This squished can
has been lying
in the road for days,
getting repeatedly
run over,
so that now it’s just
a small flat disk,
as unredeemable
but distinct
as any one of five
English words
(walrus, rhythm,
purple, angel, bottom)
without a rhyme.
—
Howie Good co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.
It’s 10 minutes after midnight
and threatening rain, and though
I’m looking out the kitchen window,
I can’t see anything, only the blur
of my reflection, and all around it
darkness, complete darkness,
but for a Death’s Head moth,
drawn by the one light still on,
crashing against the glass to get in.
—
Howie Good co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.
I have a memory of something that never happened.
And that isn’t even the best part.
“Hey mister!” a small, dark voice shouted,
because it was small and dark
and because anyone I would ever love
was clomping around upstairs.
—
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Dark Specks in a Blue Sky from Another New Calligraphy.
Exposure to long winters has erased the face
of the garden Buddha. I shouldn’t compare,
but Van Gogh also had most of his teeth pulled.
In the dark subzero hours of early morning,
I have been woken up by yips & squeaks,
coyote pups trying to keep warm. I lie there
and listen, & then I am no longer the color of tears.
—
Howie Good is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently Beautiful Decay from Another New Calligraphy and Fugitive Pieces from Right Hand Pointing Press.
That winter I walked and walked through the frozen, dreary streets as if I might outwalk my sadness. I missed you and your gentle strokes, your iridescent glance. What we once said would last forever lay toppled inside us. I searched everywhere there was to search, but had to settle for the knowledge that geologists who don’t predict a deadly earthquake aren’t killers.
—
All proceeds from Howie Good’s latest book of poetry, Fugitive Pieces (Right Hand Press), go to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. Visit Right Hand Pointing Books to learn more.
The top stories today are hacking and theology. That would explain the relentless spiral of hallucinations in which the bones of your mother and father have been incorporated. Dammit! Why ask me how I am? You’re the one overwhelmed by electronic exposure to the rest of the world. A disturbed childhood with acne and big red hands follows you almost everywhere you go. It’s why I avoid lingering while you try to hang a fallen apple – is that a bite taken out of it? – back on the apple tree.
—
All proceeds from Howie Good’s latest book of poetry, Fugitive Pieces (Right Hand Press), go to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. Visit Right Hand Pointing Books to learn more.
