Poetry | Autumn 2022

Whitman in the Smoke

by Jack H. Gehlhoff

Don't you wish you found Walt Whitman in the smoke? 

Before the lights came up? 

Before you went blind? 

Everyone said he’d be here because everyone is here. 

Did they stop dancing yet? 

Did they finish the speech you heard through the window screen? 

There’s a constant feeling that no-one is looking for you. 

Can you acknowledge your ridiculousness in the dark? 

Can you pick a focal point? 

There’s no point in pointing such a poisonous goddamn finger, we’re all in the same boat. 

Are you able to hear the goodnights from the student balconies? 

Are you comfortable in your makeup and cheap suit? 

Inside someone is crying into a cup about lost time, it’s nothing new. 

Is there a myth you can grab hold of in the dark? 

Is there a reason to be out this late on a Sunday? 

There will be a sun someday somehow somehour. There must be value in staying up for it. 

Who is who that you listen to? 

Who is on aux? 

Bass seems synthetic; emptied of its familiarity now and again. 

How do you justify using your frozen hypothermic steps to search for a lighter? 

Is there value in cheap allusions? 

Everything the night touches is young, so they say. 

Did you get lonely on that balcony yet? 

Did you get the coats from the car?

There are plenty of fears to fill tomorrow; for tomorrow. 

Don't you wish you found Walt Whitman in the smoke?

Jack H. Gehlhoff is a writer, visual artist, and musician from Millbrook, New York, who currently lives in Buffalo, New York. His work has previously been published by Same Faces Collective and the University at Buffalo’s NAME Magazine.