My Dark Ages
Black clouds mass over a rotting city. The police patrolling in battlefield gear eyeball you. Under the closeness of their scrutiny, you can feel your face assume a guilty expression. Later you’ll complain to me about it. “Oh yeah?” I’ll say. “Try going through life as a Howard.”
&
Christ is murdered over and over, a crime gorgeously lit in stained glass. Do we know what we look like? Not really. The voice of the turtle is too faint for human ears.
&
This is the one road that goes everywhere. Some days I walk it to think, some days to actually get someplace. I’ve been thinking about the hateful looks my father would give me growing up. “What are you, stupid?” he would hiss. It’s strange how much darkness a person can absorb and still function. Van Gogh, the morning before his suicide, painted a garden scene full of sun and life.
*
Failed Haiku
1
Blank page on my laptop
A tree still waiting for leaves
2
A hazy childhood memory
The dense, swirling fog
in which a killer might lurk
3
Passing clouds
cast fugitive shadows
over a hayfield
Lines for a poem
that vanish on waking
4
Bright red patches
on the wings of blackbirds
Christ’s wounds
5
Your inner child
A figure pursued across the ice
*
Howie Good is the author most recently of the poetry collection Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing).
