WELCOME TO HARD TIMES
1
He was still a long way away when he limped into view. Maybe the airport was fogged in, maybe the disease was contagious. He rolled his suitcase over the railroad tracks, bumpity bump, drenched in the coldness of passing headlights. It was a little past midnight, an hour I once knew well. A woman with her throat slashed stepped out of the doorway and boldly offered the garish wound for him to kiss.
2
I had a job as a guard in the local museum of antiquities. On most days, the visitors were few, but serious. It may have been a mistake for the captain to order an extra tot of grog for his men. Sailors from the ship eyed the red fire axe on the wall. I am ashamed of mankind, was all one said.
3
What strange weather we were having. The only light came from the flashes of electrical activity associated with panic attacks. I tried to sleep, but a so-called colleague phoned with a question. You OK? she asked. I pretended I didn’t understand. It began to snow where the general stuck a round-headed pin in the map.
video based on this poem by Marc Swoon Bildos Ney
[...] writes about his latest film based on a poem from Howie Good’s Whale Sound audio chapbook, Threatening Weather. He credits Matthew Augustus for some of the images, and of course Nic Sebastian for the reading. [...]
Welcome to Hard Times by Howie Good | Moving Poems
August 8, 2011 at 1:57 pm