Rainbow Potato

I tell myself I don’t belong here, and I don’t. The place is home to depressives, insomniacs, winos, recidivists. Trains pass through without whistling or slowing down. Meanwhile, stacks of coffins keep arriving in the dark by truck. The first thing I do most mornings is examine my face in the mirror for signs of fresh trauma. There was one morning when I asked Google if rainbow and potato rhyme. The answer came back, “Not exactly.” A handsome young drifter, stepping off the overnight bus from Providence, smiles plausibly while wearing a necklace of human ears tucked inside his shirt.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest book is Frowny Face, a mix of his prose poems and handmade collages from Redhawk Publications.

Observations Of A Canadian Terrarium

Opulence surrounds me – magically tinted daguerreotype of warped idyll ­– mahogany and cast iron impressing their hubris upon the carpet, much as the armies to the south are scorching their indelible brand of gunpowder and blood upon the land.

Lace and silk give room warmth once provided by the pulsing hearts of Toronto sons; now fighting south west of Vancouver over some San Juan Island potato-eating pig.

You’d think our neighbors would have had their fill of war by now; or at least be spilling blood and stale sweat over nobler offenses than that of one hungry porker and careless farmer.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid