FIVE IN THE MORNING
As I lie sleepless in the semidarkness,
birds warm up their voices, & it occurs to me
that only birds know what birds are saying,
just as only you know how to make me crackle
& roar like the burning lab of a mad scientist.
THE SUICIDE PROJECT
1
Everyone
who knew you
knew you
loved guns,
& when
you pressed
the nickel-
plated barrel
of a favorite
under your chin,
the winos
drinking
in the shadows
of the park
stumbled,
& a bee
zoomed up
from the depths
of a flower,
a striped
spaceship
escaping
the monotonous
gravity
of Earth.
2
Death made
a black wreath
of its red
& wrinkled hands,
& you climbed through
into a garden
only moments away
& lighted by rain.
— by Howie Good
Copyright ©2012, by Howie Good. All Rights Reserved.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to a crisis center, which you can read about here: https://sites.google.com/site/rhplanding/howie-good-dreaming-in-red. He is also the author of numerous chapbooks, including The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers from Flutter Press and Personal Myths from Writing Knights Press. He has two other chapbooks forthcoming, Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press and The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press. Howie Good graced the front page of Spinozablue this past April.