Flower Girl
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...
Read MoreFall Thunder
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 Fall Thunder by Michael Lee Johnson by Alyce...
Read MoreInjured Shadow (v3)
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...
Read MoreI Regret Grinder, but, No Remorse
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,...
Read MorePainted Cat
(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.
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