It's been five years
since the Moon spoke to me
And I did my best to listen
and remember

I'd never been more lost
never felt more alone and confused
never been closer to death
than I was that year
Technically an accident
but living so recklessly
"accidents" become a near certainty
so I am not free of responsibility
I nearly ended my self

Grasping at straws for months on end
Clutching at any whispered fragment of hope
of a Way Out
One morning
I heard a news report
about an upcoming celestial event
a Total Lunar Eclipse
of the Full Moon
I barely noticed it
thought nothing of it
changed the channel
and landed on a cartoon
about the embodiment of the Tao
in the Spirit of the Moon
and something clicked
I know that click
I'm intimately familiar with that click
I have been my whole life
But it'd been almost a year since I'd last felt it
I thought it was gone
gone forever
but here it was again
from a news report
and a cartoon
a cartoon!
of all things
but unmistakeable nonetheless
something about the Tao
and the Moon
and an eclipse

That night five years ago
the night of the eclipse
I didn't know what to do
I almost gave up
but I finally decided to go through with it
out of a sense of absolute desperation
I had nothing left
I might as well
At the appointed time
I took my posture
half-lotus in front of my altar
set flame to candle
and recel
I tried to relax
to let go
to empty myself
I found my Center Mind
and reached inward
to the Void
When it was time I let myself go
drifting up out of my body
flying through the atmosphere
floating in space
above the Earth
staring at the glowing white surface of the Moon
filling my vision
with cratered beauty
and profound grace

And I waited
I watched as a shadow crept across the face of the Moon
from East to West
as the Earth behind me
moved slowly between us and the Sun
And I waited
until the shadow blotted out the Moon entirely
leaving me in darkness
And I waited

And nothing happened

And I felt something inside me break
I had been so certain
that click had always meant The Way before
but nothing had happened
I must really be Lost then
so I gave up
and started to let myself fall back to my body

Just then
the eclipse broke
as the Earth continued on its Way
the shadow began to leave the face of the Moon
a brilliant crescent of white light blinded me from the eastern edge
and I heard a voice that was not my own say

All things that Are, are Change

As amazing as the experience was
a voice inside my head
that I did not recognize
I was still let down
What it had said was
hardly news to me
a paraphrasing of Heraclitus
"All things that Are, are Fire"
The only Constant is Change
Nothing is Certain
except Uncertainty
et cetera
I knew that
had been living it
for years
the purview of Chaos
Nothing is True
and Everything is Permitted
Kids' stuff
arm-chair mysticism
Tell me something I don't know
I said
And the voice answered

You cannot be Good
You cannot be Bad
You can only Be

And suddenly I knew
what should've been obvious
all along
Good and Bad are entirely subjective
just ideas
not Truth
their existence depends entirely
on our particular point of view
at any given moment
there is no single thing in this Universe
that is entirely Good
or entirely Bad
every single thing is both
Good and Bad
depending on your circumstance
your point of view
how you look at it
just as no single thing in this Universe
is entirely Yin
or entirely Yang
every single thing is both
Yin and Yang
that is the Way
that is the Tao

How had I lost sight of that?
What had happened to me?
I wanted more
I knew there was more
I asked the Spirit of the Moon
What else?
and Manni-Moon-Yin replied

Look on the Bright Side
Make the Most of it

Again it suddenly seemed so obvious
it followed naturally that
if all things are both
Good and Bad
then it must be our choice
to view them either one way
or the other
Joy is not a circumstance
Happiness is not an event
something beyond our control
that we must wait for
wait until it happens to us
No
It is a choice
it is something that we do
or don't do
So if there is Good in every single thing
then all I need to do
is choose to see it

Reeling
Overwhelmed
Overcome
Humbled
Awed
I asked
Is that all?
And Manni-Moon-Yin replied

You are Amazing
And so is Everyone Else

Human existence is
astronomically improbable
We should not exist
We are the end result
of a billion
one-in-a-billion chances
all coming up Jackpot
even the worst of Us
is an absolute ******* miracle of Nature
the most amazing thing in the known Universe
the Living Embodiment of Tao
a Human Being
an astounding accident
a chemical formula so complex
that it has become aware of itself
and I am one of them
and I should never lose sight of that
I am one of these ridiculously
outrageously
amazing pinpoints of sentience
and so is every single other person I will ever see
or hear
or touch
or encounter in any way
throughout my entire life
Each person is an Individual
and I can't know them
can't know their experience
or their circumstance
so it is unfair
and pointless
and rather ridiculous
to try and judge them
when we are all equally amazing
each in our own Way

