THE INCURABLE JEWISHNESS OF BEING by Howie Good

The Christmas card that arrived for me at work had no return address. Curious to see who sent it, I tore open the envelope while still in the office mailroom. Chubby Checker was singing “The Twist.” I wasn’t yet aware of the infection in tooth number nineteen. A floury white powder spilled out. I felt a jolt of terror. Anthrax! The cops were called to the scene. They looked at me with skepticism, if not suspicion. Anyone with my face naturally has hecklers. I was King of the Jews, a paper crown on my head and on my back the weight of a special cross of my own supposed making.

Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry book, The Dark, is available from Sacred Parasite, which will also publish his book, Akimbo, in 2025.





















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JETHRO TULL by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Remember that time when Jethro Tull was named hardest rocking metal band in the universe, and all the Klingon death metal bands lost their shit? The Romulans and the Greys arranged a battle of the bands that very next week. Even the Reptilians managed to slime out of their pet store tanks and make an appearance. The judges from the Galactic Federation were on the take, but who isn't these days?   Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Horror Sleaze Trash, In Between Hangovers, Zygote in My Coffee, Rusty Truck and The Oklahoma Review.  
Read more

FELINE by John Dorsey

on the day jason baldinger has to put his cat down we talk a bit in the morning but there’s no preparing for this i think for a second about the afterlife of cats & how for nearly nineteen years she has been the only woman to stay by his side through sleepless nights through sunlight & sadness in sickness & in health it’s been a marriage for both of them all of the women i’ve ever known have been feral creatures who came up short on sweetness never sitting shiva for a week or even one lazy sunday in a vigil for our hearts never resting close-by on that final morning before we parted ways hoping for something better. John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.
Read more

HEY, PISTOLERO by Bill Yarrow

I'm complex. You're complex. We're all complex. Who gives a shit? Man's fallen and he can't get up. I consulted Jacques the Atheist for advice: he told me to beat it. "But I lack the proper stigma!" I cried. Once a month, I volunteer at the dressage parlor. On Tuesdays, I play pinochle with the daughter of the Holy Ghost. Every material loss is a gain for the State. Today is the world's birthday: gag gifts only. Pilate rewashes his left hand, i.e. Confidence Abandoning Optimism, or One More Chance at Capsizing Fate. I was having lunch with Anna the Ma who said, "This year we're hoping Thanksgiving will be more Purgatory than Hell." The trees are wounded. The water warms to their approach. Summer is a cumin seed. I tiptoed into the heart's parlor and moved the switch to off. Can you hear it? That's your insouciance speaking. The bats have returned to East Saint Louis. Otherwise, it's all just wax. Bill Yarrow is the author of e...
Read more