Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Solo, I am clock maker
born September 22nd,
a Virgo/Libra mix insane,
look at my moving parts, apart yet together,
holes in air, artistic perfection,
mechanical misfits everywhere,
life is a brass lever, a wordsmith, an artist at his craft.
Clock maker, poet tease, and squeeze tweezers.
I am a life looking through microscope,
screen shots, snapshot tools,
mainsprings, swing pendulum, endless hours,
then again, ears open tick then a tock.
Over humor and the last brass bend,
when I hear a hair move its breath,
I know I am the clock waiter,
the clock maker listens-
a tick, then a tock.


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Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 875 small press magazines, in 27 different countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. He has 74 poetry videos on YouTube.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Jesus walks
Southwest side
Chicago nighttime city
in bulletproof vest
barefoot
broken
beer
bottles
glass,
stores closed,
blasted windows,
mink furs stolen,
a few diamonds for glitter-
old parks, metal detectors, quarters, nickels, dimes,
coins in the pockets of thieves, black children
on Merry go rounds, Maywood, IL.
danger children run in danger
in spirit, testimony,
red velvet outdates Jesus' robe.


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Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 875 small press magazines, in 27 different countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. He has 74 poetry videos on YouTube.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Single life is-tequila with lime,
shots of travelers, jacks, diamonds, and then spades,
holding back aces-
mocking jokers
paraplegic aged tumblers of the night trip.
Poltergeist define as another frame,
a dancer in the corner shadows.
Single lady don’t eat the worm…
beneath the belt, bashful, very loud, yet unspoken.
Your man lacks verb, a traitor to your skin.


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Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 875 small press magazines, in 27 different countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. He has 74 poetry videos on YouTube.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Street preacher
server of the Word,
pamphlet whore, hand out
delivery boy,
fanatic of sidewalk vocals,
banjo strummer, seeker of coins,
crack cocaine and salvation within notes.
Camper on 47th from Ashland
to California promoting his
penniless life, gospel forever
Kingdom here it comes.


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Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era: now known as the Illinois poet, from Itasca, IL. 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 27 countries, he edits 9 poetry sites. Michael is the author of The Lost American: "From Exile to Freedom", several chapbooks of poetry, including "From Which Place the Morning Rises" and "Challenge of Night and Day", and "Chicago Poems". He also has over 71 poetry videos on YouTube.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Night is drifters,
sugar rats, streetwalkers, pickpockets, pimps,
insects, Lake Michigan perch,
neon signs blinking half the bulbs
burned out.


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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.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Old Irving Park,
Chicago neighborhood
Jasper lives in a garret
no bigger than a single, bed.
Jasper, 69, smokes
Lucky Strike non-filtered cigarettes.
He dips Oreo cookies in skim milk.
Six months ago
the state revoked
his driver’s license-
between the onset
of macular degeneration,
gas at $4.65 a gallon,
and late stage emphysema,
life for Jasper has stalled out
in the middle lane
like his middle month
social security check, it is gone.
There is nothing academic about Jasper’s life.
Today the mailbox journey is down
the spiraling stairwell, midway,
he leans against the wall.
Deep breathes from his oxygen tank.
Life is annoying with plastic tubes up his nose.
Relief, back in the attic, without the tank,
the Chicago Cubs are playing on the radio.

Enjoyment at last, Jasper leans back in his La-Z-Boy recliner.
He reaches for a new pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes.
Jasper grabs a cool Budweiser beer from his mini-fridge.


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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.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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I am drunk, isolated,
and horny,
I stumble into "The Crazy Eight
Bar" and it was not my lucky charmed night.
Flirting with Indian women, delusional
with my white ass superiority,
I am doing card tricks,
end up getting my guts
rib cage kicked out.
Métis Indians circle me in a corner
no facial war paint on
no Indian war bonnets on.
I am down eating floor dust of native history,
and the steel needle toe boots
keep coming up fast, heavy into my ribcage.
One-half lung is out, the other half collapsed.
I am seeing vision of Jesus Christ.
I am crawling to my car half-dead, barely breathing.
Collapsed lungs, head lying on that steering wheel
somehow, find the nearest hospital.
I spit blood. I puke Apple Jack wine on surgeons.
My tan suit jacket is ruined; I piss my white pants.
Life is shaded like purple summer daisies.
So I learned, when a stranger is in strange town
find a place where your color fits your face,
never cheat at cards.


