Howie Good

Away From the Light

1
Every space has light of some kind, and yet we act as if it isn’t there. What an experience, to be in total darkness at one in the afternoon. There’s a lot of screaming and praying to Jesus. We suddenly become archaic remnants of the predigital age. This might be the future. How it’s destroyed. We don’t have anything to stop it. I’ll stand and watch it get dark. Does that surprise you? No one is outside the system. Even when you ride the train, all you see is black forest with nothing in it.

2
I come and I go and I come and I go. A woman with whirlpool eyes stopped me on the way. I wasn’t thinking to myself, “Oh, she’s drowning,” because she didn’t look like she was drowning. “Is that Jesus behind the KFC handing out tickets to heaven?” she asked. I arrived too late to wave them goodbye. The next day it’s raining and very muddy. People want to know is it climate change. Some are trembling. There’s no cure or treatment. It’s hard not to see God in that.

3
There are rules, presumably, that govern the universe, despite the rise of masked police or the Nazi graffiti defacing Jewish-owned shops. The new regime is already in an advanced state of decay. Am I the only one who hears the explosive warning cries of the seagulls? You might not know this, but Jesus was commonly addressed as “Rabbi.” The thin, ghostlike figure drifting toward me along the shoreline has a yellow Star of David patch on his sleeve and tears in his eyes.

Howie Good latest poetry collection, True Crime, was published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.