I no longer have
the knack I once had

for removing one side
of the doll house
then stepping back

and looking in
at all the stuff
that is both our lives

seeing each thought
and feeling
in every room

as a figurine

life it seems

so suddenly
pulled me under

stripped me of the title
making me a player
an understudy of sorts

for 23 years
we've been friends

until one day

or shall I say

one night

the notion throttled me

you were gone
and not coming back

Whit Howland © 2019

Much
of what confused me
I see today unravel

the big ball of rubber bands
now being fileted and
the strands laid out in precise rows

in the forest
mist shrouds some trees
and tries to screen some others

but again
my eyes peel away
the cloudy layers

even though
there is a steady stream
of tears

© Whit Howland 2019

ripped
from yesteryear

it's Main Street Soda ****
with the Munger Moss Motel

an Art Deco
delight

still keeping
the route and dream

very much
alive

knee ****
or reflexive
response

by

visual
stimuli
designed

to get a reaction

you always
back
me into a corner

leaving no choice
but to push
to click or flip

whatever is convenient
immediate
expedient

or red

A floppy hat
shades her face

while she sits
cross-legged

and alone
over coffee

with her thoughts
that should be private

except we see
through a plate glass
window

that she's waiting
for a train

to come down the track

Whit Howland © 2020

Horned rimmed
and tortoiseshell
they rest just left of center
on my nose

and if I ***** my eyes
I can see the bifurcated line
where the focus changes

and it's the same one you
are seeing right now

I miss my mom
my grandmother my grandfather
and my brother

and I'm bracing myself
for the shape of things to come

Whit Howland © 2020

Purple streaks across
sky no white
canvas

flowers
smudged against blue
and brown

bronze blobs descending
down the wall on a chain
supposed to be a rope

they say madness
is never expressed
with wide eyes and crazy laughter

but always with a constantly
flushing toilet
and endless sobs

coming from the room
next door
to the rhythm of bad bed springs

whit howland © 2021

Pink and orange
smear
the gray clouds

as though a ***** mop
swabbed

the darkness
and the night away

it's over now
I forgive you

why

I do not know

I just will
I just am
and it'll just be

Whit Howland © 2020

hung up
actually
specifically
snagged

on language
more pointedly
tangled in the use
of words

sharply

hooked
on the gears and wheels
of the mind
and how it works

words

without them
we falter
blunder
we fail

as admirals as captains
to map out our journey
to chart our voyage
our trek

to plot our course

whit howland © 2021

Tonight
the sky is strewn with stars

like diamonds
that have long stopped twinkling

and now

cut

hello
it's me again

with the same sad repartee
and refrain

we were somewhere
I swear

even if you thought it
was nowhere

and I'm sorry it's
always so gray and rainy

if we could just meet
one more time over

coffee and scones
I'm sure

it will all clear up
soon


Whit Howland © 2020

Press that button
pull that cord
plug it in over there

and see that red signal light
blinking
I need your help

maybe
could you check
for an alternate spelling

or try dialing
that number again
I am sure it's right

that's the number
he gave me
please sir/ma'am

I am desperate
so very desperate
to make a connection

Do I dare
write

do I have the courage do
I defy

myself to go
beyond

the box and better yet
stomp

and break it down
to its cardboard

nothingness

and to never feel
the compulsion

to stand aghast

you opened up poetry

like I've taken to
cracking words

like eggs
and reconciling

and being satisfied
with the yokey mess

Whit Howland © 2020

Floating orb in the
night

as black as gold
Texas Tea

oil that is

there's been darkness
enough to go around

and around
ribboning the world

with black

but no tunnel goes on
forever

and there are jokes and laughter
along the way

Whit Howland © 2020

fire engine lips
big tongue
bulbous nose

free lunch

TANSTAAFL

surgical gloves
a steady hand to sew

through chaos
comes order

hence
the peach-colored sunset
behind a scaffold
of darkened branches

whit howland © 2020

not life
just the town

in its scale model glory
a whistlestop

where every joke has
a punchline

and business is finished
on the day it's initiated

and nothing dangles
like a pesky past participle

Whit Howland © 2020

Something to remind me
of you

a bottle blue
that just sits
on the kitchen counter

I never touch the stuff
