Michael Lee Johnson, US

 

 

Free Verse   Gingerbread Lady   Gingerbread lady, no sugar or cinnamon spice, years ago arthritis and senility took their toll. Crippled mind movies in then out, like an old sexual adventure, blurred in an imagination of finger tip thoughts− who in hell remembers the characters? There was George her lover near the bridge at the Chicago River she missed his funeral, her friends were there. She always made feather light of people dwelling on death. But black and white she remembers well. The past is the present; the present is forgotten, who remembers? Gingerbread lady. Sometimes lazy time tea with a twist of lime. Sometimes drunken time screwdriver twist with clarity. She walks in scandals sometimes she walks in soft night shoes. Her live-in maid smirks as Gingerbread lady gums her food, false teeth forgotten in a custom imprinted cup with water, vinegar, and ginger. The maid died. Gingerbread lady looks for a new maid. Years ago arthritis and senility took their toll. Yesterday, a new maid walked into the nursing home. Ginger forgot to rise out of bed, no sugar, or cinnamon toast.     Harvest Time   A Métis Indian lady, drunk, hands blanketed over as in prayer, over a large brown fruit basket naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard inside—approaches the Edmonton, Alberta adoption agency. There're only spirit gods inside her empty purse. Inside, an infant, refrained from life, with a fruity wine sap apple wedged like a teaspoon of autumn sun inside its mouth; a shallow pool of tears start to mount in native blue eyes. Snuffling, the mother offers a slim smile, turns away. She slithers voyeuristically through near slum streets, and alleyways, looking for drinking buddies to share a hefty pint of applejack wine.     Charley Plays a Tune   Crippled with arthritis and Alzheimer's, in a dark rented room Charley, plays melancholic melodies on a dust filled harmonica he found abandoned on a playground of sand years ago by a handful of children playing on monkey bars. He now goes to the bathroom on occasion, peeing takes forever; he feeds the cat when he doesn't forget where the food is stashed at. He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market and the skeleton bones of the fish show through. He lies on his back riddled with pain, pine cones fill his pillows and mattress; praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads Charley blows tunes out his celestial instrument notes float through the open window touch the nose of summer clouds. Charley overtakes himself with grief and is ecstatically alone. Charley plays a solo tune.     Cat Purrs   Soft nursing 5 solid minutes of purr paw peddling like a kayak competitor against ripples of my 60 year old river rib cage— I feel like a nursing mother but I'm male and I have no nipples. Sometimes I feel afloat. Nikki is a little black skunk, kitten, suckles me for milk, or affection? But she is 8 years old a cat. I'm her substitute mother, afloat in a flower bed of love, and I give back affection freely unlike a money exchange. Done, I go to the kitchen, get out Fancy Feast, gourmet salmon, shrimp, a new work day begins.     The Rod Stroked Survival With A Deadly Hammer   Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or a pull of a lever, that one of the bunch in her pocket was a winner or the slots were a redeemer; but life itself was not real that was strictly for the mentally insane at the Elgin Mental Institution. She gambled her savings away on a riverboat stuck in mud on a riverbank, the Grand Victoria, in Elgin, Illinois. Her bare feet were always propped up on wooden chair; a cigarette dropped from her lips like morning fog. She always dreamed of traveling, not nightmares. But she couldn't overcome, overcome, the terrorist ordeal of the German siege of Leningrad. She was a foreigner now; she is a foreigner for good. Her first husband died after spending a lifetime in prison with stinging nettles in his toes and feet; the second husband died of hunger when there were no more rats to feed on, after many fights in prison for the last remains. What does a poet know of suffering? Rebecca has rod stroked survival with a deadly mallet. She gambles nickels, dimes, quarters, tokens tossed away, living a penniless life for grand children who hardly know her name. Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket for the pull of a lever.     Mother, Edith, at 98   In a nursing home blinded with macular degeneration. I come to you, blurred eyes, crystal mind, countenance of grace, as yesterday's winds have consumed and taken you away. "Where did God disappear to?" you murmur over and over again like running water or low voices in prayer: "Oh, there He is, angel of the coming."