Sunday 12 October 2008

Extracts from a Revolution by Howard Good

The queen swallows poison
from the silver thimble

around her neck,
but the king trusts the stroke

of the executioner’s ax
will be clean and true.

Reports of miracles reach the capital
from throughout the kingdom:

love suicides returned to life,
God's voice turned to baby’s babble.

Exhausted celebrants,
stinking of drink,

sleep in the streets.
Now the secret police know

who the insomniacs are,

and the insomniacs themselves
just how interminable the night is.


Howard Good, New York, USA

5 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

Howie Good (goodh@newpaltz.edu), a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of four poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007) from FootHills Publishing, Strangers & Angels (2007) from Scintillating Publications, and the forthcoming The News at 11 from Right Hand Pointing.

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Very vivid imagery. I like it.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful! I love the images of the king and the thimble; I also love poetry that plays around with historical themes.

Thanks for posting this poem!

Tumblewords: said...

Ah, history and faith written in perfect words!