Poetry

Michael Lee Johnson, 23 november 2011

Charley Plays a Tune & Other Poems by Michael Lee Johnson Itaca, Illinois USA

Michael
Lee Johnson is a poet, and editor, from Itasca, Illinois who lived 10 years in
Canada during the Vietnam era, published in 24 countries. He runs five poetry sites, his website: http://poetryman.mysite.com. His published poetry books available : through his website above, Amazon.Com, Borders Books, iUniverse and Lulu.com. Now on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih5WJrjqQ18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMmyjFKJ5fQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfxl4a5vwlw



Charley Plays a Tune
 
By Michael Lee Johnson
 
(Version 4) Photo Available
 

 
Crippled,
in Chicago,
 
with
arthritis
 
and
Alzheimer's,
 
in
a dark rented room,
 
Charley
plays
 
melancholic
melodies
 
on
a dust-filled
 
harmonica
he
 
found abandoned
 
on
a playground of sand
 
years
ago by a handful of children
 
playing
on monkey bars.
 
He
hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market
 
and
the skeleton bones of the fish show through.
 
He
lies on his back, riddled with pain,
 
pine
cones fill his pillows and mattress;
 
praying
to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads
 
Charley
blows tunes out his
 
celestial
instrument
 
notes
float through the open window
 
touch
the nose of summer clouds.
 
Charley
overtakes himself with grief
 
and
is ecstatically alone.
 
Charley
plays a solo tune.
 

 
-2010-
 

 
Harvest Time
By Michael Lee Johnson
 
Version
7/Photo Available
 


A Métis lady, drunk -

hands blanketed as in prayer,
over a large, brown fruit basket
naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard
inside approaches the Edmonton,
Alberta adoption agency.
There are only spirit gods
inside her empty purse.

Inside the
basket, an infant,

restrained from life,
with a fruity winesap apple
wedged like a teaspoon
of autumn sun
inside its mouth.
A shallow pool of tears
mounts in native blue eyes.
Snuffling, the mother offers
a slim smile, turns away.
She slithers voyeuristically
through near slum streets
and alleyways,
looking for drinking buddies
to share a hefty pint
of applejack wine.
 

 
-2007-
 
(Revised
04-07-11)


 
Gingerbread Lady
 
By Michael Lee Johnson
 
(Version 3)/Photo Available
 

 
Gingerbread
lady,
 
no
sugar or cinnamon spice;
 
years
ago arthritis and senility took their toll.
 
Crippled
mind moves in then out, like an old sexual adventure
 
blurred
in an imagination of fingertip thoughts.
 
Who
remembers the characters?
 
There
was George, her lover, near the bridge at the Chicago River:
 
she
missed his funeral; her friends were there.
 
She
always made feather-light of people dwelling on death,
 
but
black and white she remembers well.
 
The
past is the present; the present is forgotten.
 
Who
remembers Gingerbread Lady?
 
Sometimes
lazy-time tea with a twist of lime,
 
sometimes
drunken-time screwdriver twist with clarity.
 
She
walks in scandals.
 
Her
live-in maid smirked as Gingerbread Lady gummed her food,
 
false
teeth forgotten in a custom-imprinted cup
 
with
water, vinegar, and ginger.
 
Years
ago, arthritis and senility took their toll.
 
Ginger
forgot to rise out of bed;
 
no
sugar, or cinnamon toast.
 

 
-2010-
 

 
Nikki
Purrs
 
By
Michael Lee Johnson/Photo Available
 

 
Soft
nursing
 
5 solid
minutes
 
of purr
 
paws
paddling
 
like a
kayak competitor
 
against
ripples of my
 
60 year old
river rib cage-
 
I feel like
a nursing mother
 
but I’m
male and I have no nipples.
 
Sometimes I
feel afloat.
 
Nikki is a
little black skunk,
 
kitten,
suckles me for milk,
 
or
affection?
 
But she is
8 years old a cat.
 
I’m her
substitute mother,
 
afloat in a
flower bed of love,
 
and I give
back affection
 
freely
unlike a money exchange.
 
Done, I go
to the kitchen, get out
 
Fancy Feast,
gourmet salmon, shrimp,
 
a new work
day begins.
 

 
-2007-
 

 
Rod-Stroked
Survival, With a Deadly Hammer
 
By
Michael Lee Johnson
 
(Version
2)/Photo Available
 

 
Rebecca
fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or a pull of a lever,
 
that one of
the gambling chips in her pocket was a winner or the slot machines a redeemer;
 
but life
itself was not real that was strictly for the mentally insane at the Elgin
Mental Institution.
She gambled her savings away on a riverboat
stuck in mud on a riverbank, the Grand Victoria, in Elgin, Illinois.
Her bare feet were always propped up on wooden chair;
a cigarette drooped from her lips like morning
fog.
She always dreamed of traveling, not nightmares.
But she couldn't overcome, overcome,
the terrorist ordeal of the German siege of Leningrad.
She was a foreigner now; she is a foreigner for good.
Her first husband died after spending a lifetime in prison
with stinging nettles in his toes and feet; the second
husband died of hunger when there were no more rats
to feed on, after many fights in prison for the last remains.
What does a poet know of suffering?
Rebecca has rod stroked survival with a deadly mallet.
She gambles nickels, dimes, quarters, tokens tossed away,
living a penniless life for grandchildren who hardly know her name.
Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or the pull of a lever.
 

 
-2007-
 

 
Mother, Edith, at 98
 
By Michael Lee Johnson (Version 3)
 

 
Edith,
in this nursing home
 
blinded
with macular degeneration,
 
I
come to you with your blurry
 
eyes,
crystal sharp mind,
 
your
countenance of grace
 
as
yesterday's winds.
 
I
have chosen to consume you
 
and
take you away.
 

 
"Oh,
where did Jesus disappear
 
to,”
she murmured,
 
over
and over again,
 
in
a low voice
 
dripping
words
 
like
a leaking faucet:
 
"Oh,
there He is, my
 
Angel
of the coming."
 

 
-2007-