My Awkuzu Mistake Maybe it’d been a perfect end That time we shared at Awkuzu On crumpled cotton bedsheets— Testimony of what we called love Or maybe we should’ve just ended it That infamous night in February You confessed I was not the only one And yet you called it love That was not the only lie […]
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Hocus Pocus This [bread] is no other than Jesus’ flesh This [horse’s open mouth] is Vaisvanara This [word] has A magic power This [fish head] brings Courage & posterity This [fluid] cures All diseases This [sequence of syllables] drives away All evils & devils This [ritual] ensures Good weather & good harvest This [hat/hood] guarantees Purity, loyalty This [flag] […]
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Open Eyes Laid Back By Michael Lee Johnson Open eyes, black-eyed peas, laid back busy lives, consuming our hours, handheld devices grocery store “which can Jolly Green Giant peas, alternatives, darling, to bring home tonight- these aisles of decisions.” Mind gap: “Before long apps will be wiping our butts and we, others, our children will not notice.” No worries, […]
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PAPERS FLUTTER Papers flutter Pears fall And fall All Fall In orchards Of near-death Where you Reside Hiding behind Trees and Piles of over- Ripe fruit Waiting for Snow blankets Waiting for No sun I feel you Your presence Your feet like Quicksand And eyes bigger Than the bang That birthed The sun
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And Love Got Tired Of My Undecidedness Leah gave me head in a dark boulevard Followed me the whole twenty fucking yards She knows it’s a game And she came when I came. And left when I turned left. Fañ kissed my lips in an empty parking lot Begging for sex, he gave decency no thought I […]
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The Fuse I was hungover, boiling water. the coffee smelled intense as trees falling when I burst the foil, and specked my daylight and made me wrinkle my nose like a rabbit unburrowed in the sand. it was good. I was feeling the cold on my feet, bare and enjoying it. and outside the day was heading […]
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HAILSTORM OF HELLFIRE One hour dissolves degradingly into the next And my eyes burn with dead sunlight and my own dusty misery As I wait in helpless spiritual poverty For whatever new hailstorm of hellfire Is next to knock on my door. My dignity has been taken. My children are being stolen. Each day my recovery takes more from me. […]
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Magic and in concert with you replenish as I dip I was walking through Chinatown the other day, down by the Bowery, and I stopped on a corner, at Avenue of the Strongest. I saw an espresso bar across the street. As I was contemplating what drink to get, it hit me upside the head. I stood there, mouth probably […]
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Missing Feeding of the Birds (V3) By Michael Lee Johnson Keeping my daily journal diary short these sweet bird sounds lost- reviews January through March. Joy a dig deep snow on top of my sorrows. Skinny naked bones sparrows these doves beneath my balcony window, lie lifeless without tweet no melody lost their sounds. These few survivors huddle […]
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The Drifting-Bys I am the boy you almost lost to a stretch of long black distance found luckily, by love stronger, than time and space and procrastination & now in that love I drown I float, drift, swim and drown again for it is as a honey puddle deep, an ocean of pink passion please leave me here for […]
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