Frogs
"Grow
grass,
stone
frogs,"
written on
bathroom walls.
Hippie beads,
oodles
colorful acid
pills
in dresser
drawers
no clothes,
kaleidoscope
condoms,
ostentatious
sex.
No Bibles or
Sundays
that anyone
remembers.
Rochdale
College,
Toronto, Ontario
1972,
freedom school,
free education.
Makes no sense,
when you're high
on a song
"American
Women" blasting
eardrums and
police sirens come on.
(Note: Rochdale
College was patterned after Summerhill School-Democratic "freedom
school" in England founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the
belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other
way around.)
Poetry Man
I’m the poetry
man, understand?
Dance, dance,
dance to the crystals of night,
healing crystals
detox nightmares, night tremors.
Death still
comes in the shadow of grief,
hides beneath
this blanket of time,
in the heat, in
the cold.
Hold my hand on
this journey
you won’t be the
first, but
you may be the
last.
You and I so
many avenues,
ventures &
turns, so many years together
one bad
incident, violence, unexpected,
one punch, all
lights dim out.
97, Coming To Terms & Goodbye
(An atheist faces
his own death)
Wait until I
have to say goodbye,
don’t rush; I’m
a philosophical professor
facing my own
death on my own time.
It takes longer
to rise to kick the blankets back.
I take my pills
with water and slowly lift
myself out of
bed to the edge of my walker.
Living to age 97
is an experience I share
with my caretaker
and so hard to accept.
It’s hard for
youngsters who have not experienced
old age to know
the psychology of pain
that you can’t
put your socks on or pull
your own pants
up without help anymore—
thank God for
suspenders.
“At a certain
point, there’s no reason
to be concerned
about death, when you die,
no problem,
there’s nothing.”
But why in my
loneness, teeth stuck
in with denture
glue, my daily pillbox complete,
and my wife,
Leslie Josephine, gone for years,
why does it
haunt me?
I can’t
orchestrate, play Ph.D. anymore,
my song lyrics
is running out, my personality
framed in a
gentler state of mind.
I still think it
necessary to figure out
the patterns of
death; I just don’t know why.
“There must be
something missing
from this
argument; I wish I knew.
Don’t push me,
please wait; soon
is enough to say
goodbye.
My theater life,
now shared, my last play,
coming to this
final curtain, I give you
grace, “the king
of swing,” the voice of
Benny Goodman is
silent now,
an act of
humanity passes, no applause.
*Dedicated to the
memory of Herbert Fingarette, November 2, 2018 (aged 97). Berkeley, California, U.S.A. Video credit and
photo credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4.
Keyboard
Keyboard
dancing, poet-writer,
old bold, ribbons
are worn out,
type keys bent
out of shape.
40 wpm, high
school,
Smith Corona 220
electric ultimately
gave out,
carrying case, lost key.
No typewriter
repairman anymore.
It is this
media, new age apps,
for internet
dreams, forged nightmares,
nothing can go
wrong, right?
Cagey, I prefer
my Covid-19 shots
completed one at
a time.
Unfinished poems
can wait,
hang start-up
like Jesus
ragged on that
wooden cross,
revise a few
lines at a time;
near the end,
complete to finish.
I will touch my
way out of this life;
as Elton John
says,
“like a candle
in the wind.”
I will be at my
keyboard late at night
that moment I pass, my fingertips stop.
MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON
MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON lived ten years in
Canada, the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area,
IL. He has 259 YouTube poetry videos.
Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries,
several published poetry books, nominated for 4 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best
of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all
available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over
443 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups.
Member Illinois State Poetry Society
Best Wishes!
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