry these diamonds and bleed from the backs of our ankles, streak the pavement rose red. Maybe we were destined to scar everything we touch, for what is beauty without pain?
I’ll paint my nails and bite them to the beds, I’ll **** boys who are cruel by design. I’ll spin endless corpses, spin relentless circles in this frigid corner of mine.
Jan 10, 2022
Jan 10, 2022 at 2:22 PM UTC
A shiny ribbon
some glitter
paper folded
precisely
edges taped
concealment
mystery
suspense
the best gift
you ever gave us
was and always will be
each other
whit howland © 2021
Aug 26, 2021
Aug 26, 2021 at 1:11 PM UTC
I've come to love
and know
the color blue to mean
not a Blue Monday
Blue Note or joke
and don't much care to sing the Blues
or for that matter
give them
because truth be told
most of the time
I want to caucus
with those
pumping and stumping
for a Blue Hawaii
or the warm blue waters
pickling poetically
the clam shell white bottom
of Palancar Reef
Whit Howland © 2019
Jul 14, 2019
Jul 14, 2019 at 3:32 AM UTC
I could kid myself
and say that you are in me
but really
I am just trying
to force the issue by attempting
to conjure you
as well as delay the inevitable
waterworks the aching
sickness
and the pain
so with that said
it is time to give you
and me the much needed
punctuation
we deserve
and just
end this!
whit howland © 2021
Mar 21, 2021
Mar 21, 2021 at 10:55 AM UTC
We walk uphill
almost parallel
with the sky
but like all our other
adventures
we are out
to conquer different things
mine is to take this hill
one paced but ragged
breath upon breath
foot over foot
to plant my flag
yours is to shutter
to and fro
distilling object
place and time
and what is now
into an orderly
chronicle of us
Whit Howland © 2019
Jul 11, 2019
Jul 11, 2019 at 5:19 AM UTC
Yesterday you were swallowed by the sea.
Gasping and screaming air bubbles
and smoke.
Flailing and laughing your laugh
that made the room raise their
eyebrows in suspicion.
Yesterday the sky swallowed you.
Somewhere in the vicinity of
Howland Island.
Without a trace, without a sound
save for a single cry for help.
Yesterday the earth swallowed you
cracking and splitting like a
peanut out of its shell.
Suffocating and squeezing the
taste of soil and decay down
your throat and into your lungs.
Feb 21, 2011
Feb 21, 2011 at 9:49 AM UTC
red
delectable
plump
augmented with a swirl
of whip cream
and life clicks by
like a carousel
way too fast
whit howland © 2021
Mar 19, 2021
Mar 19, 2021 at 11:44 AM UTC
Though
tempted
to write about
how much I miss you
I want to create
from a place
of
enlightenment
songs of
loss
misery
sadness
are not
for those who
flew
all night
into
tomorrow
but for ones
who refuse
to
make
the
trip
© Whit Howland 2019
Sep 2, 2019
Sep 2, 2019 at 1:37 AM UTC
Malta
I've seen you
only in sepia tones
on a cardboard postcard
you're a little turquoise bay
rimmed with toy houses
and piers with matchstick boats
that dangle on strings
as they rise and fall
with the tide
Malta
we've never met
but I feel
we're kissing cousins
and like Saucelito
I'll dig you
and I'll envelope myself
in your streets your cafes
your denizens
and though I may
never know you
I feel I finally understand
what true love is
as I continue to mold you
like you are rich
river bottom clay
Whit Howland © 2017
Aug 27, 2017
Aug 27, 2017 at 8:33 AM UTC
gentle water
lapping the hull
bossa nova
clinking glasses
a tickle
of the piano's ivory keys
and you're lost
in giant strawberries
of a daiquiri
dribbling down your chin
onto your palm frond top
and shorts while you
swing and sway
poolside
tomorrow Ocho Rios Jamaica
but today sun and sea
tonight the crown stars
and a ruby juicy
fingernail moon
Whit Howland © 2019
Jul 14, 2019
Jul 14, 2019 at 4:54 AM UTC
The sun shines so early
this morning
but your face reads cloudy
with a chance of smiting rain
what do we do where
