A stranger walked up to me on the street and said with a quaver, “I am completely overwhelmed.” He was wearing a long black raincoat that reached down below his knees. Hey, wait a sec, I thought, it’s not raining. When we’re dead, it’ll be a whole different story. Cosimo de Medici once complained to Michelangelo, “That sculpture doesn’t look like me.” “Listen,” Michelangelo told him, “you’ll be dead in 20 years, this will be around for 2,000 years. So that’s what you look like!” And now, even though it’s nighttime all over the world, there are pictures on fridges and music in elevators.
Howie Good is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing) and The Bad News First (Kung Fu Treachery Press)