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Poetry Contemporary  1 min Mature Audience

Riotous

Howie Good

Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of more than a 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). "Riotous" is in Short Circuit #05, Short Édition's quarterly review.

Image of Short Circuit - Short Circuit #05

A police van
has been
overturned
and the Burger King
on the corner
is burning,

and if you
absorb
the oily black
smoke,

willfully
breathe it in,

your heart
muscles
will seize up
and your family
desert you,

you'll forever
be marked down
in the book
as an arsonist,
a looter,
a so-called
"outside agitator,"

who made,
for a while,
this murdering
old world
to tremble.

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4

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