Witchy Halloween
Inside this late October 31st night,
this poem turns into a
pumpkin.
Animation, something has gone
devilishly wrong with my
imagery.
I take the lid off the
pumpkin’s head
light the pink candles
inside.
Demons, cry, crawl, split, fly
outsides —
escape, through the pumpkin’s
eyes.
I’m mixed in fear with this
scary, strange creation.
Outside, quietly tapping
Hazel the witch,
her broomstick against my
window pane rattles.
She says, “nothing seems to
rhyme anymore,
nothing seems to make any
sense,
but the night is young.
Give me back my magical bag
of tricks.
As Robert Frost said:
“But I have
promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Poets Out of Service
Like
a full-service gas station
or postal
service workers
displaced,
racing to Staples retail
for
employment against the rules of labor,
poets are
out of business nowadays, you know.
Who carries
a loose change in their pockets?
Who tosses
loose coins in their car ashtray anymore?
iPhones,
smartphones, life is a video camera
ready to
shoot, destroy, and expose.
No one reads
poets anymore.
No one
thumbs through the yellow pages anymore.
Who has sex
in the back seat of their car anymore,
just naked
shots passed around online?
Streetwalkers,
bleach blonde whores,
cosmetic
plastic altered faces in the neon night;
they don’t
bother to pick pennies
or quarters
off the streets anymore.
The days of
surprise candy bags for a nickel
pennies
lying on the countertop for
Tar Babies,
Strawberry Licorice Laces
(2 for a
penny), Wax Lips, Pixie Sticks,
Good &
Plenty are no more.
Everyone is
a dead-end player; he dies with time.
Monster
technology destroys crump fragments of culture.
Old age is a
passive slut; engaging old age
conversations
idle to a whisper and sleep alone.
Matchbox,
hand-rolled cigarettes,
serrated,
slimmed down, and gone.
Time is a
broken stopwatch gone by.
Life is a
defunct full-service gas station.
Poets are
out of business nowadays.
Deep in my Couch
Deep
in my couch
of magnetic
dust,
I am a
bearded old man.
I pull out
my last bundle
of memories
beneath
my pillow
for review.
What is
left, old man,
cry solo in
the dark.
Here is a
small treasure chest
of crude
diamonds, a glimpse
of white
gold, charcoal,
fingers
dipped in black tar.
I am a
temple of worship with trinket dreams,
a tea kettle
whistling ex-lovers boiling inside.
At dawn,
shove them under, let me work.
We are all
passengers traveling
on that
train of the past—
senses,
sins, errors, or omissions
deep in that
couch.
Nightlife Jungle Beat,
Bar Next Door
Like
all thing’s life changes, its melodies fragment.
It breaks
pieces apart, then they drift, then shatter.
The singers
of songs love bars,
naked
bodies, consistencies, and inconsistencies
that makes
it burn all turn outright at night.
They like to
drum repeat rhythms and sounds.
Poets like
to retreat to dens
of pleasure
just like these.
Sing poets
sing off-key
free verse
notes down by the bridge,
near the
river as far as their voices
will carry
them away.
It is the
nature of difference,
indifference
a vocabulary of us confused,
minds
between insanity and genius.
The hermit
asks for
a public
forum in shyness,
while
treading to the bar
next door
for a shot of tequila
no money, no
life.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the
Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is
a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in
Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson is published in more than 2033 new
publications. His poems have appeared in 42 countries; he edits and publishes
ten poetry sites. He is the administrator of six Facebook poetry groups; he has
several new poetry chapbooks coming out soon. He has over 536 published poems
to date. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet 42
countries, nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the Net
nominations. 243 poetry videos are now on
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos.
Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762;
editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089.
Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings: The Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717.
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Lee-Johnson/e/B0055HTMBQ%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=Michael+Lee+Johnson&type=. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.
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