Howie Good is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.
AUTHOR BIO
1 Caution! Poet at Work I have spent many hours looking out my back door, waiting for something to happen, but nothing that would ever be considered a police matter, nothing even faintly suspicious, just for the best words to appear like pigeons strutting into view wearing tiny cowboy hats. 2 What Is Poetry? God’s image being restored, paint fleck by paint fleck, on the ceiling, the blue jay that keeps returning all morning with a kind of tragic dignity to the same empty feeder, and me, me, the day-old baby no one hears crying in the dumpster. 3 A Simple Prayer My mom went into the hospital 13 years ago today and never came out. Lord, protect me, so every morning I can sit by the window and start a poem. There’s a beauty in inventing things that serve no purpose.
WINTER SOLSTICE
1 Small white envelopes blowing all about, some torn open and already empty, but others with invitations to a children’s party forever sealed inside. 2 The town clock is frozen at half past, but no matter the true time, or where, at this very moment, we think we are, you, me, even people we don’t know, we’re all together in the same place, under the overhang of a sheltering tree. It’s what makes the dark so dark.