I said Goodbye then
to Sifu
to Master
to Manni-Moon-Yin
and slowly fell back to Earth
back to my body
back to my self
anchored by Knowing
by finally Knowing
something
some True thing
again
with certainty
and clarity

To this day
I do not know
whose voice I heard that night
the Moon Spirit's
or my own
my Unconscious
and I don't care
it makes no difference to me
either way
because the words that voice spoke
are Truth
undeniable
inarguable
solid
foundational
Truth
and I will remember them
for as long as I live
and as long as I remember them
I will never again
be lost

an infant with still hands is said to be fingerpainting in hell.  a man who wears a hat to bed is said to give god hair.  a boy who strings up dead rabbits left and right is said to be fighting a toothache.  a girl who punches herself in the nose is said to be a plain woman who on roller skates entered a strange traffic of hearse and horse as two of her mother’s footsteps.

I have heard the tautologies of the rich,
the shifty and the shallow
when told of their impending fate
in a medical review

I’ve seen them torturing themselves
over the unfairness of it all
as though it were a deal, to negotiate.
But The Reaper always calls

They don’t go gently into that dark night
but not like that drunken poet meant
many pass with a look that begs
One question, was that it?

It was

To-day we have repetition of parts.
Yesterday we had yesterday, tomorrow morning, we have tomorrow morning.
but to-day, To-day we have the repetition of parts.
While spies under the guise of dark, disguise our art.
To-day we have the repetition of parts.

To-day we have retaliation of their arts, yesterday we had yesterday, tomorrow morning, we have tomorrow; mourning.
But to-day, to-day we have replication of parts.
Bright minds might find a start, but requital is the name of our art.
To-day we have a revenge on our part.

To-day we have the reappropriation of purple hearts,
yesterday we had yesterday,
and the morrows sorrow follow furrowed brows on our enemies part.
Harrowing barrows and gallows are swallowed, by the dark.
Redundancy is a common commodity of ours.

To-day we have a thorough reconnaissance of our purplish hearts, yesterday will bring young blood to further our course.
to-day we will re-vitalize their wars, and re-cycle their arms.
We will retaliate, for every heart they have scarred.
To-night we will light up the dark. Insha’Allah.

To-night we have reciprocation of parts; re-coil; re-load; re-align reticle,
re-coil; re-load; re-align reticle; re-coil; re-load; rinse and re-peat.
a place of peace seems preposterously far,
as we keep firing into the dark.
To-day we have reciprocation of parts.

To-day we have repetition of parts.
Yesterday we had yesterday, tomorrow morning, we have tomorrow morning.
but to-day, To-day we have the repetition of parts.

the social pace manic in its self-absortion, possession facing possession and what if
the world risks collapsing under the weight of its own irony:
a hedonic frame of mind so devoid of the ******* of life
the tyranny of desire is teaching **** to the naked eyes
a culture stops breathing if it can't let go of its desires to find them again
nothing to be destroyed cause everything is dismantling slowly

going right or left it's the same but not in any corner of the world
the leftovers of God, tautologies in a straightjacket,
cause one has meetings all day but no sleep all night
He/She/They colonize you with the scripture of profit
everything has its price on the expence of being enlivened
some don't have water, others too much of an illusion
some don't have peace, others have haute couture
some haven't eaten, others have molecular cuisine
some have the shelter of the sky, others listen to the echo of Big Bang
this logic of contrast is dreaming of the creativity of decay and
what if politics has become a narcosis, a  drunkenness of words,
while the wisdom of trauma is hidden in billboards,
the text says Politics of Happiness or Diserotica

the depressive society fools itself with the financial ****** of disconnected bodies in search of the last noise of the day
the space of the mind  broken by narrow horizons
the flesh and bone might turn into a virtual dimension

yet
the soul of the world flickers, it covers its solar plexus until we meet again as brothers and sisters of the trees
just because you feel good doesn't mean that
the world feels good too

Because it doesn’t matter,
Regardless of how hard we wish it did.
We fold our hands and say our graces,
But a better tomorrow never comes
Because tomorrow doesn’t wait
On us like we wait for it.

