Flake

Everyone considered him a flake. He had a way of chipping away at you until you gave in out of frustration or boredom.

You know how onions have many layers, and you have to keep peeling away until you get to the center. The thing is, all the layers are the same. You aren't discovering some hidden core that no one else knows about. It's still just onion.

At least with rock there's a chance you'll find a rare metal.

When Janine from accounting decided to marry him, we felt sorry for her. But I guess she really likes onions.

The (Mis)Fortune Of Having Been There

The shadows that lurk in the background carry the suggestion of prison stripes. Cary Grant picks a flake of cigarette tobacco off his tongue. This whole time the Ferris wheel has been spinning in the traveling carnival of his mind. He doesn’t try to reason with the gods but mocks their Greek robes. Then, as night burns to the ground, he discovers the perfect partner in Rosalind Russell, who spits words the way a machine gun spits bullets. She knows without having to be told that movies are just life enlarged. There’s no one to feed, nothing to feed anyone. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of more than two dozen poetry collections, including most recently The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press), The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro Press), and Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing).