Howie Good 1 Sometime during the night someone redrew the town line with a length of string and a piece of chalk. There are footprints that might be clues. A detective in an ancient derby sighs and crouches down. Some of the footprints belong to the green gloom of evening, some to ambiguous silence. 2 It’s another day, but the detective is wearing the same tearful expression. Perhaps it’s the only expression he has. He shakes his head...

Howie Good 1 I hear crying. The crying goes on all night. My heart tries to sleep, but can’t. I watch it walk away. I watch for a long time. I watch my heart until it’s out of sight. It never looks back. It doesn’t wave. And then the street fills with bruised shoes and the invention of gunpowder. 2 My heart returns in a dark overcoat, the brim of its hat pulled low. It talks rapidly, but also with a stutter, like a tommy gun. The...

Howie Good True, but wouldn’t you rather jerk awake to the beating of invisible wings and later, if the light is right, watch a river scratch itself until it bled? And as to the example of those who keep their feet firmly on the ground, like a telephone pole, or a feeding trough, or a tombstone – when you’re in love, you’re happy to board the wounded plane last seen disappearing over the mountains and never heard from again. Howie...

Howie Good Birdsong alarm don’t cry I can feel broken idols change trains upturned hands forfeit fire uncle decay still trying shhh tree sleep Howie Good is a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the author of seven poetry collections, including Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks in print and The Torturer’s Horse (2009) from Recycled Karma Press online. He has been nominated three...

Howie Good Ever since logic fell into disuse, I wake up every morning in the same room but a different city, the buildings a bright blur, like something out of a secret policeman’s florid conception of heaven, a place where millions anxiously spy on each other from between their fingers and all you can hear is the yapping of small dogs. Howie Good is a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the...