Ken Holland

Whale Oil and the Comedian

I understand the transport jet flying low
Over my condo has got rheumatoid arthritis
In its right wing and is doing all it can
To manage the pain in its approach to the runway.

I understand the carousel is suffering from
Tachycardia and unexpectedly finds itself spinning
At speeds that make the children scream out past laughter
On into the centrifugal sphere of terror.

I understand the lighthouse remembers the days
Its beam was fueled by whale oil and falls into a sadness
As darkly illumined as its own isolation, the long years
Since it’s felt the knowing hands of its keeper.

I understand the soil once knew every grain of its
Fertility, how the rain bound the parts into a whole,
When the chemicals of the earth shot across every synapse
With but one singular urge—creation.

I understand there are angels who binge watch
On plasma screens and during scenes of lust and
Murder draw their wings across their eyes, but otherwise
Wonder why they’re winged at all.

I understand my mortality is but a momentary punch line;
How, till now, the comedian has blessedly taken his time,
Smiling with one last pause of breath, the delivery dancing
On his tongue, knowing just how hilarious it’s going to be.


Dirigibles

Not every dirigible goes up in flames
Not every voice floats in the sky
In panic at having lost its way back to
The earth.

Except the ones that do.

I’m tired of God. Of seeing his name
In the smoke of combustible elements
Combusting immaculately. Nothing but a cheap
Party trick.

Like the one where he makes himself disappear.
Or the zeppelin.

Here. Here. Here. Gone.

I have this to say for myself: Survival
Has little to do with taking one more breath.
Has everything to do with why all the breaths
That have come before haven’t burned you down
To your frame.

Like a corset of whalebone. Charred to black.

There are some who look at a pattern of ash
For divination, and warn of an avalanche
That soon will slide down your mind, but no word
As to whether you’ll survive. That kind of insight
Will cost another twenty dollars. You may as well
Strike a match, set your mind on fire, and pull up a chair
To warm your feet.

What if someone had put a cold beer into Icarus’s hands,
Sat him by that fire so he could watch your thoughts
Spark every time the heat met the sap in the pith of the wood.
What if he never took wing. If he hadn’t filled his limbs
With the lift and loft of a flammable gas and rose toward
The sun the way we rise toward any hand that is open and enflamed.

What if he fell asleep unaware of the blanket you draped
Over his body. How it trapped the heat against his dreams.
How it was only those dreams that caught fire.


Way Station

Way stations are stations between
Where we started and where we intend to get.
They’re no more than a flicker between this breath
And that. They’re the moment you wake
From the sleeping echo of a conductor
Announcing the station’s name, a name
Like a fragment of ice placed in the warmth
Of your hand. How it startles you awake
To the clear current of its melt.

And the clear currency of that which is not meant
To be remembered.

And yet, here, the way station of Astopovo that harbored
Tolstoy’s pneumonia.

The way station of a Memphis motel
and the black rails of a preacher’s blood.

The way station of a day-bright classroom
And the lethally armed man who enters it.

The way station of the sea
And the migrants whose dreams drown in its waves.

The way station of my nephew’s youthful death
And the way his disease turned to look at me.

The way station of my brother’s breath
As it paused to touch the burial on a summer’s slender day.

The way station of fear and sorrow
From which we continually await our departure.


About the Author

Ken Holland, an award-winning poet, has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, and has had work widely published in such journals as Rattle, Tulane Review, Southwest Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The American Journal of Poetry and Tar River. He’s won/placed in a number of contests, including those sponsored by Naugatuck River Review and the Stephen DiBiase competition. He lives and breathes in Fishkill, New York.

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