Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 15 poetry chapbooks and the full-length book of poetry, Lovesick, published in 2009 by Press Americana.
His second full-length collection, Heart With a Dirty Windshield, will be published by BeWrite Books.
Enjoy,
j
With you on top
and me on the bottom
and the lights out
but light everywhere
Many nationalities were represented.
The wind sucked at our pants legs,
Johnson & Johnson clouds.
We had no one to explain the difference
between despair and resignation.
I felt a diffuse fatigue,
and now anything can happen,
especially nothing.
I drove through the mountains
in the rainy dark, anxious to get here,
and now I’m sitting up in bed
reading a heartbroken poem
about the poet’s dead wife,
Michiko, her beauty like the wind
sometimes visible in the trees,
while my wife sleeps on
beside me despite the light
reflecting off the page.
The day I ran out of things to say,
it was fiercely cold. This isn’t yours,
is it? my wife asked, holding up
a lone black glove. Or is it?
My brother’s nice father-in-law
was dying in Ohio. I wasn’t there,
but for a long time, I stood
and watched a crow flying raggedly
through the blind maze of falling snow.
The moon enters in a dark overcoat.
It’s possible to see the suicide in people’s
faces, the slope of their shoulders,
the way their clothing is worn,
their gait. There are days – many, in fact –
fingers drum impatiently on the roof.
The stairs that lead up also lead down
to an iron bed, rumpled sheets, a photograph
of insomnia. And always the same ending.
I’m hunched over, tightening a screw
with the edge of a dime. It does a bad job.
I’ve been looking forward to showcasing some photography for ashowls for some time. I’m excited that the artist, Heather Schwendner, is so perfectly what I was looking for. Heather has achieved an impeccable balance between the mechanical and organic, and I love how she mixes technology and nature as easily as she switches from color to black and white. I hope to feature some of her excellent portraiture soon.
hope you enjoy,
j
