Eight Short Poems by Michael Lee Johnson

 

South Chicago Night

 

Night is drifters,

sugar rats, streetwalkers,

pickpockets, pimps,

insects, Lake Michigan perch,

sounds of Herring gulls.

Neon tubes are blinking.

Half the local streetlights

bulbs burned out.

 

Dove Bar Poem

 

Ex-lover told me Dove dark

chocolate bars were good for lovers.

She ate dark Dove bars,

I ate light Dove chocolate.

She was healthy, I was sad.

We often go into fights over this.

She was manic and I was depressed.

Sex was a bouncing basketball affair.

She was healthy without knowing her disease.

I was sad, stealing apples

out of farmer John’s orchard.

Sleeping wherever

a pillow was found.

 

Jesus Was

 

Jesus was a poetry man.

Words were in his eyeballs,

His retina.

20-20 sight but a universal default.

Tears wept down on an old Olive tree

Or was it a dogwood tree cross?

Mystery waits out the years.

Resurrection and returns—

a slow retail business.

 

Reincarnation

 

In the next life, I will be a little higher up the pecking order.

No longer a dishwasher at the House of Pancakes

or Ricky’s All-Day Grill, or Sunday night small dog thief.

I will evolve into the Prince of Bullfrogs. Crickets don’t bother me,

Swamp flies don’t bother me–I eat them. Alligators I avoid.

I urinate on lily pads, mate across continents at will.

And for my dishes, let the river clean them this time.

If there are complaints, toss them to the wind—they won’t find me.

Someone else from India can wash my dishes locally for me.

Forward all complaints to that religious office of Indian affairs.

Injured Shadow

 

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 and prays for dawn, bright sun.

Night After

 

Repentances.

Pop cans and just condoms

lying on this oak wooden floor.

With papers, with scattered

verses—

an open door.

 

Dove Bar Poem

 

Ex-lover told me Dove dark chocolate

bars were suitable for lovers.

She ate dark Dove bars,

I ate light Dove milk chocolate.

She was healthy; I was sad.

We often got into fights over this.

She was manic, and I was depressive.

Sex was a bouncing basketball affair.

She was healthy, not knowing her disease.

I was sad, stealing apples

from Farmer John’s orchard.

Sleeping wherever

I found a pillow.

A pillow wherever found.

 

A Willow Branch

 

Break in the rain.

The storm goes away.

A bitter family chat,

dicey, slicing

dagger of words—

they stand still—

a willow branch

cracks.

Michael Lee Johnson lived in Canada for ten years during the Vietnam era. Today, he is a poet in the greater Chicago-land area, IL. He has 372-plus YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 46 countries, a song lyricist with several published poetry books, and a nominee for 8 Pushcart Prize awards and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 668 published poems. He is the editor-in-chief of three poetry anthologies, all of which are available on Amazon, and has authored several poetry books and chapbooks.  Michael has administered and created 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member of the Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/ and Poets & Writers: https://www.pw.org/.  His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence 'Citta' Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, "If I Were Young Again." 

 

One Poem by Allison Jensen

 

The Shape That Never Returns

You were here once; your brief, unguarded flame

Burned bright enough to score the dark with heat.

Though time erases every fragile claim

Where face and gesture once refused retreat,

Memory cannot restore you to the same,

It loosens form, releases breath and feet.

I lose the shape, the future without name—

Yet grief remains, exacting, incomplete.

It walks beside me, silent, unappeased,

Returns when rooms grow still, when voices cease.

No plea disarms it; no endurance frees.

If love were less, then suffering might cease.

But grief holds fast to what it once had seized—

For love outlives the body it must lose

Allison Jensen is a California-based writer. Her work explores power, identity, grief, and the quiet ways people are shaped by the systems around them.

Three Poems by John Adlam

 

Unrequitable

I wasn’t proposing anything unseemly

as such – a fig leaf, or maybe a lady's favour,

one flaxen strand of hair – you

all luminous and fey, Galadriel down to a T,

me the spit of Gimli – quite hapless, qua suitor,

lost without an axe in my hand, or tunnel to dig.

exit, a bear

exit bereft

a derelict bear

sorry of arse

and tall of story

long past the glories

of his dancing days –

the cavehouse rock

the deepwood strut –

the last one left

outcast and orphaned

holed up and dry-

docked and failing fast

twisted of gut

and lame of limb

willing that winter

might wile him away

Lullaby

Hush! There’s no need

for despond or alarm –

you will come to no harm,

if you but pay no heed

to the lure of the deep,

nor the Siren’s calling –

the fear of falling –

the longing to leap.

John Adlam lives in Brixton, South London. He is a group psychotherapist and independent psychosocial researcher and writer. He is a Trustee of the London-based Survivors’ Poetry collective and he reads regularly at open mic events, online and in person.

John’s poems have been recently published (or are scheduled for publication) in Iamb (Wave 27), After…, Full House Literary, Snow lit rev, Atrium, South, Eunoia, Asylum, and also anthologised by The Broken Spine (twice) and The Book Bag, and in two anthologies of university poetry, published in the 1980s, of which he was also the co-editor. Some of John’s poetry and prose work can be found at https://substack.com/@johnadlam1.