Keen little neons
playfully jump around, colliding with her mind
and she sits there, legs crossed, her ***** aroused,
but it gets doused as the Wall Street pinstripe type walks by
she utters a sigh, looks at the sky, the ending's nigh, and it's night.

Skyline looks pretty
beams and lighted apartment block kitchens and real pop-up ads,
them keen little neons,
her eyes flicker like those hanging lights in horror films,
perpetuate fear, the skeletons are in the clear.
I told you, you schmuck, the end is near.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Willie Nelson lately,
A bootleg copy Outlaw Willie’s “Greatest Hits,”
Permanently inserted into the CD-player of my Honda:
An automobile preference,
An immediate dead giveaway,
A tag better than a license plate,
Useful for identification purposes,
Distinguishing friend from foe,
In this case a rolling, conspicuous enemy of
Detroit & rust belt environs.
Like other zombie-American consumers,
I **** the livelihood of my countrymen,
Once again, selling out friends & neighbors,
Doing my bit for Capitalism,
Exporting another job overseas.
I do my bit to help the 1%
Pay Labor back for the
Capitulations of the 1930s:
Unions winning concessions
In the street, pickets & strikes,
Boycotts & violence,
Largely mobbed-up violence.
Willie does a nice cover of “Heartbreak Hotel,”
Different, yet raw like Elvis,
And rocking.
But I digress.

So I’m thinking about the HOA Board,
(HOA: Home Owners' Association)
Local Thanes of Cawdor,
As if people over-55,
Living in gated lunacy,
Actually needed a 4th level of government.
The HOA Board turned down my landscape modification again.
Of course, they are just busting my *****.
They know I’m a hothead,
A deeply anti-authority type,
Forged in childhood in the street,
Through ringalevio & stickball,
“Your Mother” taunts,
******* contests,
Belly bumps,
Bones of contention,
In short: Brooklyn 101.
Retired now & for awhile I think
My problem with authority retired with me.
Just when I'm thinking
My lessons are finally done,
I realize there’s one more report card.
And Citizenship is a Grade:
“Plays Well With Others”
As it was for boys,
The measure of a man,
“It’s a community we have here,”
The HOA Doge & Ministerial Cohorts,
Conspiring to provoke
The sociopath in me, a fit description
For any would-be antagonist,
For anyone challenging
The Restrictions & Covenants,
Openly arrived at, in secret.
My neighbor,
Good Citizen Bernie
Reminds me that a community is
Entitled to know whom it’s dealing with.
The price of real estate not always
Effective for screening out
Potential psychopaths.
A determined caste-climber &
Boat rocker slips through now & then.
Insecure & angry because of it,
The schoolyard **** gone grey,
Yet hasn’t figured out the object of life is
To win friends & influence people.
Retirement: a Carnegie Deli &
Serenity Smorgasbord,
“Plays Well With Others.”
The HOA leadership has the right,
Has a duty to distinguish
The merely eccentric
From the clearly a present danger.
So they bust ***** about rules broken,
Code infractions, sordid violations,
Community norms transgressed.
Better you flip your wig
Under close observation & preparedness,
Than go off spontaneously.
One more massacre;
Another random bloodbath.

First up, first out
Adventure.
Life in the street
Awareness.
Running in new Keds
Activity.
Today marbles and stickball
Organizer.
Here's how we will do it
Leadership.
Back for breakfast.  Gulp.
Out to achieve.

The street named after the Spaniard who discovered the Pacific

The drive named after the Spaniard who conquered Mexico

The lane named after the Spaniard who blessed the Americas’ first Thanksgiving

Yielded enough rubber bands from newspapers

To twine a ball

Round enough

Bouncy enough

For a good game of stickball

Until the kid tasked

With finding rubber bands

From the circle named after the Spaniard who painted pictures

An oddball among all those adventurers

And a cluster of dwellings that didn’t subscribe

To rolls of paper

Hit it into the backyard with the dog on a chain

But fear kept us on a chain

As we stood over the rock wall

Looking for a manila spot

On unwatered St. Augustine

And spotting it

Disdaining it for

The angry barks

Bared teeth of the restrained beast

Letting it wait

For an archeologist centuries hence

(Maybe even a few decades from then)

To find it and marvel

“Even back then humans played games -- or so we assume --

With round objects.”

Jibber jabber gobbledee-goo
tittle tattle engenues
verbosely nosey Velcro verbs
sibilant smacks or lips a purse
wealthy whacks stickball whips
no tweet or talk but mailbox spit
gnawing down our chews of cud
converse with street rubber tongues
pinky-swore on Bazooka gum
summer wonder learning none
we Schwin & Huffy bike the day
child hood friends what else to say?
especially at that age...
Teeny tiny laughter dust
we race like Del Mar champion studs
no babble trouble wordy sting
our Super 8 remembering
"look no handle bars!"
our arms for wings
young ole boys California Kings...

Tracing the hour,
The distance I follow,
Wands and Auroras,
These echoing phrases,
These expiates of shadow.
Angels and Sailors of far of seas,
Ghosts ships of carrion,
This unknowledgeable surrender,
This last ember,
A blazing Supernova.
This rung down the ladder,
Barkok and Liszt,
Stickball in high summer,
Unraveling spector
Of chariots and Pharaohs,
Matresses of mourning,
Days of black shoes,
Pairs that tread the same dirt road.
Venturing clouds,
These invisible evenings,
A burned mound of wheels,
Converging signals
Alinged to one.
Horses braying a symphony of dust.
The end and the beginning Never touching the middle,
Straddling curve space time,
A stratosphere of clouds.
Cobweb hung planets,
Their rings revolving
The shining simmer
In the final arc of sun.
Just outside Nebraska,
Down Highway 1A,
Charles Starkweather Haunts
Gretchen lost ghost.
The dark specter residing
In old Elmer's cornfield,
It moans and shudders
The grave hours passing
Like strands on a string.
Bombardiers blasting
The last metal gun tower,
As Churchill railed the invading Blitzkrieg,
Sending out the Valiant
To apocalypse the hour.
Long rainy seasons,
The trees weeping
The last wilting flower's lonely despair..
The rim of the hour
Dialing shadows dreary filing
Down corridors of clocks,
A Canticle of stars, the dark night revolving,
One billion Angels sing to the light.

Black Eye Patch
baseball cap
pink and sugary gum

conjures
the twilight
games

of stickball
kick the can
and hide and seek

and I could ask
where they all went
those days

my brothers my pals

but life
is too complicated
for that kind of lament

and also
nostalgia
good memories

are meant to simplify
wipe cleanse
and finally

stitch together
the wounded
soul

whit howland © 2020