Two Poems by Howie Good

Anarchy in the USA

If there are rules, no one here
has bothered to learn them.
My first thought was, “Run!”
Others chose suicide. Soon I was
stumbling around like the bad kids
who huff glue. Mothers dumped
raw meat out into the street in protest.
Sirens began to woo-who, woo-who.
I was in a headspace that felt dreamlike,
and that was pricked with stars
I couldn’t identify, 50 by last count
and all of them always promising
to return to their prescribed orbits.

​



The Loser’s Guide to Street Fighting

​It’s 4 a.m. Your body’s trembling. After you die, it’s not yours anymore, anyway. Die knowing
something, a monster, a devil in his giant motor vehicle. That’s not quite what I want. You need
to leave. You don’t belong here.  Ooh you are going to fuck yourself. You can hear them — you
can hear the gas grenades all up and down the streets. The crowd is being pushed back, and the
gas is coming.

​


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Image - Chiara Stevani
www.flickr.com/people/stevanichiara/?rb=1
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
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Bio: Howie Good is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. His other books include A Ghost Sings, a Door Opens from Another New Calligraphy and Robots vs. Kung Fu from AngelHouse Press (both 2016).

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