One Poem by Alex S. Johnson

 

Seasonal Shutdown 

A rime of salt crust around

the inner linings of

My margarita heart. Full lips

blossom from

Clouds, pressing urgent

Telepathic signals that scroll 

across my mind like

a fabulous electric poetry...

I love the taste of your memory,

the dark, rich texture of

Your moods as they

bloom within the

Deserted library, your volumes of

heavily self-annotated Thomas Wolfe, Byron, Shelley, De Nerval I was 

about to

Say laboratory as you were

a scientist of

Small perceptions. As is quite 

necessary.

Some say the dead are restless who

met a 

Violent end.

I sometimes hear a whisper in the

eaves...

I hold you in my heart, a 

simple, durable cup.

It has no bottom, it was

crafted from the 

Cycling tendrils of

feeling...

It has no end. I was amused

by comment you made in

2017 on Facebook but

now my

Throat is thick with 

all the 

Heroes we've lost

The perfume you wore

impregnates my

Cells...

In the twilight I see 

glimpses, you in the garden

With a spade, in the

garden with a

Spade

In the

There with

A mourning dove explodes its 

Feathers as a hawk dive-bombs

From sheer dead-drop nowhere...

You showed me the roots and 

a grub you held in your

Ivory paw.

A tingle of wonder shoots through

my collarbone...

You paid more and less

Attention than most

Than the soft

earth beneath the

Tapping typewriter drops of

rain.

Alex S. Johnson has been called "the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground" by John Shirley, the co-creator of the Cyberpunk genre and principal screenwriter of the cult classic horror film The Crow (1994). His books include THE DOOM HIPPIES, BUREAU OF DREAMS, MATADOR OF MIRRORS, THE DEATH JAZZ and, most recently, THE FLOWERS OF DOOM: A COLLECTION OF DARK POETRY. His full-length dark satire collection, TWILIGHT OF THE DOOM HIPPIES, will be published in 2025 by Horror Sleaze Trash Publications with a Foreword by Catfish McDaris. Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family.