The soles of my shoes are worn,
And, tired as my footwear are the dreams
Which, being chased, wore these soles to dust.
I’ve run further and still travelled less
Than almost anyone I know.

But self-pity is the sloth of soul.
I refuse to cheat myself with
Empty platitudes and tautologies.
What I, and we, go through is not,
Cannot be, encompassed by the wrote.

We don’t climb trees to reach their heights.
We climb trees for the experience
Of having climbed, of having felt ourselves
Actively participating in and coalescing
With the world around us.

We find ourselves in relation to the infinite else.

Poorly phrased tautologies lie in the crow named ******.

Wanton airs of royal talk distort her lesson further.

Final wit; a shameless hit.

She caws as you consume her.

altered decency positive as provisions dedicated
tautologies in stated properties, indicators of philosophic
indecency, a plenitude of coins and even sources, a trick
of curiosity, means of kinesipathy celebrated
homogeneous deemed interests of objects, resources cultivated
anew, solid beginnings related to certainty mimic
kyriolexy, come puppets, committed to odd logic
and erroneous ideas, a spacial cases of opponents' rage unabated
and unrestricted, never matched never occasioned, external
perfection, pleasure, frustrated
hopes, a lack of evidence contributes
to predicaments, positive chances of infernal
balance, concordant with sardonic desires, kaleidoscopes
rarefying ****** opportunistic disputes

Buttered boards

sturdy frame

in front
a gi-normous
unapologetic
Holstien

next to it
big boot shiny spur

lassoing huckster
towers above
elicits tautologies

it is what it is
what you see is what you get
and either the steak is good
or it ain't

to further impress

broad  bold brush strokes
sells the tickets
moves the iron
and always wins the day

whit howland © 2019

if you can enter the coupon code without hating your life, Lulu is offering 10% off all print books today with said code of HUMPDAY10

~

below are some poems from ‘eating the animal back to life’ (July 2015):


[tautologies]

an infant with still hands is said to be fingerpainting in hell. a man who wears a hat to bed is said to give god hair. a boy who strings up dead rabbits left and right is said to be fighting a toothache. a girl who punches herself in the nose is said to be a plain woman who on roller skates entered a strange traffic of hearse and horse as two of her mother’s footsteps.

[first appeared]

father kicks me under the table
for biting
early.

a ghost hears thunder.

[notes to abuser]

I have had to tell time using only repetition.  there is a tattoo I want on a body I don’t.  I can see what you see in me.  none of my sounds echo.  I have a son.  I prepare for him past meals that leave nothing untouched hoping he’ll learn to chew on his own.  he has three rooms upstairs and three down.  when his bed can’t move, he says something to a door.

[immersion]

your attacker has a history of being baptized. identifies as male. was found hallucinating in a movie theater run by his father. we shot him not knowing he’d already been. his mother says his stutter is an act. she is what we call empty inside. you look like your father.

[onlookers]

I blow into the infant’s mouth as if I could prepare an echo for what’s about to happen.  in my dream I am turning on a flashlight that thinks it can scream.  in yours, reincarnation is all the brevity our lord can stomach.                  

[maker]

when I think about you

I don’t

[incarnate]

after we roll the dead dog from its towel and into god’s mouth

we take
for its tooth
a fly’s
grave.

satan’s kid continues to play chicken with a farm machine

in a slow
not still
life.

[exposure]

in a hotel bathtub
beneath a crooked
showerhead
two boys
on thumb war
number seven
are seen
by the same
hallucination
their colorblind
father
had
during
his dry spell, his bug
collecting
craze
when their mother
was the god
she went back
to being

[a photographic memory that applies only to acts of eating]

in the oar I broke on my brother’s knee
I found
a human
tooth.

here is a lamb
floating
in the reflection
of a star.

It is an easy enough thing
To prove: a man is not here
When he is gone: Whither
The wind.  The same may
Well be said of all points
Along his passage.  So brief
Now and here is its kin and
Equally likely to wander.  
Tight or loose tautologies do
Not stay the ship our departure
But there is more for we would
Linger yet captain still of every
Crossing seeking what will be
No matter what the whether-
It too shall pass as a certainty
Between now and then i am.





