MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON

 

MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON

 

Virus In The Air

 Spasms In My Back

 

 

There's a virus in the air, but I can't see it.

 

People are dying around me, but I can't save them.

 

There are spikes pierced in my back,

 

spasms, but I can't touch them.

 

Heartbeats, hell pulsating, my back muscles,

 

I covet in my prayers.

 

I turn right to the left, in my bed, then hang still.

 

Nails impaled, I bleed hourly,

 

Jesus on that cross.

 

Now 73 years of age, my half-sister 92,

 

told me, "getting old isn't for sissies."

 

I didn't believe her—

 

until the first mimic words

 

out of "Kipper" my new parakeet's mouth,

 

sitting in his cage alone were

 

"Daddy, it's not easy being green."

 

 

 

Leaves In December

 

Leaves, a few stragglers in

 

December, just before Christmas,

 

some nailed down crabby

 

to ground frost,

 

some crackled by the bite

 

of nasty wind tones.

 

 

 

Some saved from the matchstick

 

that failed to light.

 

Some saved from the rake

 

by a forgetful gardener.

 

 

 

For these few freedom dancers

 

left to struggle with the bitterness:

 

wind dancers

 

wind dancers

 

move you are frigid

 

bodies shaking like icicles

 

hovering but a jiffy in the sky,

 

kind of sympathetic to the seasons,

 

reluctant to permanently go, rustic,

 

not much time more to play.

 

 

 

Group Therapy

 

 

Wind chimes.

 

It’s going to rain tonight, thunder.

 

I’m going to lead the group tonight talking

 

about Rational Emotive Therapy,

 

belief challenges thought change,

 

Dr. Albert Ellis.

 

I’m a hero in my self-worship,

 

self-infused patient of my pain,

 

thoughtful, probabilistic atheism

 

with a slant toward Jesus in private.

 

Rules roll gently creeping

 

through my body with arthritis

 

a hint of mental pain.

 

Sitting in my 2001 Chevy S-10 truck,

 

writing this poem, late as usual.

 

It’s going to rain, thunder

 

heavy tonight.

 

 

 

Fiction Girl

 

(Transition)

 

Drawings, then poems flip over to fiction;

 

the flash girl rides this ghost of the invention.

 

Insecure in youth, switch girl from drawing

 

to poetry, extension flight, outer fiction space,

 

yours is a manner of words at work.

 

Mercury is a god of movement.

 

A new skill set, brain twister, releases 100 free plays.

 

Life is a version of old times, fresh starts, torn yellow pages.

 

I focused on you last night; I watched your head spin

 

in sleep, a new playhouse of tree dreams, high shifting.

 

Changes are leaves; I lift your spirits to the gods of fire,

 

offer you thunderbolts practice your shooting in heaven

 

or hell, or toss back to earth.

 

Change is a choice where your energy flows.

 

No computer gods will help this poetic journey.

 

May you cry out loud on route to fairytale creations.

 

You are the chemist, the mixer girl shifting gears.

 

Creativity is how the gallery of galaxies cement.

 

Flash fiction lines cross stars.

 

 

 

Cold Gray (V2)

 

 

Below the clouds

 

forming in my eyes,

 

your soft eyes,

 

delicate as warm silk words,

 

used to support the love I held for you.

 

 

 

Cold, now gray, the sea tide

 

inside turns to poignant foam

 

upside down separates-

 

only ghosts now live between us.

 

 

 

Yet, dreamlike, fortune-teller,

 

bearing no relation to reality-

 

my heart is beyond the sea now.

 

A relaxing breeze sweeps

 

across the flat surface of me.

 

I write this poem to you,

 

neglectfully sacrificing our love.

 

I leave big impressions

 

with a terrible hush inside.

 

Gray bones now bleach with memories,

 

I’m a solitary figure standing

 

here, alone, along the shoreline.

 

 MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON