SELECTED POETRY

by
Michael Lee Johnson

LEAVES IN DECEMBER

Leaves, a few stragglers in
December, just before Christmas,
some nailed down crabby to ground frost
some crackled by the bite of nasty wind tones.
Some saved from the matchstick that failed to light.
Some saved from the rake by a forgetful gardener.
For these few freedom dancers
left to struggle with the bitterness:
wind dancers
wind dancers
move your frigid
bodies shaking like icicles
hovering but a jiffy in sky,
kind of sympathetic to the seasons,
reluctant to go, rustic,
not much time more to play.

© Michael Lee Johnson

---

I WORK MY MIND LIKE PLANET EARTH

I work from my mind
inward into a corner of knots.
Depressed beneath brain bone
I work my words, they overwork me.
Fear is the spirit alone, away from God.
Hospital warriors shake pink
pills, rattle bottles of empty dreams.
I walk my ward down the daily highway, depressed.
I work the roadmap of spirit, weed out false religions.
One God for so many twelve step programs.
I wrap myself around support groups,
look for dependency within their problems.
I publish my poems, life works, concerns on floor 5.
I edit my redemption, escape from the laundry room;
run around in circles like planet earth
looking for my therapist to seal my comfort.

© Michael Lee Johnson

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RAINBOW IN APRIL

April again,
the wind
falls in love with itself
skipping across asphalt
and concrete bare
with the breaking weather.
A rainbow
Is half arched,
broken off deep
into the aorta
of the sky.
It hangs
from elastic
rubber bands
of mixed colours
tipped in God's
inkwell,
airbrushed
by the fingertips
of Michelangelo.
April again,
the wind steps high.

© Michael Lee Johnson

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I KNOW FROM MY BED

Sometimes I feel
like a sad sack
a worn out old man
with clown facial wrinkles
I know when I reflect
stare out my window
at the snow falling
from my bed
my back to yours
reflecting on my pain
ignoring yours
I isolate your love
lose your touch
to another
forgetting
it is our bed,
not mine,
that I lie in.

© Michael Lee Johnson