do we go from here
I've taken this journey
with you before
almost
to the point of no return
whit howland © 2021
Sep 11, 2021
Sep 11, 2021 at 10:10 AM UTC
your face
in abstract shades
solid features like
eyes ears and nose
fell prey
to brush and blender
transformed now
into degrees of moon glow
Whit Howland © 2019
Nov 15, 2019
Nov 15, 2019 at 3:47 AM UTC
it is with deepest regret
that i don't have something better
to tell you about love
about being a sugar cube
you stir into a cup of coffee
to make it less bitter
its never worked that way for me
and I've always had to think
of something tired and stripped
of all its varnish and dignity
something I've already asked
way too much of and yet
is still there for me
night after night
when my voice and words
have long since failed
@ 2018 Whit Howland
Jul 7, 2018
Jul 7, 2018 at 5:38 PM UTC
A slash of red
on white canvas
aggression maybe
war
might is right
so clear
and pure
lots of kicking and screaming
but
I know that now
whit howland © 2021
Sep 18, 2021
Sep 18, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC
Your circus friends
the roustabouts trapeze girls
and all the other clowns
they've seen the light
and that's why they'll never call
and you know they'll never write
because of this
you swim in pity
to the joy of thousands
of hollow fans
Whit Howland ©2017
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 8:47 PM UTC
time
to disappear
become
red jade orange
gray
dots or points on a paper or a fabric
and the ocean
blue splashes
capped
with white
as the summer sun burns
at its brightest
before it drips and melts down to its wick
© Whit Howland 2019
Nov 15, 2019
Nov 15, 2019 at 4:17 AM UTC
A swatch of sky
literally blue
a patch of green
light to dark
swirls and flourishes
impressions of flowers
red brick
and the color of stone
eyes ears hands feet
and a nose
is it deep
it is not
and it isn't really that
complicated
it just takes time
and patience
whit howland © 2021
Feb 11, 2021
Feb 11, 2021 at 3:05 PM UTC
just one minute
in the microwave
and watch it bubble and
sizzle
greasy
slabs of fat
and all
Lord please
let me be forever
guilty
and gladly and
eternally
doing
my penance
whit howland © 2021
Feb 21, 2021
Feb 21, 2021 at 3:55 PM UTC
The cool aquamarine water
ripples
as it kisses the skin
and we move like fish
fumbling
in self-induced darkness
to the cadence
Marco
Polo
accidents
collisions
as well as serendipitous
discovery
whit howland © 2021
Jul 31, 2021
Jul 31, 2021 at 2:22 PM UTC
Not the first day of the rest
of your life
nor a chance to revel
in new beginnings
trains have already
left their stations and ships
their ports
some advice my grandmother
once gave
just write a note
I've treasured our time
sorry it couldn't have lasted longer
but alas
it was perhaps
as long as it needed to be
whit howland © 2019
Jul 30, 2019
Jul 30, 2019 at 11:53 AM UTC
i sweep
the floor
i drag your valises
up to your room
I park your
cars
i avail
or profit from your loss
i am your worst nightmare
as i stamp out all existence of you
whit howland © 2021
May 17, 2021
May 17, 2021 at 6:33 AM UTC
Sun's rays
pierce
the bronchial
latticework
of the bare trees
in late Fall
leaving me with
windless and limp sails
whit howland © 2021
Aug 23, 2021
Aug 23, 2021 at 6:07 PM UTC
terracotta pink
sun-washed peach
they tumble down
tumble they do
to the sea
Positano
the Amalfi coast
its steep and
slanted streets
Positano
where wisteria
grows on hotel walls
though paint does peel
stucco crumbles
and awnings fade
Positano
even in its sometimes
tattered state
it's still a weathered beauty
Whit Howland © 2019
Oct 4, 2019
Oct 4, 2019 at 4:03 AM UTC
crude
but the shape
of things to come
the Seine
Notre Dame
in pencil rubbings and erasures
the mind
a potter's wheel
with clay raw and ready to be tossed
Whit Howland © 2019
Nov 23, 2019
Nov 23, 2019 at 6:49 PM UTC