Poems are hard to create
they live, then die, walk alone in tears,
resurrect in family mausoleums.
They walk with you alone in ghostly patterns,
memories they deliver feeling unexpectedly
through the open windows of strangers.
Silk roses lie in a potted bowl
memories seven days before Mother’s Day.
Soak those tears, patience is the poetry of love.
Plant your memories, your seeds, your passion,
once a year, maybe twice.
Jesus knows we all need more
then a vase filled with silk flowers,
poems on paper from a poet sacred,
the mystery, the love of a caretaker−
multicolored silk flowers in a basket
handed out by the flower girl.

~~~

Listen to the poet read his own work:

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You can also listen to musician Dale Adams performing the poem:

“Fall Thunder Drums” by Michael Lee Johnson

There is power in the thunder tonight, kettledrums.
There is thunder in this power,
the powder blends white lightening
flour sifters in masks toss it around.
Rain plunges October night; dancers
crisscross night sky in white gowns.
Tumble, turning, swirl the night away, around,
leaves tape-record over, over, then, pound,
pound repeat falling to the ground.
Halloween falls to the children’s
knees and imaginations.
Kettledrums.

Hear Michael read his poem

In nakedness of life moves
this male shadow worn out dark clothes,
ill fitted in distress, holes in his socks, stretches,
shows up in your small neighborhood,
embarrassed,
walks pastime naked with a limb
in open landscape space—
damn those worn out black stockings.
He bends down prays for dawn, bright sun.

Hear Michael reading his own poem:

I have no regret, no grinder of remorse, nor memory of the dental chair.
I have no feeler of sins lost in sand dust with golden teeth, diamond over lay of lies.
Do not dance, play checkers, between the lines of memory-black/white.
I am a sinner wild with elbow muscle, flex right to left.
Dental floss is my Jesus, purple robe, violent-victim.
The cheeks of God whisper fools of toy tot decay, hanger on a cross-victim.
I was an outcast of hell with flames hanging from my behind.
What age of flowers is a whisper into the colors, fool enamel solid white.
I wild elbows flex from right to left, dental floss violent-victim.
I am owner of the cheeks of sunken bones.
What left is decay open space, mouth, tongue, cavities.
Christ never liked the sound of a drill, only aging of flowers, whispers from toy toots.
Lost in the blur of the blue heron I toss my gambling cards, fold.
Back to the farm fields forever and the sounds of wheat in the wind.
Jesus is the stop point, remorse, joy, where the sounds end.
I am an abstract artist, setting black outline in a dental chair,
false teeth pending white, waiting for second coming.

(an ekphrastic poem)

The painted cat
on my balcony
hangs in the sun,
bleaches out
its wooden
survival kit,
cut short-
then rots
chips
paint,
cracks
widen in joints,
no infant sparrow wings
nestled in the hole
beneath its neck-
then falls down.
No longer a swinger
in latter days, August wind.

Old man in a near empty house
bridge port to the sea—
(mortgage foreclosure assured)
late in his payments to life,
sits in a lavender lawn chair
meant for picnics or poor people—
pillows stuffed under his bum
like layers of sponge cake.
He sits at a handmade wooden desk
he forged with his own hands
finished in lacquer with the edges
of his fingers tips.
He types prismatic words
forced together like a jagged
Japanese poem or something
resembling a Haiku forgery—
while 2 Persian cats,
Tambala and Shebelle,
meow constantly with passion
with pain, with hunger—
bowls empty, food dried, gone—
lying on the other side of the room.
Old man in a near empty house
bridge port to the sea,
buried in ivy near the sea
where no one ever goes,
when you expect them to.

Hear and see the poet reading “Old Man.”

Fall, everything is turning yellow and golden.
No wind, Indian summer, bright day,
wind charms with Indian enchantment,
last brides before winter snow,
grass growth slows down,
bushes cut back with chills,
haven of the winter, grows legs,
learns baby steps, pushes itself
up slowly against my patio door,
and says, “soon, soon, I’ll be there.”
Winter is sweeping up what’s left of fall;
making room for shorter days, longer nights.
Echoes of a new season.

Hear the poet reading his poem on YouTube. An embedded version is below.

All day long
night is my storm lantern.
I carry it into the farm land
cutting into my harvested emotions
covered by snow
edging them in half
in front of me
see me open and bleeding.
I’m seeded like a small orange
pit me out and devour me
spit the pulp and seed
I step on the jagged edges
of my feelings and sense my pain
cut stretched skin with glass shavings
torture under toes hurt badly with pain.
Pitch the stuff with damn black top
if it makes you feel relieved.
Don’t laugh at me like a circus clown.
I’m 61 and my dimples show smiles
and crinkles.
This day is a lawn mover
even in December
when machinery is to be shacked up
and covered.
I plow beneath the white surface
cut rotten leaves beneath settled snow.
The aggravation,
the cultivation
the nonsense of hell with a runny nose.
In spring the grass never pops up right.
All day, night is my storm lantern.

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