Two poems by Michael Lee Johnson

Picture, Cap and Gown

Cap and gown

history major,

minor in math-

graduation under

the maple tree,

bright red leaves,

but the times don’t show it;

a full face grins.

There’s a shadow

below your nose

above your lips,

it settles into

a gray mixed day.

You stand on farm land

with no plow in hand

or in the distance bare;

no damn cows to be seen

no red barn or damn homestead

just open acres of space,

and downed fences,

and some idle brush

blending with quill feathers

flushed within a background

of branches.

Life is a simple picture.

Life is a simple picture,

repeating with tree shadows

hovering around leaves.

Dirt background is dances freely

it is here memories are folded

into prairie wind.

You are still framed

in solid black and white,

you can’t leave this space alone,

from now to your own eternity,

to your salvation or your grave.

Your whole life now has spots

and spaces behind it.

Did you grow older and have children?

Did you marry a man of the plow

or that chemist you had the brief

affair with in agricultural school?

Did the graduation certificate

rolled up in your hand

like a squashed turnip,

donut, or dead sea scroll

faded by moisture or sun

wind cursed with sand?

I pull down your life

and frame it here

like a staged curtain

hand full of future,

present, passed, and pasted

in a space dimension of

3” x 5” tucked beneath

a simple footnote of time.

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.

Michael Lee Johnson is  a poet, and editor, from Itasca, Illinois who lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era, published in 25 countries. He runs five poetry sites, and published works are available at here, here, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and iUniverse.

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published I Know from My Bed by Michael Lee Johnson. Check it out. 

Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Local Chicago musician and blogger Brendan Losch will release his third full-length album on April 10th.