Miss Plum in the Bedroom with the Candlestick
Crime was common back then, and the law itself often criminal. Nobody was safe from the thugs prowling the city. It took a constant and wearying vigilance to survive. If I happened to fall asleep, I’d wake up afraid. I think I was afraid she wouldn’t be there, peering out through a crack in the curtains. Why you here? I asked the first time she appeared. She just gave a fuzzy, fragile smile. The ambiguity was intentional. When you leave details out, it opens up possibilities for what can be – an ancient tree whose entwined branches support 34 brilliant candles.
Shredded
Private lives are now lived in public. That’s the problem with putting Velveeta on enchiladas. It’s only a matter of time before the celebrity chefs start to show up. I pedal away as if I have to actually get somewhere. Everyone I owe an explanation tries following me – sons, daughters, parents, co-workers, etc. We’re a wandering soap opera. “You can’t paint them trees,” protesters yell from the sidewalk. I just want some semblance of normality back in my life, some sort of quiet, and my heart to stop agonizing like a flock of gulls being sucked into a jet engine.
Shadowlands
When you look back over your shoulder, you see yourself looking quizzically back at you. You always assumed that you’d been given up for adoption. Now, more than 35 years later, you know. It’s night, and everything is also nothing, the dark howls and whimpers of women in search of their shadows.
The Later Years
Given a choice, I would want to be the sort of shrewd, goatish old man it’s said Rodin was, strolling about the boulevards and back alleys of Paris, while the work in marble went on nevertheless in his head and a young Russian-born French lady leaned lightly on his arm, and if her eyes were a little too wide apart, or if she didn’t actually read any of the books he recommended, he wouldn’t care, because it had just turned spring, and the air was like a mix of wine and brandy, and they were always at least somewhat drunk.
Howie Good, Ph.D., a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of The Loser’s Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from Thoughtcrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry, among other books. He co-edits the literary journals UnLost and Unbroken with Dale Wisely.
Photo: @sweetdangerzack
South Broadway Ghost Society 