First Shoots of Spring —a poem by Howie Good

First Shoots of Spring

1
Blood-crazed warriors
in weird green headdresses
leap out of the dark past.

2
Pushing again
and again,
just the very,
very tips
emerge,

knife-points
so small
they’d be easy
to overlook

even though
tinged red

like old
and slightly rusted
heartaches.

_

Howie Good is a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, the author of five poetry collections, and a Contributing Editor for The Commonline Journal. His most recent book is Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. Other books include Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press, Strange Roads from Puddles of Sky Press, and Death of Me from Pig Ear Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. Access his blog Apocalypse Mambo.

Belated Elegy for a Tough Jew —a poem by Howie Good

Belated Elegy for a Tough Jew

If it were now,
you would’ve gone
to the police,

but there were
no laws then,

just this guy
in a leather jacket,

and when you
wore that,

nothing bad
could happen
to you.

_
Howie Good is a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, the author of five poetry collections, and a Contributing Editor for The Commonline Journal. His most recent book is Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. Other books include Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press, Strange Roads from Puddles of Sky Press, and Death of Me from Pig Ear Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. Access his blog Apocalypse Mambo.

Neither Sun nor Death —prose poetry by Howie Good

Neither Sun nor Death

They are beating the cars with metal bats. I think, “Am I supposed to be here?” That thing is on fire in a big way. I don’t get outside as much anymore. An illegal string offset “echo” has disappeared into the archive, to be handled by only people who wear white cotton gloves. I’m left to just cry. You need to be careful in interpreting that. Every day I confront the same choice: stay inside or perish. Somebody grabs Suzanne’s hair and twists her neck. We make eye contact. I know tulips aren’t spelled two lips.

_
Howie Good is a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, the author of five poetry collections, and a Contributing Editor for The Commonline Journal. His most recent book is Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. Other books include Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press, Strange Roads from Puddles of Sky Press, and Death of Me from Pig Ear Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. Access his blog Apocalypse Mambo.

The Apocalypse Cha-Cha / Howie Good

Photo: David J. Thompson

Often eyes become red, and all because four-hundred bullets per minute go roaring off on joyrides. That’s when I start thinking, Whatever happened to the right to be lazy? The world has developed a taste for the miserable, the beheaded Christian prisoners who can’t quite get things together. There’s actually a kid in full goalie pads outside the Stop & Shop collecting money for a pantheon dedicated to them. He might be better off if he’d been shot in a fracas and instantly killed. My life also seems kind of Laurel and Hardy, a kiss of fire accelerant, the whole jamboree vulnerable to the odd stick of dynamite. Souvenir hunters won’t even bother to wait until the ashes cool before they begin searching through the wreckage.


___
The Writer: Howie Good's poetry collections include The Complete Absence of Twilight from MadHat Press and Fugitive Pieces from Right Hand Pointing Press.

The Photographer: David J. Thompson's photos have appeared in a number of on-line and print journals. His website is ninemilephoto.com.

lifeboat— a poem by Howie Good

We were rowing for the shelter of the island. 
“Paper or plastic?” passing birds taunted. 
I stood up to look around – nothing in sight, 
not even a heart at least a little ashamed of mankind.
My bones cracked when I sat back down. 
So this is how a hero dies, I thought. 
You had an unsaid apology on your lips 
and one leg already over the side.

___
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Middle of Nowhere (Olivia Eden Publishing). With Dale Wisely, he co-edits White Knuckle Press, a publisher of digital chapbooks.

End of Day | by Howie Good

George, the quiet Beatle, arrived back
in the Subcontinent by submarine
to avoid the press. The movies emblazoned
on the marquee had just been changed.
At an empty bus shelter, night, naked,
forced to wait, was carrying a long metal pole
and the leftover black plastic letters.
The H-bomb had only one thing to say
because it could only say one thing,
not nighty-night, but howdy-do.


___
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of five poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004), Heartland (2007), and Apocalypse Mambo (forthcoming) from FootHills Publishing, Strangers & Angels (2007) from Scintillating Publications, and the e-book, Police & Questions (forthcoming), from Right Hand Pointing.

'INTERIOR THEATER' a poem by Howie Good

Who but you would love
the clutter of meaningless detail,

the way the sun wriggles
on ripples of water?

I can say nothing about crying
that someone hasn’t already said.

A shadow,

expecting to find only a child at home,
climbs the stairs

with a mouthful of nails
and a cold-forged hammer.


_
Howie Good is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011).

'SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE' a poem by Howie Good

1
We were children together
licked by the dog

with the black tongue

scattered rows
of lighted windows
looking away

a bloody ax
at any given moment

among the tools
in the backyard shed

2
We went to live quietly
except for hunters

and church bells
in one of the rectangle states

a necklace of red berries
discovered around her neck

what I’d been doing until just now
between tiny heart attack


_
Howie Good is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011).

'(BELATED) ELEGY FOR BRAUTIGAN' by Howie Good

A woman from Tacoma
screams your name
while having drunken sex

with a stranger.
The stolen painting hangs
in the house next door.

Trout dapple the Pacific Northwest
like the silver sound
of Chekov’s phone ringing.

It’s a little early to think about dinner.

The stuff your mother threw out
would be worth a lot of money now.

'SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT' & 'SONG IN A MINOR KEY' by Howie Good

Scene Of The Accident

1
A nurse in white clogs hurried along the corridor. She had
to give the boy with the cuckoo clock heart a sedative.
His family stood around the bed like awkward strangers.
The doctor, a smoked-down cigarette between his fingers,
had excused himself. He had been trained to observe the
observable. The dusk was all old doors and blank windows,
a memorial to lost seamen.

2
The crowded elevator disappeared between floors.
Pedestrians stood weeping at the crosswalk. She still
loves you, said the old man walking a dog on a rope. I
smelled the salt of the nearby tears. It took two or three
matches before the light would stay lit.


Song In A Minor Key

Love bends like light around found objects,

a destitute white Ford, say,
with one red door and Florida plates,

while the shadows invite themselves,
the echo of the sun going down,

police marksmen in the windows.



Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 20 print and digital poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Lovesick, published by Press Americana.

Issue #014 - Winter 2010/2011

Essay

Blasting the Cannon: Hip-Hop Poetics, Race & the Ivory Tower - Michael Cirelli

Poetry

People Circle Overhead - Pikthall
Water All Around Us - Rebecca Schumejda
Riverrun the Ladder - Elizabeth Kate Awitaj
Nina Sing - Ra Scion
Helicopter - J. Michael Wahlgren
Latter-Day Western Hero - Dennis Wilken
Thief - Brad Bisio
Last Note & The Eighty-Six Year Old Sex Offender - Justin Hyde
Around the World - Ivan Jenson
Loose Shopping Carts - Bhalachandra Sahaj
Crossword Cannibal in C-Major - Kyle Hemmings
The Chief is Pissed, Get Off the Boat - Dave Migman
Trash Nest - Adam Moorad
Even - John Grochalski
Citizen Pain - Ivan Jenson
Diagnosis - Antonia Clark
Geometry - Lydia Suarez
Distance - Joshua Berida
Scene of an Accident & Song in A-Minor Key & Belated Elegy for Brautigan - Howie Good
Storm Surge & Abigail's Slump - William Doreski
Excavation Theory - Daniel Romo
Sealed - Noel Sloboda
Parking Lot Boys & Poisoned - Jeffery Kahrs
Mud - Micro Fiction by Calab JW Brasset
The River- Micro Fiction by Charles Watts
Leap - Micro Fiction by Jennifer Hurley