Manic is the Dark Night

by Michael Lee Johnson

(mp3 and photo to go with this poem on request-nice jpeg black and white)

Deep into the forest

the trees have turned

black, and the sun

has disappeared in

the distance beneath

the earth line, leaving

the sky a palette of grays

sheltering the pine trees

with pitch-tar shadows.

It is here in this black

and sky gray the mind

turns psycho

tosses norms and pathos

into a ground cellar of hell,

tosses words out through the teeth.

“Don't smile or act funny,

try to be cute with me;

how can I help you today

out of your depression?”

I fell jubilant, I feel over the moon

with euphoric gaiety.

Damn I just feel happy!

Back into the wood of somberness

back into the twigs,

sedated the psychiatrist

Scribbles, notes, nonsense on a pad of yellow paper:

“mania, oh yes, mania, I prescribe

lithium, do I need to call the police?”

No sir, back into the dark woods I go.

Controlled, to get my meds.

Twist and rearrange my smile,

crooked, to fit the immediate need.

Deep in my forest

the trees have turned black again.

To satisfy the conveyer.

The Lord of the dark wood.

-2007-

Spirits of Schizoid Dead

By Michael Lee Johnson

I was linked to the spirit world

by my own choice;

I connected with those other people

because I thought they were lonely.

I used simple, plain language like you would understand.

I used to toss gold coins around the house

and hear tinny sounds jumping out of the walls

with human voices.

They said back to me that I was in the walls.

I told them they were crazy.

My life was leading into the spirits of the dead.

I was linked to the spirit world

One night, in front of the cottage,

I tossed my evening cape and all my clothing into the ocean.

I grab all my cassette tapes, the ones

I talked to them with and my poems

and tossed them all into the ocean as well.

For years I felt like a crossword puzzle

with parts missing from my face.

Now I am no longer haunted by depression

and my therapist is my best friend.

I'm alive, but lonely, and enjoy the taste of bagels.

I touch them and they feel secure, safe.

-2008-

Poem From My Grave

(Version 2, 08-11)

By Michael Lee Johnson

Don't bring the rosary beads
it's too damn late for doing repetitions.
Eucharist, I can handle the crackers and wine;
I love the Lord just like you.
Catholicism circles itself with rituals—
groundhogs and squirrels dancing with rosary beads,
naked in the sun and the night, eating the pearls
and feeling comfortable about it.
Rituals and rosary beads are indigestible
even the butterflies go coughing in the farmer's cornfields—
Cardinal George, Chicago, would choke on the damn things!
Some of his priests would have thought it a gay orgasm
remote from that found in scripture, from Sodom and Gomorrah.
But my bones in ginger dust lie, near a farm in DeKalb, Illinois
where sunset meshes corn with a yellow gold glow, like rich teeth.
My tent is with friends. There we said prayers privately, like silent
moonlight. Farmers touch the face of God each morning after just
one cup of Folgers coffee, Columbian blend,
or pancakes made with water and batter, sparse on the sugar.
Sometimes, I would urinate on the yellow edge of flowers,
near the tent, late at night, before the hayride, speak
to the earth and birds like gods.
Never did I pull the rosary beads from my pocket.
It's too late, damn it, for rosary beads and repetitions.

-2007-

Depression's Darkness

By Michael Lee Johnson

I'm trapped inside

a ripped artery inside my chest

and inside my brain;

I can't disengage from my grief

with only my words.

The bills mount,

my business drops,

and aging hangs around

my neck like a visible

doggie name tag

and I fall into disarray -

my brain disassociates

and scatters my thoughts.

I feel alone.

It's at times like these I just want

to slouch down, visit the bedroom

siesta - seemingly the only answer.

But no one dances with a live partner

in bed; this is where the devil does his whittling -

builds his cages, practices his cult,

dangles his echelon of drugs, alcohol,

and fortifies them with negative thinking

whets the razor, suggests the fearful suicide dark.

I force my decanting self

to transfer these liquid lines

to solid white paper and black ink,

bully myself to be a spectator,

a review critic of my own

circus creation -

a day traveler between

Harlem, Hades,

heaven and hell.

I filtrate myself these cycles

and feel better, long be the night.

-2008-

Leroy and His Love Affair

By Michael Lee Johnson

Girlie magazines dating back to 1972 are scattered across the floor.

The skeletons of two pet canaries lie dormant inside a wire cage.

Bessie Mae died 8 months ago.

From her lips, and from her eyes comes nothing like before.

Leroy, her lover and her only friend, the man she lived with for

over 30 years locked her body in their bedroom because he

didn't want to part from her.

Leroy has no friends to detect anything that might be suspect.

He wants nothing between the two of them at all, and no one

comes near to interfere.

Their bedroom is padlocked, stale, stagnant with mildew, looking

the way it did before she died.

Foul odors ooze up through their bedroom ventilation ducts,

Leroy contends that a dead rat in the basement is causing the odors.

Leroy loves to lie about his sacred love affair.

Layers of dust blanket over the mahogany floors, and the maid doesn't come

here anymore.

Bessie Mae's remains are wrapped in a scarlet housecoat,

Dried blood sleeps in a small pool beneath her bed.

In time they both will sleep, sole witnesses to the fiasco

their lives will catch them in; enduring it, holding

their tongues till time matters no more.

Nothing appears changed, lovers unwilling to depart.

-1975-