it could never do the things
that you used to do to me

whit howland © 2021

Meaning

of a wild
uncultivated plant
or the plant bearing it

meaning

some said you were
ill-mannered of bad upbringing
and undisciplined

but I hope you know now
I never listened
because it was

that pure
white blossom
I picked

with such relish

He pulls up the stoop
the doors slide shut
the wheels turn

the silver cars lurch
the last whistle blasts

too late

there's no grousing
no second-guessing
and no need for tears

whit howland © 2020

January
and there's a blood orange
sunset

glowing in the sky
at five o clock
which means

we are
on the downhill slide
of darkness

heading for days
of warmth
and nights of blinking

fireflies
but honey like I 've said
many times before

never defer happiness
grab it now and not
like a falling star

but a rising one
you catch
and hold onto

by its wispy
glittering
tail

What we're driving away from
is the same thing

we are driving toward

a gray cloud beast
behind

one in the front
and a signpost

up ahead

Burnt orange
conjures a polluted sunrise

brown and rust
evoke junk cars shattered

pieces of glass
long ago fallen to the ground


truth is in the eye
of the beholder

Whit Howland © 2019

I think of Yertle
his thone his
wobbly kingdom

stacked
ten turtles high
and how absurd

we were back then
each wanting
our postage stamp

of space

for you it was
the small swatch
of faded Oriental rug

and I

fought
for the cuckoo clock
the one with the extra slow hands

that wavered
as if they had
St Vitus Dance

whit howland © 2021

a sheen of sweat
on glass
watery vision

sun again and
steam  
also rises



Whit Howland © 2019

Do not make this
a rumination about
or
a referendum
on a state of mind

the day is clear
cold
the sky an icy blue

trees are bare
leaves are dry and piled

the path is
unobstructed

and crisp spare
internal prose
will win the day



Whit Howland © 2020

Silver
bubbling
in the sweltering
heat of the afternoon

pigeons
flocks of warbling
pigeons
eating morsels of bread

I know when we see
each other again
you won't remember me
and I won't recognize you

but I woke up this morning
looked in the mirror
and asked myself
what is missing from my life

I know

A little girl who deems
it necessary to
take it upon herself
to point out

all of my character flaws

whit howland © 2021

Where even the doorman
has a joke

and no one
is straining gnats

or swallowing camels

because they're too busy
swatting them or smoking them

while trying to scratch
an itch

that is next to near
impossible

to reach

A silver shiny
replica

of a handsome
hat

fashioned
for a little tuxedoed man

with a walrus
mustache

who's bald
stern

and wears pockets
that are fat

There are some things I want to say
to you
tough medicine
rough music if you 're so
inclined not the kind you snap
your fingers to on the radio
it's more primal than that but
like the radio
when you hear it
years from now you'll know
exactly where you were the first time
you listened
and more importantly the year
make and model of car
you were driving


Whit Howland © 2019

they're emerald green
they're icicles that drip

but only in the mind

the title of the work
Green Ice

meant to suggest
frozen glassy daggers
dead of winter

and the color green

but location is everything

hanging on what otherwise would've been bare

in a lonely room
where through the plate glass window
is the dead of night

with lights twinkling
like strewn cheesy emeralds

and the mind
now rudderless drifts far and away
to my bubblegum years

in the car
sitting in the backseat

on a cross country road trip
over his shoulder

I'm seeing a glossy green cover
with a comely pair of legs
all tangled up in fish nets and garters

sandwiched in between
the front and the back
rough and sand-papery

purple but steamy prose

and then
I'm weighted maybe anchored
to a question

how could something
so abstract
evoke an image so concrete

where purity
and lurid collide
to make a perfect storm

© Whit Howland 2019

Keds and Converse
scrape the court
bathed in harsh light

the ball

bouncing
echoing

off the concrete

then arcing
toward the hoop
every shot now

counts

whit howland © 2021

Bright
but not hot
light

neutral
might describe
it best

or
perhaps
indifferent

to the snow
swirling
around it

he who cares
about very little
controls everything

whit howland © 2021

Bubbles
run up the sides
of the polished
green glass

and another pressed record drops
as the diamond needle
scratches
across its surface

