20161215

Howie Good


Tristesse
If you heard the Kalashnikovs firing on surplus workers, you gave no sign. You just glanced one way, then the other, before passing inside. It’s possible, even likely, that you experienced a delayed reaction, a kind of thunderstorm blue. You wondered aloud which famous rock star you are. Everything is art, you claimed, including the 20-minute headstand you do on your terrace each morning. Later, when your date arrived wearing a lovely dress of used tinfoil, she asked, “What made you want to look up ‘tristesse’?” You wouldn’t say it was the snakes and turtles that someone had dropped from a great height, but it was.


Blood Wedding

The guests at a wedding breakfast
reach for their swords and hack
the would-be groom to pieces.
This is funny, right? It’s all part
of the making. There is just too much
in the workings of the world
that are hidden and unknowable,
even by people with an education.
You can do a lot of stuff. We cope
with liquor and drugs and sex.
This is probably something we have
in common with small punk rock record labels.
Never talk to cops. Eat with your hands.
The best work should scare you.



Spyware
How could I have drunk this much and not be numb yet? Must be genetic. I have been drinking ever since last night’s dream went viral. There are no secrets allowed, and no do-overs either. It’s why I have left the lights off. The turmoil in the streets grows even greater when the names of common objects cease to sound unfamiliar. Soon everyone related to me will suffer the consequences. The man speaking outside my window insists that truth is a moving target. The woman with him is drenched in blood also.


My Dirty Life and Times

Impossible tasks attract me.
It’s good to create obstacles.

I, at least, don’t work well
without obstacles. To bring

the past back to the present,
the noises must become music.

The rest is telepathy.



Howie Good is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize. His latest book is A Ghost Sings, a Door Opens from Another New Calligraphy.

Blood Wedding is assembled from Entropy Mag's "50 More Quotes from 50 More Presses," 6/23/16.
My Dirty Life and Times is Assembled from Robert Bresson, Bresson on Bresson, Interviews 1943-1983, and Notes on the Cinematograph.
 
 
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