Frogs
"Grow grass,
stone
frogs,"
written on
bathroom walls.
Hippie
beads, oodles
colourful
acid pills
in dresser
draws,
no clothes,
kaleidoscope
condoms,
ostentatious
sex.
No Bibles or
Sundays
that anyone
remembers.
Rochdale
College,
Toronto,
Ontario 1972,
freedom
school, free education.
Makes no
sense,
when you're
high on a song
"American
Women" blasting
eardrums and
police sirens come on.
(Note:
Rochdale College was patterned after Summerhill School-Democratic "freedom
school" in England founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the
belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other
way around.)
Poetry Man
I’m
the poetry man, understand?
Dance,
dance, dance to the crystals of night,
healing
crystals detox nightmares, night tremors.
Death still
comes in the shadow of grief,
hides
beneath this blanket of time,
in the heat,
in the cold.
Hold my hand
on this journey
you won’t be
the first, but
you may be
the last.
You and I so
many avenues,
ventures
& turns, so many years together
one bad
incident, violence, unexpected,
one punch,
all lights dim out.
97,
Coming to Terms & Goodbye
(An
atheist faces his own death)
Wait until I have to say goodbye,
don’t rush; I’m
a philosophical professor
facing my own
death on my own time.
It takes longer
to rise to kick the blankets back.
I take my pills
with water and slowly lift
myself out of
bed to the edge of my walker.
Living to age
97 is an experience I share
with my
caretaker and so hard to accept.
It’s hard for
youngsters who have not experienced
old age to know
the psychology of pain
that you can’t
put your socks on or pull
your own pants
up without help anymore—
thank God for
suspenders.
“At a certain
point, there’s no reason
to be concerned
about death, when you die,
no problem, there’s
nothing.”
But why in my
loneness, teeth stuck
in with denture
glue, my daily pillbox complete,
and my wife,
Leslie Josephine, gone for years,
why does it
haunt me?
I can’t
orchestrate, play Ph.D. anymore,
my song lyrics
is running out, my personality
framed in a
gentler state of mind.
I still think
it necessary to figure out
the patterns of
death; I just don’t know why.
“There must be
something missing
from this
argument; I wish I knew.
Don’t push me,
please wait; soon
is enough to
say goodbye.
My theatre life, now shared, my last play,
coming to this
final curtain, I give you
grace, “the
king of swing,” the voice of
Benny Goodman
is silent now,
an act of
humanity passes, no applause.
*Dedicated to
the memory of Herbert Fingarette, November 2, 2018 (aged 97). Berkeley, California, U.S.A. Video credit and photo
credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4.
Keyboard
Keyboard dancing, poet-writer,
old bold,
ribbons are worn out,
type keys bent
out of shape.
40 wpm, high
school,
Smith Corona
220 electric ultimately
gave out,
carrying case, lost key.
No typewriter
repairman anymore.
It is this
media, new age apps,
for internet
dreams, forged nightmares,
nothing can go
wrong, right?
Cagey, I prefer
my Covid-19 shots
completed one
at a time.
Unfinished
poems can wait,
hang start-up
like Jesus
ragged on that
wooden cross,
revise a few
lines at a time;
near the end,
complete to finish.
I will touch my
way out of this life;
as Elton John
says,
“like a candle
in the wind.”
I will be at my
keyboard late at night
that moment I
pass, my fingertips stop.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada, Vietnam era. Today he is a
poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 248 YouTube poetry
videos. Michael
Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 43 countries, several
published poetry books, nominated for 4 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the
Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry
anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and
chapbooks. He has over 536 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6
Facebook Poetry groups. Member
Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.
