Saturday, December 14, 2013

A Poem by Michael Lee Johnson


Empty Branch Trees
 
I am the purchaser of your life,
I walk in wild wind in late fall-
dream sweet, dream often,
empty branch trees and leaves
look for you there.
But you are an isolationist,
baron, desolate, stark naked
tan buttocks touching shrine
on a half moon night.
You are worn like moth wings,
infected flannel
with all ex-lovers
coming out of the covers and sheets
various men you have dated for over 30 years-
men that now are a dash, some dead in time.
Sweet body builder,
alpha female your evaluation
of self-goes up, then down,
yoyo clumsy, temperature,
verbal disbursements
inconsistent with morning
sunrise and sets.
You orchestrate your life
tossing dice in dark
alleyways on south side
Chicago predawn streets.
Of the wings I displayed
for you, doves speaking
expressions in time for you,
wings beat in lost melodies-
gone for all I account for,
nest to ruins,
egg to shell,
the love once displayed for you-
crow wings beat, blind my hindsight vision out.
Empty branches, memories gone,
highway emptied to hell.
 
 
 
MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era:  now known as the Itasca, IL. poet.  Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who experiments with poetography (blending poetry with photography), and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 750 small press magazines in 26 countries, he edits 7 poetry sites.  Michael is the author of The Lost American:  From Exile to Freedom (136 pages book), several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems.  He also has over 69 poetry videos on YouTube.
 
 

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