the sun is sparkling, the rain rumbling, and we badly need some poetry...

Monday 12 September 2011

Michael Lee Johnson - Three Poems


Bowl of Petunias
 
If you must leave me please
leave me for something special,
like a beautiful bowl of petunias-
for when the memories leak
and cracks appear
and old memories fade,
flowers rebuff bloom,
sidewalks fester weeds
and we both lie down
separately from each other
for the very last time.

Inside This World Zipped
 
I‘m inside this world of silent creative space
within a zipped up tube of  words
within the darkness I crawl
from my vocabulary.
I look on the walls of night
looking for an exit.
I look through the crow in the darkness,
the gray on the bark of the willow tree,
serve as my lantern out of here.
Wayward are the gray clouds
I can’t see I toss my faith upon.
Wild horses of creativity form
lines, stanzas, poems with
and without form.
It’s here I beach the darkness
and the conclusion in the end
and the final lines that allow
you to envelope me between
my screams and creativity.

The Seasons and the Slants 
 
I live my life inside my patio window.
It’s here, at my business desk I slip
into my own warm pajamas and slippers-
seek Jesus, come to terms
with my own cross and brittle conditions.
Outside, winter night turns to winter storm,
the blue jay, cardinal, sparrows and doves
go into hiding, away from the razor whipping winds,
behind willow tree bare limb branches-
they lose their faces in somber hue.
Their voices at night abbreviate
and are still, short like Hemingway sentences.
With this poetic mind, no one cares
about the seasons and the slants
the wind or its echoes.
I live my life inside my patio window.