These three poems by John T. Howard slither into conversations on childhood, parenthood, aging, sexuality, trauma, and overcoming grief…
by: John T. Howard
Ganymede
Ganymede was but a boy built
up to the size of moon & star
A cratered cup of flesh over
flowing the mythmakers in need
of thirst & satisfaction. His youth
ful body their prey. Their prayers
fingered through the slivers, the sleeves.
Taken from the hills. Plucked
the way olives are plucked. Or grapes.
A single morsel of pincered fruit
tight in the fingers. Pinned in place
to please & to pleasure as seen
by those who would have them
selves witnessed as the makers of gods.
On Seeing: A Diptych
1. The Naked
There were women
in my youth. There was
a boy in my youngest
days. There were shirts
pulled up over necks
& head. There were
fingers slid into
the slimmest ravines
Young passages
echoing of life ever
lasting through lick
& lunge. There was
heat of breath & fire
of breathing. Slick
sheen of botched
enterprise. Oil off
the flesh-bound muuuh
chinery of night. Broken
hours my desperate hands
hungered after. Hours
where the heart
as little drumming
boy’s erratic song
failed to find.
2. The Nude
Alone in the glass
reflection I feel
my body being: ache
watched & witnessed
The eyes about
these walls aging
a surveillance, an inner
signature made outward
This skin raised
to falter. Flesh as
symptoms without
seasons & song
Bones to break & broken
through time, hushed silence
such a shuddering
gag that can only be
the nudeness of a life soon
lost. & memories swept
off & so easily gone
they fall, they tumble
they have all
now disappeared
beneath a constant
fetch of outgoing
waves calmed
to stillness.
Letter To My Future Daughter
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
1.
A journey begins with a forest laid bare
vast regions hemmed in by a wall of stone.
Each tree a specter of its former self
a fallen body
yet risen. Look here, these fingers count
for echoes just waiting
to be heard things flesh borne.
Your reflection whole yet unwhole.
You simmer & seethe.
You will bleed. With enough kindling the fires lit
shall carry us all forward. Once, I knew a drowned
version of this body I still call home.
Once, an echo spoke of dead gods whittled down, abandoned just
before the arrival of gilded flowers, worthless
trinkets dragon-scented, purple-toned.
Death forgives
even the most unforgivable of sins. & I admit there was in me
still hope for wholeness. These arms not
your arms. This grasp unable
to carry you forward.
A burning thing hot to the touch. A white flare—
Fatherhood as failure sung. Taste of dirt & ash so common
place the writhing of worms
misunderstood.
Each simple task redefined as penance
from grief.
Each hand a plucked eye, a fallen fruit flattened & forgotten,
blossomed arms gone
gone dry & gone for good
From a dead bird, I came to understand the necessity of feathers.
From its crumpled wing,
I learned a muffled cry.
2.
If we are given to echoes, then echoes
we must learn to be. If anything
the loudness of my father’s voice your father’s too. This skirt
of unwanted foliage hemmed in
all about us
a mirrored place filled with hand
held sorrow.
That I can remember
that news that early hour heard years ago
a minor miracle: The fingers my mother’s womb chose to grind.
The leg nearly lost as well. The toes redacted. A red sunset
bleeding out nostalgia & refusing
to sanction off
wholeness from one
generation the next. These sacred
hours such lies. This holy tooth, this jawbone hallowed
bone fragments absent cloth
wrapped & other golden
relics made necessary by incunable
hours of senseless
scripture hand bled into early pages.
No space as holy
as that empty space
carried forth to fill
with all the many names of flowers
& all those trees. The birds, their colorful feathers, their morning clatter.
There the wall sits not still but grows, engulfing
so much more
of the forest & beyond
the sea
nothing to hem in the hugeness
of such spaces
those fields so full of promise
the mind’s sway
& the heart’s bitter ache for more
to follow
each word learned
each lesson I hope
you outwardly devour.
John T. Howard is a Colombian American writer, translator, and educator. He has served as Writer-in-Residence at Wellspring House Retreat and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University. His poetry can be found at Salamander, Notre Dame Review, PANK Magazine, The South Carolina Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere; he was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry found in Posit. His creative nonfiction is published with The Cincinnati Review. He resides in the greater Boston area with his daughter.
