Saturday, December 5, 2009

Howie Good - Two Poems

JUST LIKE EDGAR ALLEN POE’S BLUES

I found my heart wandering
the streets of Baltimore,

penniless,
raving unintelligibly,

dressed in someone else’s clothes.
It was coming from a funeral,

or going to one,
and when I failed to ask whose,

it was gone.

But, all these years later,
mere acquaintances

continue to receive letters
begging for $10 for the fare home.



ALL THAT WAS LOST IS RETURNED

The TV was broken,
but my father kept turning the dial.

There was something he wanted
to watch that night.

At the kitchen table my mother
was drawing in her eyebrows.

Children I knew from school
lurched down the road

in the front of our house
with suitcases held together by rope.

It wasn’t dark, and then it was,
and the flames swayed

despite the lack of wind.
The poet gestured to me to follow him

over the high railing of the bridge.
I looked around for help.

A woman stood on the corner
with her hip thrust out.

Six years passed in a minute.
Such things are true if you believe them


Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 11 previous poetry chapbooks, including Still Life with Firearms (2009, Right Hand Pointing), Visiting the Dead (2009, Flutter Press) and My Heart Draws a Rough Map (2009, The Blue Hour Press). He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for the Best of the Net anthology. His first full-length book of poetry, Lovesick, was released in 2009 by Press Americana.

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