Howie Good
Fear and Trembling (with Dale Wisely)
The clouds turn red, then sickly yellow, then red again. It’s only a matter of time before the burning flowers start falling from the sky. Nothing is safe – cars, houses, people. I want to tap everyone on the shoulder. I want to stop this guy and that guy and that woman, and I want to tell them, “You can’t be lost in your own world all the time.” Not when children are being kept in cages. Not when children are scared. Not when children are crying. The German chancellor crosses her arms in a vain attempt to hide her trembling.
Gumball Blue
“War,” the little girl says, “is when papa is gone.” If you look out the window, you too might see the horizon line fizzing like a lighted fuse. It began years ago. More and more words were allowed to choose their own meaning, and now we find ourselves surrounded by random fragments of abstruse codes. Don’t you think it’s time for a gumball machine that dispenses eyeballs? Everything else has failed – duty, honor, country. We need to have a conversation, decide on a plan, something, before unfamiliar birds visit us in our sleep, stripping dream bushes of every last berry.
A Whole Other Puzzle
What a windy day it is! Everything around rumbles, bangs, booms. I want to share it with you anyway. We watch the news, cops beating in some guy’s head, and can think of nothing that doesn't make us dark. My mom went into the hospital 13 years ago and never came out. Sometimes it just happens, a spontaneous shrine at the death site, a funeral procession of stuffed animals and roses. Lord, protect me from black flies, fog, gas station signs, laundromats, so every morning I can start a poem. There’s a beauty in inventing things that serve no purpose.
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