POETRY: Howie Good, two poems

​Run Hide Fight

​
​Ambulances roam the roads in anticipation of random shootings. Yeah, every day. Many of us can’t believe we’re still alive. Run Hide Fight. It’s an intricate dance. You don’t want to fuck it up. 

                                                                                                       *

The crime tip hotline rings continuously. “Who’s the bad man?” the police operator asks. “What’s he look like?” He looks a little like one of the Twelve Apostles, the tallish one with dyed blond hair. The police may not catch him. He could still be here months from now, whispering to women on the street, “Your egg, my semen, we change the world.”

                                                                                                       *

Is it evening? The weekend? Another time when few people are around? I take a walk on the Boardwalk. A woman has strategically placed herself under one of the infrequent streetlights. “Tear here,” she says with a wink. I didn’t actually go to art school. So, to me, this is art school.
​

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​​I Know Tulips Aren't Spelled Two Lips

​
​Pushing again
and again
against
the weight
of a woeful
winter,
 
just the very,
very tips
emerge,
 
kind of
like knife-points,
 
so small
they’d be easy
to overlook
even though
tinged red
 
as if impossibly
informed
by a popular
history
of heartache.

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ABOUT THE POET

​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.