While Reading Conrad's "The
Mirror of the Sea"

**** and Tracy took a place
On The Hamptons, calling it home
By turns, monikers on kosher
The champagne placed around the thermometer
Keeping time with the temperate climate
I might come back to the ****** and drinks
The sundry of solutions to *** addiction and psychedelics
The *** seemed surreal when the *** was procreating half the time
Protection would have seemed better if I didn't touch strangers and lick lighters for the feudal lords
The candle's wet, make the night and the mind's made
The secular drive and ****** energy and transmutation is not plausible
With the conclusive evidence of lotharios and trollops
Puerile is really childish nature of a churlish metaphysic in the psychotic world
So get into the psyche, if you want a reprieve from tautologies impression

What are you
going to do

the last ones
in the joint

the chairs
pushed into tables

the bartender cleaning
glasses

a night cap
or resignation

that things
are what they are

as you let
those angelic questions turn to tautologies

if you
listen closely

the phone is ringing
it might serve you well to answer the call

© Whit Howland 2019

As a Poet,
  I don’t have to prove what I mean

Or reveal the pigmentation
  of colors that gleam

Or the height of an Angel,
  compared to a Man

Or whether the Devil,
  cannot or then can

As a Poet,
  I don’t even have to explain

The temperature of a sunrise,
  or a sorrow unplained

Or the width of my paper,
  the length of my pen

The fact that I’m sitting here,
  tautologies end

And thus as a Poet,
  I’m free to espouse

The beauty around me,
  without saying how

The magic that marvels,
  never revealing its trick

The hat with the rabbit,
  the joy in the mix

All Poetry a lens,
  through which others can view

Life’s focus e’er changing
  —each moment anew

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

‘I just started feeling like I was hurting you.’
Your narrative, not fine but okay.
If you want it then ask for it, don’t show off for me.
Cringe and grin, loaded questions, uneven answers:
Your ******* between my ears,
my rot at the center of your chest.

Your mind’s a weapon of my destruction,
my heart’s an insurgent on your tongue,
war crimes and an urge to confess sins
I’ve yet to commit but pray to.

Your conquest, my damnation,
my crown, your thorns.
The best laid plans of mice and wrens,
and all the flesh that must be shed-
******* it up again.

Diametric wonder like impenetrable alchemy,
'I just wanted to use the word penetrate.'
like I didn't know that; like I'm not flushed,
tripping and dripping at 'alchemy.'

A single shadow for two ghouls,
born from a short play and two ****** fools.
One grave, two lives,
one coin, two sides-
‘my head, your tail,’
poetic every second of every day.
Ease into this, okay? Sometimes it works out.

You’re not that horrible, you know what I mean.
The taste of something like a target ****** upon me.
You told me you love damaged girls,
and I’m unparalleled, all broken and brilliant,
all twirling, starting fires,
all strange and wonderful, relentless and ravishing;
already here, all ready here.

You told me I’ve never really played along,
but I played merry hell with our ransoms and struck more nerves than we thought I could reach.
I have plenty of your secrets,
and you’re the milk-silk viscera
weaving through so many of my poems.

Whiplash, so it comes to nothing.
Whiplash, and hardly a tool for self-harm.
How dare I turn your hollow eyes into a lens that looks back to me?
How many lives do I owe your blue and burning?
Whiplash, a quick, heart-drop minute, a long, wretched second.

‘I did not see that coming,’
listing tautologies, I have so many reasons
to believe you but I don’t.
‘The right thing is to walk away.
Not string you along, try to use you, ******* around,
all the things I want to do.’
and what are you actually looking for?
You imagine you’ll die before you find out.
It doesn’t have to be so hard.

I still think there’s hope under all the blood and terror,
the unholy mess and the violent red,
your commitment to torment and a stubborn that’s just stubborn.
I still think there’s a place where we can lay our weapons
in the grass, sign a treaty in the dirt, and call it a covenant.
I know there’s a place where our hands are clean
and the poetry isn’t tangled in throats and fists,
where the light is warm, the sparks are softer than you think,
and whiplash is just another way of seeing stars.

It may not take
        your breath away

the trees the piped in pond
of gray-green water
          as bland as
the idioms
          or
tautologies that inspired
them

        and

as equally flat
as the former fields
         of
tasteless feed corn

but maybe it's not
        beauty we need

just space
         to keep the crickets
 at bay

and oil the hinges
          on the screen door

making it less creaky

Whit Howland © 2020