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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The Fern these are days; people with nothing to do doing nothing. people with things to do doing those things. the sun out, loud and shining, like a child screaming at a dropped ice-cream, but weak enough to freeze you in a shadow. people sometimes in houses touching their hands against the clock. staring at computers. or older, looking […]
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Dance of Tears, Chief Nobody (V5) By Michael Lee Johnson I’m old Indian chief story plastered on white scattered sheets, Caucasian paper blowing in yesterday’s winds. I feel white man’s presence in my blindness– cross over my ego my borders urinates over my pride, my boundaries– I cooperated with him until death, my blindness. I’m Blackfoot proud, mountain […]
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Closer to the Heart: Seven Chinese Character 怒: anger results from slavery Rising above heart 愁: worry occurs when autumn Sits high on your heart 意: meaning is defined as A sound over the heart 念: idea is what today holds Upon the heart 忘: forgetting happens When there’s death on heart 忍：to tolerate is to bear a knife […]
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A WEEK IN MAINE The morning of my retreat is dark with clouds loaded and low. Noisy gulls see me off. So do the first raindrops. I’m heading home but I don’t feel as if I’m going anywhere, just away from some place. I’m driving on tiptoe, tell myself, no looking back, let that woman go about blonde and blue-eyed, […]
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THE MAN WHO ATE HIS BOOTS I remember now. Air so still you could hear it breathing through the frozen shrouds, the crack of floes caressing hulls as if ships could talk to each other. Men slept fully clothed, smoked, drank tea, cooked, read books from the library, and pretended that this was all normal. On holidays […]
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Sylvia’s Son I was wrapped in a towel like a bad dream, wet feet on linoleum. I was too preoccupied to see the cracked blood, to hear the silence until I was knee- deep in your tomb. Sometimes, I dreamt you were a baby being born, waking to a pain that was not yours, a motherhood I never had. It […]
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Resisting Arrest Uniting uniformed unity You and I defy the sky Team work and collaboration Up to personal discretion Civil Rights Civility Minorities against majorities Stick to the status quo But should we…? Really? Defy thy stars And seek new avenues Harness the power of creativity And merge sense with sensibility “Utopia” was conceived by Thomas More But all […]
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HOW LEAVING HOME WORKS I need highways, infrastructure that can differentiate between the town where I grew up and the place I need to be. And a Ford that’s up to it, getting on but faithful, its leather bucket seats faded from their prime, but radio rock stations all preset and fifty times louder than the engine. Blacktop, […]
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