Tag: Howie Good

Fail better

1
Is this your career?
Seriously?
Get a real job!
Writing postcards doesn’t count!

2
Turn up the television.
Anyone can do it.

3
I don’t get it.
The window has shut.
Don’t you even care?
Success depends upon money!
Asides must be dumped.

4
Your house is burning.
We’re out of vodka.
Your document is blank.
It’s a good start.

(Entries from spoil a writer’s mood in 4 words competition. Submitted by Howie Good)

Revolutions #12 & 35

Every revolution
is a throw
of the dice.

Only violence
helps where
violence rules.

Who are
we anyway?

Eyes that
do not want
to close
at all times

when the green
of the earth
glistens anew.

(Translations of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet film titles, in MoMA member calendar. Submitted by Howie Good)

Letters to God

A great deal of my mail
comes from fans – fans of all ages.
The scholarly, the curious,
the disbelievers write and ask

how? why? when? what for?
did you fly? melt? scream? cackle?
appear? disappear? produce?
sky-write? deal with monkeys?

etc., etc., etc.

(Actress Margaret Hamilton quoted on Hyperallergic. Submitted by Howie Good)

Some Sort of Shining

I can still see the bright-crimson glow.
This wasn’t any ordinary fire,
It was some sort of shining.
I’d never seen anything like it in the movies.
That evening everyone spilled out
onto their balconies
and those who didn’t have them
went to friends’ houses.
We were on the ninth floor,
we had a great view.
People brought their kids out,
picked them up, said, “Look! Remember!”
They stood in the black dust,
talking, breathing, wondering at it.
People came from all around in their cars
and their bikes to have a look.
We didn’t know that death could be so beautiful.

(From Voices from Chernobyl. Submitted by Howie Good)

Hell is a State of Mind

I am a man at home folding my wife’s delicates.
Outside, there’s a ruckus, as usual.

It begins with the flies. Noisy, black flies.
I do not know exactly when…

Most certainly stop in and say I heard this story
about a city of red fire growing from your head,

hooligans dressed in red and white everywhere,
a kingdom of messengers with no king.

(Descriptions from the writing page of Submishmash 29 October 2015. Submitted by Howie Good)

Rust Belt Americana

Searching for Pittsburgh
Going there
To see if something comes next
Finding something
How to love the dead

A year later
Explicating the twilight
What is there to say?
A ghost sings, a door opens
The container for the thing contained

Older women
Carrying torches at noon
Tear it down

The white heart of God
Almost happy

(From the title index of The Great Fires. Submitted by Howie Good)

Blind Man’s Bluff

It may be some days before
relatives or nursing staff
stumble onto the fact that the patient
has actually become sightless.

The patient ordinarily does not
volunteer the information
that he has become blind,
but he furthermore misleads
his entourage by behaving
and talking as though he were sighted.

Attention is aroused, however,
when the patient is found to collide
with pieces of furniture, to fall
over objects, and to experience
difficulty in finding his way around.
He may try to walk through a wall
on his way from one room to another.

Suspicion is still further alerted
when he begins to describe people
and objects around him, which,
as a matter of fact, are not there at all.

(MacDonald Critchley on Anton–Babinski syndrome. Submitted by Howie Good)

The Shores of Tripoli

1
Never sell the bones
of your father and mother.
Every damn fool thing you do
in this life you pay for.
The bastards tried to come
over me last night.
I guess they didn’t know
I was a Marine.

2
Is it not meningitis?
All right then, I’ll say it:
Dante makes me sick.
Damn it! How will I ever
get out of this labyrinth?
Useless … useless …
My vocabulary did this to me.

3
Don’t ask me how I am!
I’ve got the bows up … I’m going!
I understand nothing more.
The bastards got me,
but they won’t get everybody.
This is the fish of my dreams.

Last words from Wikiquotes. Submitted by Howie Good.

And That’s What It’s All About

Notes, instructions, etc.,
ring in the wee hours,
or while ill or forgotten,
robotic programming
for doing the hokey-pokey
Jackson Pollack-like.
There is no number one.
The only way he knew it’s got
to be a dance was finding
his cat covered in grits.
This makes me feel better.
That’s part of the mystery.

(A response to a friend’s Facebook post. Submitted by Howie Good)