An angel descended into the center of the city via a divinely sanctioned system of ropes and pulleys. “Who would you rescue if you could rescue only one – wife or child?” the angel asked the men he met. He beat more than a few to encourage them to answer. “I’d much prefer to be drinking coffee,” he assured them. The less resilient chose suicide, the darkness so thick they couldn’t tell what was grabbing at them with big, meaty fingers.
Not for Nothing.
Can’t quite get things in focus? Some perish before they ever can. One small hint: if birds are talking Dutch, don’t interrupt. It’s the birth of the impossible, something just for elderly tourists fumbling with camera phones. Why perhaps Venus remains yellowish and pockmarked, but, after dark, easy to mistake for a star.
Unfaithful Servant.
An old young man in a stained T-shirt lurches out the door of the Church of Holy Shit! “Mister,” he calls, “got sixty cents?” I can’t quite decide the right thing to do. The street is crawling with spies and assassins, and all because of a faulty chemical switch in the brain. It’s like a story from the Bible, God betting Abraham which sugar cube a fly would land on.
Howie Good is the author of The Loser’s Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize for Poetry from Thoughtcrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.
