the lost poems of John Johnson
1.
I had visions as a child,
you see,
that’s why I need
to write about rollercoasters
and candy shops.
girls who’ve lost
their sense.
girls who have no sense at all.
that is about it.
right now I’m sitting in a boring motel room and dreaming.
I dream of the great
hidden
monsters
in clothing shops who eat tree bark and collect
dust
collect
dust.
2.
when I have begun to reach out
from
beyond the white bricks
of
my home
I know I have
brass bells in the attic
of my
grandparents’ old home
and they ring
ring
for us.
someone I met a while
ago
with tall boots
gave me some advice:
she
said
toss away your old clothes when you’re feeling bad
and
go get some new ones.
3.
nobody I ever loved
had
seashells,
maybe empty bottles,
but not a free bunch of sand clumped together
in an envelope
mailed to themselves.
maybe I never grew up on the sea,
maybe that’s
it.
I never had wind around a gull’s
beak for
a best friend.
I did grow up near windmills and near
sawdust.
I grew up with
reeds and bunches of dead leaves.
my childhood
best of all books
is flat and superior.
4.
a piano piece
I once
wrote
for free for a song for a woman
went something like
la dee da
dee dum
du du dun
and the cloying hands of the angels
and
the drip of the waterfall
and pretty spectacles.
but it didn’t get me very far;
some
dust and some
flat tires in the
presence
of old brick buildings
long dead
and
long forgotten.
5.
my mother told
me
the last thing I could do
would
be large and black and
terrible
thunderstorms.
terrible like the first word I ever uttered.
forget me nots.
nobody I ever loved had
white shoes and
a green
dress
and cinnamon.
but that’s okay.
it’s a great life to be the bedspread,
the burgundy
carpet,
the old lifeless stalk of bamboo in the neighbor’s
yard.
oh guns of the old town,
shoot
me a million miles into space
I can’t believe.
6.
I feel
as if I don’t
own
a thing.
my
flesh.
my bones.
the dreams and the drift
of
good times
in the light of lean days
of no
one
on time.
all alone in the desert the
last
of
god’s children will scream
of
the time they were loved
and
they
will be more beautiful than
ever.
7.
if I die in white stripes
I will be better
than
the night
of loose vagabond cars
careening
over empty yards.
my neighbor once shot a dove
with
a tiny rifle.
it was a beautiful plummet
into
the hard earth.
white white
feather
cast out everywhere.
8.
at the party
with
the gentleman gazing
upon
a woman
he
once knew
is not laughter.
laughter is the reticence
in
her eye as
she sips white champagne
and
unravels her laced shoes
and
runs into the coat closet
with kisses.
ivy rose petals in the gutter
kids
in disposable shrink rap
give me
a jive
girl
oh wicked
I saw you turned inside out in the warehouse
district
and
a car engine
and a lucky lover
I saw
you wearing your flesh
in
soirees pink
ardent and spoiled
oh
I saw
the moon roll over
and bend
in my pocket
I am the god king
sent to
earth from grass and meadow
and
plastic glass
nobody make believe
me
be be
a go go
dancer
in shades on the veranda
down
in
lust
cracked cocoons in the forest
entrails
and
soup bowls left
in
my
kitchen
sink
in the city
of
3
a hunt is on
for
the best woman
her lips
are
mirrors
her hips
oh Beatriz
a cicada
and
a twirl of a tree limb
snapping
in the breeze
leafless and
beaten
4
he read the radio dial
in
the group of strangers
and they
slap slap
hands
together
grand poetic
fleabags
in my mind
splash against a red
fire truck
as it hides in the alleyway
the fire
and
the country I’m living in
5
this is my life as of right now:
a girl I used to know
beating coconuts
on
my window
and
an old suitcase gilded
with
ink ribbons
and
a friend I once was clapping
loudly in
bars and pits with
bottles never
once
loved
and
my parents on the radar
flying high
and piercing the clouds
and
a boarded bell beaten
discothèque motel
room
with roaches and faces
and
a chance to read words
in strings of
light on the boulevard
and
one happy moment
of tryst
and
tremble and the treble of
a guitar and
a violin
and
red wine poured over
my face
a warrior older
and still
and
the month of July bursting
proudly
across my chest
and
my teeth
and your teeth and his
teeth and hers
and the teeth of the elders
mixed with dirt and
dust on the
ground before an empty
warehouse
and
all
and
all
of frond limbs bending
in the rain
and the sunshine
6
my human friends
got
the gold in their fingers and
they touch
walls
and dazzle
make a maker
be a believer
I thought I saw her again
in the
dustbins of the cheaters
and
she sang songs of
forgotten beauty
that’s a world
she
said
we used to belong to
7
let the music stores
and the coffee
shops
and
the boulevard lights
be
a temptress with
a sundress
in the evening
summer
skin
I felt a breeze touch
and the fall of mankind
in
the revolution of love
its
easy to be
the glimmer
of
lamppost light
across
the river
at night
and
to drown in the other side
of
nothing
8
it’s over
for the gold girls in
the disco
smash a bottle of champagne
I say smash
a bottle of wine
my lover
a girl at a bus stop
my lover
my only and only
forever forgotten
to
be
just this
piece of guitar string
snapped and fraying
the light is fantastic
and
my mind is a boarded bunch of rubber bands
in
an empty alabaster
sink
girl
you have a name
the lost poems of John Johnson 6…
strawberries
under the bed
we
make love
and it is the melody
of a blind
man
raging on and on
with
black marker
across blank subway
walls.
girl,
get thee gone,
take me with you,
cut
my hair.
the lost poems of John Johnson 7…
no sign of love
in your tears
welled
across a blank mirror.
you think of
Sunday
church yard razor
fathers
with old faces
akin to
broken beer mugs.
my girl has a rainbow.
Beatriz,
you shrink, you run,
the cars of the highway
are bold.
they want your
hide.
they want
to take you in their trunk and immolate
you.
