Featured Poet - Michael Lee Johnson

I WORK MY MIND LIKE PLANET EARTH

I work my mind

inward into a corner of knots.

Depressed beneath the 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;

I work on the roadmap of spirit,

weed out false religions.

Only 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 five, psych ward

I edit my redemption,

escape from the laundry room;

run around in circles like planet Earth.

Looking for my therapist

to seal my comfort.

BIPOLAR

Awake night light

jungle twisted branches of thought.

One character linked to the

insane personality of the other.

Bipolar in a universe of singles, aces.

The fear of aloneness hearing

cracks in your walls; jumbling joy

of jumping into the municipal pool

At 3:00 a.m. in Hillside, Illinois.

Bipolar, bewitched, and alone.

Late to work, staring at your

employer, dart split eyes.

Tattered with memories dancing

on the tablecloth with glee

slapped on the face with a teaspoon

just to feel the sadness leave.

Bipolar, bewitched, and alone.

Seldom ever hear happiness.

That doesn’t sound like a fire.

Siren camping in your eardrums.

Meds crank up and crank down.

Moods follow the meds.

Or do meds follow the moods?

Personal wars echo words in my ears.

Even during silent times, the night

roars like street jungles.

Bipolar, bewitched, and alone.

INJURED SHADOW

In nakedness of life moves

this male shadow worn out dark clothes,

ill fitted in distress, holes in his socks, stretches,

shows up in your small neighborhood,

embarrassed,

walks pastime naked with a limb

in open landscape space-

damn those worn-out black stockings.

He bends down and prays for dawn, bright sun.

SOUTH CHICAGO NIGHT

Night is drifters,

sugar rats, streetwalkers,

pickpockets, pimps,

insects, Lake Michigan perch,

sounds of Herring gulls.

Neon tubes are blinking.

Half the local streetlights

bulbs burned out.

DOVE BAR POEM

Ex-lover told me Dove dark

chocolate bars were good for lovers.

She ate dark Dove bars,

I ate light Dove chocolate.

She was healthy, I was sad.

We often got into fights over this.

She was manic and I was depressed.

Sex was a bouncing basketball affair.

She was healthy not knowing her disease.

I was sad, stealing apples

out of farmer John’s orchard.

Sleeping wherever

a pillow was found.



REINCARNATION

In the next life, I will be a little higher up the pecking order.

No longer a dishwasher at the House of Pancakes

or Ricky’s All-Day Grill, or Sunday night small dog thief.

I will evolve into the Prince of Bullfrogs. Crickets don’t bother me,

Swamp flies don’t bother me–I eat them. Alligators I avoid.

I urinate on lily pads, mate across continents at will.

And for my dishes, let the river clean them this time.

If there are complaints, toss them to the wind—they won’t find me.

Someone else from India can wash my dishes locally for me.

Forward all complaints to that religious office of Indian affairs.