Five Poems by Erik T. Johnson

PARABLE

See that man. On a hard road home.

Look at his beard. It's grown too long.

Look at his eyes. Cool as swordfish.

Spies a bright comet. See him wish.

Mark his shuffle. He's a guilty man.

Witness to himself with enmity and

He stops in an inn. Sleeps in a field.

It's dark in the forest. The leaves too still.

He climbs the pines. Seeks nests until

One falling star falls. Rests where it will—

Far out in the sand. He prays in silence. 

To wish is too grand. He must do penance.

The wolf is at hand. Zones in for the kill.

Hear the man: "I won't be a parable."

He whispers he shouts. Into an ill wind.

Did he make it out? Or is he still in?

 

 

I AM THE WOMAN 

 

I lost my daughter.

I don't remember when.

I don't count the weeks.

 

No calendars for me.

 

The open windows and 

My mirrors tell 

all the time I need to know.

 

I don't truck with

numbers.

A grisly nothingness hides in them,

somehow:

 

I had 1 daughter—

she disappeared with her father.

I had 1 husband—

he vanished with my daughter.

 

That's 2, already.

See what I mean about numbers?

 

Don't answer. 

It doesn't matter.

Please leave 

before 

I ask you to stay.

 

FACELESSLY TRUE

 

That man has no face and

she's got no head.

I'd better turn away.           

 

La la la, la la hey.

 

I'm looking for a city park fountain.

Baptism dunk in waterspin

as rats distill brown sewer gin.

 

Mythic sprinkler system siphons Lethe.

Its yellow snowmelt and black sleet

are where our fleeting memories meet.

 

A broken fire hydrant,

defiant,

one block up from Stuyvesant,

outside a napalmed tanning salon,

waits for the joint to be well-done.

Can't even trust a safe fake sun.

 

Small disasters are big miracles

If you know how to look away.

                                                             

La la la, la la hey!

 

Skyward is astray. Stars blink fancy but

NO VACANCY.

 

Everybody,

I'm on drugs and THE DRUGS ARE ON ME.

                                                          

La la la, la la whee!

 

How'd he lose his face, didja see?

Not my affair, and besides

he's still got a crop of hair that shines.

 

There's nothing underneath my feet

I haven't stepped in or had to eat.

Or upchucked.

Enough to fill your dump trucks.

 

The street is flat meat.

Gutter roadkill skeleton.

Every word is for lack of a better one.

The asphalt gapes beneath the heat

like a megaton tideturn.

Decisive rattle.

Incisor gristle battle.

 

I'm sticking a scalpel

into my lapel. Because this

is the Big Apple.

 

Turn aside from miracles. 

The snidest firecracker only

goes off behind your back

and years ago.

 

But who am I to ridicule?

Nobody that's who.

The public that's who.

The rats that's who.

The headless that's who.

Facelessly true.

Who died and made you?   

 

 

THE WITCH HUNT

 

Don't pretend you've no elves in your hat

That you wear careless

Like it fell there

From a tornado passing

That everyone missed but you.

 

That's right. You stand in disaster

With your smirk and your fingers

Working small marks in the air.

 

Do you really know the big secret?

Is that why you're so angelic?

 

Are you sure you're pixie-free?

The magic circle carbon copied?

 

Your face can't hide the death's head.

 

I demand you reveal your heritage 

Before I strike up the witch hunt.

 

 

THE GONE FOR GOOD

I meet those who have gone for good

on weedy asphalt plains, senile streets,

their names and numbers long forgot.

There is a network of collapse made of

nothing but crossroads.  Just take

the avenue you spotted 

clogged with broken inventions of wind

in direction not cardinal not ordinal 

without prediction, almost too pale to take in.

. . . The gone for good have left for worse; there's 

no turning backward for them.

Funny how forward is like being trapped.

Eternity is the next stop.

Do you recall That Summer in Brooklyn 

when I asked you into my bedroom? 

You said no the first time and Yes the last. 

The gone for good are like that Yes—

as full of promise as they are empty gas.

And can you guess what they want of me?

Only to be remembered to the ones that 

linger here a little while, we who pretend 

at immortality by waking each day.

By sleeping in the dark. I wish they had more

to say. I wish we too, when I come back.

Erik T. Johnson - Erik. T. Johnson's short stories have been featured in a range of literary/speculative fiction periodicals, such as Space and Time Magazine; British Fantasy Journal; Electric Velocipede; Sein und Werden; Clarion; and Structo.

His own short fiction collection, Yes Trespassing, was released in 2017 to positive reviews from professional publications and readers alike. A book of the weird and surreal, This is Horror UK stated that “YES TRESPASSING is a magnum opus of staggering proportions . . . One of the best, most beautifully written collections of this or any other year.”

Erik is currently writing poetry being set to music by, and performing with, the composer Gene Pritsker and other members of Composers Concordance, a group of some of the best musicians in the world. Erik and Gene have released several song cycles available on Spotify, the most recent of which is the jazzy Let's Save The World Suite. 

You can learn more about Erik's work at www.eriktjohnson.net.