The Wind

Somehow we were always expecting something like this to happen, a strange wind off the Atlantic, moaning and cursing and full of old hurts, tearing the shingles from roofs and flinging the birds against windows, threatening to fling us, too, into another country, where there are unexpected roadblocks and frequent document checks and coked-up child soldiers with machine guns cradled in their skinny arms and more and more people given a kick and a shove and warned to move on, a pretty crappy way to die, when we might have all just stayed together under a green tent of leaves.

Season of the Witch

The weather hasn’t been cooperating. When the temperature drops, New Englanders proudly display the millstones that were used to crush Giles Corey for being a witch. I’ve started sleeping with a knife under my pillow. The purpose has eluded you, though I’ve explained it several times: I had to cross the creek by tiptoeing over a rotting tree, and now wherever I go, I leave a trail of mud behind. It all comes from the same place. The place could be everywhere. Once a day, there’s a burst of activity on the shore, the premeditated murder of bees and flowers.

Howie Good is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).

First Look

i saw you for the first time

pressed against the inner wall
of mother’s womb your forehead
meeting the dark         eyes black circles without sight

they brought your life to me
on a colorless screen
vibrating
at the sound of your heart

i could make out a mouth
from which i pretended a faintest
smile

they pointed to shadows
feet above head     blocking clear view of spine

the first disobedient act

they told me here are the
hands feet legs arms lungs intestines
your ribs

i watched a profile obscured
by machinery and graphs
numbers and name removed from the reality of
fingers lips nose
toes

i was left on the outside removed
i was left to be propelled through
time and space           confronted with your
burgeoning life

their proof was a starmap of your every
inside every outside every
move

your future place

as evidence they gave me a
glossy image of bones

and some of the coins were black

america

a lot of people pick up your change in the street

you’ve suffered for those many

                                                   likes

a fucking multitude of pain

children in cages are paint by numbers

the scene

                 is enraged deceit

my money is on the subtle march of time
and you say who gives a fuck

we got guns
and an invitation to a barbecue

charring the bones will rid you of any bodies

and clear out the stench

a mouse carcass on my stoop

                                                impregnated by flies

it looks on a map like your full hips
your round lips

                          your bulbous shape

I vomited on it

                         before I could clean it up

I fondled the coins deep set
in my pocket

                      I just now

remembered to wash
my hands

Tom Pescatore can sometimes be seen wandering along the Walt Whitman bridge or down the sidewalks of Philadelphia’s old Skid Row. He might have left a poem or two behind to mark his trail. His first novel the Boxcar Bop is out now from RunAmok Books. He claims ownership of the poetry blog: amagicalmistake.blogspot.com.