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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.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Now once great events fading
into seamless history,
I am mother proud.
My native numbers are few.
In my heart digs many memories
forty-one relatives left in 1937.
Decay is all left of their bones, memories.
I pinch my dark skin.
I dig earthworms
farm dirt from my fingertips
grab native
Baja and Southwestern California,
its soil and sand wedged between my spaced teeth.
I see the dancing prayers of many gods.
I am Cocopa, remnants of Yuman family.
I extend my mouth into forest fires
Colorado rivers, trout filled mountain streams.
I survive on corn, melons, and
pumpkins, mesquite beans.
I still dance in grass skirts
drink a hint of red Sonora wine.

I am mother proud.
I am parchment from animal earth.


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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.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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When you get old
you leave everything behind−
present tense past tense,
hangers on refusing to turn loose,
high school letter sweaters, varsity
woolen jackets, yearbooks 1965,
covers that quickly open, slam shut−
high school romances only faces
where they were then−
ice cubes frozen in time.

No more teary eyes,
striking flames,
moist match heads
igniting bedroom sheets
and teenage bedside rumors.

You leave wife, or wives
behind toss out your youthful affairs.

All single events were just encounters,
cardiac dry ice, ladies with crimson clover eyes.

No more strings tightened, broken bows,
heart dreams slit vows, melancholy violin romances.

You continue leaving reading glasses, key chain, ATM card,
senior discount cards, footnotes are your history,
artificial sweeteners, doctor appointments daily,
keep touching those piano notes, phone numbers in sequence
in tattered address books, names attached to memories
hidden behind.

Everything rhymes with plural thoughts and foggy memories.

Youth was a bullyboy club-
the older I get the less I'm battered−
trust me I got witnesses in between−
saviors of wings, fantasies,
tense has no grammatical corrector,
it always dances around the rim of red wine.

Life now fills with silver teaspoons
of empty senior moments−
blank shells of present, past tense,
and yank me back recalls.

Do you remember those 1st 25 years?
Shrinking brain space remembers
dances of sporadic nighttime boogies,
sports, senior prom, Thomas's Drive-In,
Spin-It-Record Shop, Dick Biondi,
WLS Chicago top 100.

Remember the next 25 years?
high school reunions grow dimmer−
priest of the voodoo dolls punch in numbers
of once living and now dead−
undresses all.

Rise forward from your medieval pews.
Wherever you now live,
do you remember these things−
prayer, ghosts deep in the
pockets of our former youth.

Old age waits patiently in the face
of a full moon−a new generation.

When you get old
you leave everything behind.

-2013-


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About the Poet:
MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 750 small press magazines in twenty-five countries, he edits seven poetry sites. Michael has released The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom (136 page book), several chapbooks Of his poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems. He also has over 66 poetry videos on YouTube.
Links: http://poetryman.mysite.com/

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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So
simple
yet so
small
this
yellow rose
I place
beneath
your door.

-1973-


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Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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Now that I desire to be close to you
like two occupants sharing a twin bed
sensing the warmth of sweating shoulders,
hungering for your flesh like a wild wolf
leaning over empty carcass,
you’re off searching unexplored cliffs,
climbing dangerous mountain tops,
capturing bumblebees in broken beer bottles for biology class,
pleasing plants, parachuting from clouds for fun.
In clouds you’re closer to life, nonsense,
a princess of absurdity, collector of dreams
and silent sounds.
In clouds you build your own fantasy, share it with select celebrities.
But till this captive discovers a cure for caring, a way of rescuing insatiable insanity,
or lives long enough to be patient in longing for you--you must be vigilant,
for with time snow will surely
blanket this warm desire.

-1975-


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Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa.