Howie Good: Now That the Buffalo Are Gone

January 2011 | back-issues, poetry

THE YELLOW PENCIL

No matter how loud I shout, my voice doesn’t carry.
Only in old movies do the lovers escape on an ice floe. The night
supervisor, his face curiously flushed, whispers something I can’t
hear to the new girl working the line in the family pencil factory.
Later, the worn rubber nub of a no. 2 pencil erases what has just
been written.

NOW THAT THE BUFFALO ARE GONE

We were fighting the Indians in Florida. You said a
joke without a punchline isn’t a real joke. Why I always carry an
arrowhead in my pocket, I said. Children passed over the hill, a
coffin covered with wildflowers, but Thoreau only came out when
there was a fire downtown. The tall ships of the China trade
returned empty. It was a sign of something, like a face shaded by a
wide hat.

STILL BURNING

I pass an hour rearranging chunks of the alphabet.
Distant tramping rattles the window. I wave to our mailman. He
doesn’t wave back. The furniture scuttles sideways in any room the
squad enters. They take away the neighbor who mowed his grass at
night. Buildings are still burning. I should think about something
else – island women, naked to the waist, kneeling down to bathe
their wounded eyes in the river of dreams.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO

The farts of a hopped-up Mustang echo down the
street. Sam Houston could use a shot of mescal right about now. His
hand trembles like a courier with urgent news. Under the tent, the
strongman lifting a barbell grunts. He doesn’t wish to discuss
anymore the dissonant modernism of his early work. Agents in belted
raincoats watch the border from nearby doorways. Although the sun
is out, the nine-spotted ladybug crosses undetected.

Howie Good is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Lovesick, and 21 print and digital poetry chapbooks. With Dale Wisely, he is the co-founder of White Knuckle Press.

Ines Rivera Prosdocimi: Poems

January 2011 | back-issues, poetry

Sitting in front of the pharmacy bar, he leans

his weight on the red countertop, one arm slung

over the top of his thigh, the other bumps

the stamp machine that promises to ring; tokens

he’ll use to pay the paper angels singing carols

down at him. Below the florescent light cutting

the tiled floor, the boxes within boxes, the small

thing he feels when the cotton of his hat

sinks down on his ears. He looks to the right, wanting

to see his face in the display case, alongside

the tiny porcelain figurine of a dog –

to be that small, that contained.

Brother Door

There are no hands tallying on the clock;

no train of interlocking gears pushing forth

when your palm slams hard, thrusting splinters

beneath the door to your room.

I gather pieces of glass, of mirror, imagine

your feet, the tiny silver blades in your soles, then look

through the key hole of this door and another and another,

until I can see: the pink of your mouth,

two porcelain birds still on your tongue.

Remember, when we were little, and bathing

together traced mole constellations across our backs?

Tonight, I’ll sleep at your door, rest at you feet.

Island lizards clawing the chipped white walls.

Rob Nadolski: No More

January 2011 | back-issues, poetry

No more hiding behind horsehair and wool,
thick as thieves. No more scratching obscenities into frosted
windows. No more teeth biting holes into our cheeks, chattering
away in a Morse code, damning the cold. Let us emerge from cabin
fever and pale skin. Let us absorb ultraviolet exaltation and
synthesize vitamin D.

A quick equinox, a simple solstice and we’ll
make a memory of bare foliage, colorless vistas, ice related death.
We’ll meet in a park and together burn our mittens, scorch tinsel
and garland glittering with smug holiday joy, shred furnace filters
and dance around all their flying bits.

Winter, you tried to kill me didn’t you? You
came without warning and brandished a predictable arsenal. Ah, but
your frost is no match for spring’s relentless onslaught of floral
plumage and sweet air, moist as pound cake.

No more. No more knit hats and heavy boots.
No more dead batteries and slick sidewalks. Let’s send microchips,
send satellite dishes spinning into the night. Let’s find reasons
to be lakefront, hillside, streetwise frontiersmen and
petticoat-clad pioneer women.

You are banished. Pack your things and scat.
May your exile be longer than elephant memory. Long and complete.
And while you’re away, we will be picnicking on checkered blankets,
oblivious as trees. We will be searing flesh, fish and mysterious
tubed meat on smoky grills. We’ll be pitching tents and raising
flags and launching rockets from bottles. We’ll be Japanese
gardening and beer gardening and laughing righteously.

So please, enjoy your respite. No more
breathing solids into the thin cosmos, no more zero visibility. Go
away and only come back when I’m ready for you.

Derelictions

October 2010 | back-issues, poetry

The Digital Conversion box in my head

Gets distracted by errant traffic upstairs.

Keith David: Narrator of all our lives,

pleasantly reciting all our yesterdays, for the right price.

Ken Burns all around. Ubiquitous. Educating Me.

Helping me think American.Now that the sun, having indeed set, I

no longer a true Englishman.Having learned to be a stars and stripes liberal. Now I know all about

Baseball

The civil war

our national forests

World War Two

Jazz

Abraham Lincoln

Louis Armstrong

The faces of critics and experts. Their wiseness.

Stanley Crouch’s football head.

The nasal whine of Gary Giddins: (His voice which reminds me of a kid I punched for no reason whatsoever in school one day, because the timbre of his enunciation just irritated me)

Thank you all!I now own the boxed set. The book. The soundtrack. It’s like I know Hank Gates and Simon Schama. Now I can say, sincerely, at cocktail parties, with a straight face, that the two greatest betrayals of the Twentieth Century were The Pact of Steel and Dylan at Newport. Now can we all hold hands

Shake our bling and sing

“This Land is Your Land!!”

6 a.m.- 9a.m.

October 2010 | back-issues, poetry

The snow may be 9 1/2″ deep, but

I’m a resourceful He-Manly man, man.

Up at 5 a.m.

Layering layers upon layers.

I stagger around, puffy, prepared.

Stagger and sass, sass some more,

dawn dreaming in the inky dark.

As the sun slowly rises, grunting

like some 47-year-old ex-NFL quarterback,

I am the magnificent soloist maestro,

wielding my shovel heroically,

I dig a moat around my mansion,

clear the way for my wife and her wee dark-green Honda.

Staggering back inside, I take off some of my layers,

wake the kid, kiss the wife goodbye,

bulk up our bellies with oatmeal,

dress him in layers, vaseline his tiny gob and cheeks.

I relayer myself, and then we go for the bus.

Two grand staggerers on an epic intrepid Dr. Zhivago walk,

bobbing and weaving through dirty gray snowbanks,

which have fresh crunchy snow layering their tops, and,

really, I wouldn’t mention the frozen dog shit,

except it’s fucking everywhere,

so that 31st is a toxic knickerbocker glory.

When the bus arrives, its engine stuttering as it vibrates against snow banks

I climb up the dirty mountain, lift the boy up and over

and nod at my fellow warrior, the bus driver.

Once home, I peel off my layers. Blow

my nose so hard it hurts my ears,

savor a cup of tea, listen

as my knee cartilage creaks. Listen

as my neighbors struggle to start their engines. Listen

to the ranting on Sports Radio. Wonder

at the warm wire I feel through the muscle in my heart.

Struggling up the stairs, turning up the heat, I

run a bath, spit out snot and get naked.

I bathe, ponder my aging balls.

Look at the clock: 9 a.m.

Now it’s under the covers and

sleep.