Howie Good is the author of The Loser's Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from ThoughtCrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.
***
1.
The Obscenity of
Understanding
I heard shouting through the window.
Screams. Commotion. Then the sound of gunshots. I know what a gun sounds like.
It was bang-bang-bang. I thought, “Get out of here. The person you love will be
somewhere, there, standing last in line.”
*
Goodbye, my children! People are dying. I
just couldn’t look the other way. The data have made me worried about the
communities directly exposed to robots. Michael told me one time: “Rebels go to
church.” The Venezuelan rich kid has certainly never been a suicide bomber. I’m
just not sure I can promise that today. What you want is to get back what
you’ve lost. It won’t ever be back the same.
*
Just because I’m older doesn’t mean that
I’ve stopped wanting to be with someone. It doesn’t mean that I’m dead. I was
just crossing the street and, obviously, her Afro is just amazing. Her scarf,
the way it is blowing in the wind, I thought was just so beautiful. You can
really feel her walking toward me and past me. And then I was like, wait, what
am I doing? It was kind of dark outside. They usually let us know that ahead of
time.
Seed texts:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/world/europe/uk-westminster-parliament-shooting.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/fashion/seen-on-the-streets-fashion-mavericks-a-stylish-couple-and-fran-lebowitz.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/fashion/ann-margret-doing-at-75-still-playing-the-girl-next-door-zach-braff.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/world/europe/carlos-the-jackal-terrorist-paris-drugstore-attack-.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/upshot/evidence-that-robots-are-winning-the-race-for-american-jobs.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/world/middleeast/engulfed-in-battle-mosuls-civilians-run-for-their-lives.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/nyregion/brooklyn-kosher-pizza-war-rabbinical-court.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/nyregion/new-york-city-subway-track-basketball.html
***
2.
The Inner
Telescope
Imagine
we find ourselves floating.
The
experience – maybe even 60
to
70 percent of it – is the sounds.
These
tiny little specks of pepper
in
the sky will emerge, and then
they’ll
drop down, become cranes,
and
they’re here. But by the third
day,
you’re going to start asking other
kinds
of questions. Behind every
da
Vinci, Velázquez, Goya or Picasso,
there
are countless dead rabbits.
And
we are still killing each other,
so
maybe there hasn’t been so much
evolution
after all. We point a telescope
to
the stars. But this is a telescope that
from
the stars we point to ourselves.
Seed texts:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/arts/design/eduardo-kac-inner-telescope-space.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/science/sandhill-cranes-nebraska-platte-river.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/world/europe/bolzano-italy-iceman-south-tyrol-museum-of-archaeology.html
***3.
Endless Wars in
Far-off Places
My grandmother’s green 1979 Oldsmobile was
going down the street on a cold January night, Linda Blair in the back seat
spinning her head to turn around to watch me. Guys in robes were playing one
note for an hour with a wall of amplifiers. I wanted to end composing, get rid
of it. I wanted it to die out. In 50 years, we might not have those elephants.
Looking at the Earth would be amazing.
*
The doorbell rang. I looked through the
peephole and saw two men in hats. They asked for Hugo. I said he wasn't there.
Then we were on all fours, putting our heads under Hugo’s desk, smelling his
cigar box. Suddenly everything turned white. It was the most hideous thing. I
learned how scary a mountain can be.
*
Once 3 o’clock hits, all the high school
kids are running the streets. I wanted to dance with them because once they
realize what’s happening, things change. I knew I had to produce some sort of
excuse, so I said, on the verge of tears, “I do believe we are moving at full
speed and maybe accelerating.” But aside from finding a dead Asian woman in a
suitcase, the story didn’t make a lot of sense.
*
I paint with blood, pigs’ blood. And it’s only meaningful in a state of
weightlessness. The pictures don’t exist. I don’t have them. This summer was
kind of insane. Everyone in the neighborhood wanted to blow their heads off. The
president promised this. He promised that people will die. It's a gimmick – fun
to do once.
Seed texts:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jean-rouverol-dead-blacklisted-screenwriter-was-100-988772?utm
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/theater/from-trump-to-grieg-a-terrifying-soundscape.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/world/asia/japan-avalanche-tochigi-deaths.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/science/fusion-power-plant-iter-france.html
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000004819836/duterte-philippines-when-a-president-says-ill-kill-you.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/28/italy-s-horrific-suitcase-murder-mystery-takes-a-troubling-twist.html
http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20161019/neighbors-sound-off-on-vile-street-performers
https://hyperallergic.com/365670/undocumented
***4.
Tornado Zoo
I don’t see myself as crazed or
bomb-throwing, though I could be if driven into a corner. We know we’re in the
presence of history when things are blowing up. People turning to crime in
desperation or out of frustration and anger. Frightened men on the run or
vengeful ones on the hunt – when did that ever go out of date? It’s like, remember who we are, remember what
we did.
*
We need to look for a lost child. She’s 11
years old and wearing a brown coat. People are definitely paying more
attention. It’s funny, and it’s beautiful, and it’s outrageous. They’re asking
more questions. How does one sleep at night or get through the day? Three years
ago, we had to be very quick and loud. No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap
our children. We had no idea that people would come at all hours to take them.
*
We heard faint voices asking for help from
nearby houses but then the voices disappeared. I had this dreadful feeling.
Something was off with her and something was off with him. It was inevitable
that he did it. If he hadn’t done it, somebody else would have. We didn’t
understand at first who the skeletons could have belonged to. He let me know
that he wanted to fix it, the robberies, the killings. It took too long to
happen. I said, “No, thank you.” Criminals are not clever. We hurtle down
rain-covered highways. We make sudden stops. We turn without much warning. I
call it “tornado zoo.” Spider monkey better win.
Seed texts:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/us/politics/justices-dig-through-1984-murder-weighing-withheld-evidence.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/29/us/storm-chaser-dangers/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-mosul-strike-idUSKBN1702NR
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/spirit-airlines-pilot-wife-found-dead-children-after-possible-overdose-n735086
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/world/europe/rome-skeletons-jewish-cemetery.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/us/donald-trump-chicago-rahm-emanuel-violence.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/nyregion/metropolitan-diary-looking-for-a-lost-child-on-the-train.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/arts/william-powell-anarchist-cookbook-writer-dies.html
***
5.
Infirmities
1
I
saw a black mass of smoke.
I
felt the fire touching me through my window.
I
heard a snap or a crackle.
I
saw the flames rising.
A
bird gave this to me because I freed her wing
from
a tangle of balloons.
2
Stranded
between one act and another,
jump,
turn clockwise,
cut
with the kitchen knife
through
the beer belly of the Republic.
The
more a visitor is willing
to
play in my nightmare,
the
more all of us will receive.
The
island sinks now, but it’s still there
just
beneath the waves.
3
They
came and knocked on the door.
Why
didn't you open the door?
My
daughter could have been in there bleeding.
I
can't keep doing this.
The
bridge is going to collapse.
They're
saying I have to walk,
but
it's raining and dark.
4
Whatever
happened here,
it
was at the wrong time, wrong place.
This
place is very dangerous.
I
imagined that there might be someone with a gun.
Crowded
places, we try to avoid.
Malls,
we try to avoid.
So
much is coming at us.
It’s
like watching your heart outside your body.
Seed texts:
https://hyperallergic.com,
3/31/17
http://www.ajc.com/news/traffic/collapses-after-massive-fire-the-entire-bridge-compromised
http://abc7chicago.com/news/7-dead-in-3-shootings-within-a-mile-in-south-shore
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/world/europe/turkey-kurds-crackdown-terrorism.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/fashion/mens-style/andrew-mccarthy-young-adult-novel.html