music to our ears

that if we allow it
will find its way
to our hearts and fill our heads
with delectable food for thought

whit howland © 2021

The foam atop my beer is like the stuff
that laps the shoreline

the lazy song of a record skipping
on the jukebox

peace

is something you can find anywhere
and find it

you must

a swath of blue a few
ripples

here
and there

that lap what might be
sand

a slash of yellow
sun

you are here

but right now


I am there
my mind molding

fashioning
the perfect day

at the beach

and possibly
the perfect life

for us

whit howland © 2021

A plate of milk curds
sweetened

and served with fruit
at yours and my expense

but what is the cost
of this journey

though delectable

some say is dicey
and existential

at best

whit howland © 2021

The  bouncing red ball
of my dreams

I now see
in my everyday

it's something to follow
and focus on

because
at my age I've learned

variety
was never the spice of life

Everybody
was somebody

at some time

old postcards
a grape  Nehi soda

and a pair of moccasins
adorned

with colored glass beads

What I might buy
for a dollar or a dime

some cheap petameter
or a bad rhyme

about

love passion
or betrayal

something
like that

maybe more lurid
and purple

on days like these
all we can muster

is a piece or a scrap
of morale in a glass

served with a joke
corny or crass

or even worse
a  bad pun

You say I say
my wife

told me to stop
impersonating

a flamingo
I had to put my foot down

you see a sad face
but it's only a facade

I went shopping for some camouflage pants
but couldn't find any

the tears flow in puddles
but they are not that of a clown

why

you ask

because he already died
laughing

(rimshot)

the last time I heard that one
cars had fins

and scales

(honk honk}

I was wondering why the frisbee
kept getting bigger and bigger

and then it hit me
I keep staring at the phone

hoping you will call
and explain why you left

all those years ago

whit howland © 2021

Fine art you are encased
in glass

on a rack
with other bottles

of dark red plasma-like
liquid

or maybe in a store
in a box

cheap

like a painting on a stand
at a sidewalk art fair

in either case
celebrate

we must

life
at any price

whit howland © 2021

You are far away
but I hear you mostly
at night

your voice tempering
the howling wind the
raging storm

bloodless knuckles
as we grip the sides

a clanky chain
pulling us to the precipice

the drop

stomachs to our knees
and me and my brother

knowing we will never
live this day again

the memory placed
on the spindle with the rest

much like you and me
and Paris

with tearstained
napkins

whit howland © 2021

This poem
is about

a rouge
blushy
flushed
sunrise

and lots
of red
lipstick

and no cigarettes left
in the last
cigarette machine

known to

woman


it's six am
and yes

I am wide
awake

whit howland © 2021

Every day I strive
to radiate

the power
of a thousand suns

I fight the good fight
no matter how much

my mind says
it's a losing battle

and tries to saddle me
with the yoke of self-doubt

whit howland © 2021

Actually
white at the knees

the place where
you used to cut them off

and let them
live a second life

as shorts

They're in a much better place
now

flying steady
against a steel gray sky

and soft white
clouds

and the more they
soar

the more they
shed to

just essence
ideas and current

flowing through
the telephone wires

Whit Howland © 2019

start from the opposite end
and peel away the skin
in one piece

a simple art
and after that
it's really not hard

just eat
and heal

With a pointed hat
ruddy face
and a frosty beard

you take me back
to a past
of fried bologna

cheese Wonderbread
and mayonnaise and
in the end

I am left
with following
conclusion

you truly are
what you ate

all those years ago

No more test patterns
at 2 am

or TV Snow

the world
is open all night

a convenience store
for the mind

replete with chips
Ding Dongs Twinkies

and don't forget
soda pop

whit howland © 2021