New poems
By Michael Lee Johnson

 

No One Cares (V3)

 

No one cares
I sit in my 2001 Chevy S10 truck drunk on smoked salmon vodka,
writing this poem on Subway sandwich napkins.
No one cares my life insurance policy is a carburetor
full of fumes, worn out filters, filled casket.
No one cares Nikki my cat; 19-year-old veteran, no bills, no veterinarian visits.
Jesus is a stray cat and a life of His own.
No one cares no one has adequate health care, deductibles clauses, debt.
No one cares Mr. Skunk travels nightly tail up passing
steam by my balcony window 3 A.M. farting both sides of his glands, anal release.
No one cares I still have microcassette recorders, obsolete,
old mini cassettes not found any more Wal-Mart, Target stores.
No one cares poetry-writing compounds saints, sinners, nightmares,
thoughts, twists insanity inward a lonely bitch curls.
No one cares lines of life too long, house of David too short.
Vampire is history drunk on blood, innocent-
shacks overload detail, house of horrors-
antique images, draft dodgers, war hero memories passed out.
I clutch Niles high school 1965 Memory Book $25 paid
between years past, many hearts gone-
I face thrombosis bulging encore in my right leg.
I failed English class.  I slept through business class next to Tommy James.
Rock star to be he slept, my head down desk, I looked back up cheerleads legs.
No one cares I nearly flunked high school,
rode 35 mph in John Hibbard's candy apple red Mercury Cougar.
Even in high school, there were stoplights, cheap gas.
No one cares John's parents, both, hated me.
I see shadows, days as old memories, unjust wars, antique Studebaker Larks.
Life is a worn out tread tire, rusted rims, steel now in junkyards.
Niles High School, August 15 2015, 50th reunion
sees you all there-memories, faces most forgotten.
Revising this poem backward confused with tenses,
no one cares, I site in my 2001 Chevy S10 truck
drunk again smoked salmon vodka.
I have always hated the rules.
Little penis travels in the dark.

 

 

 

Jesus in the Snow (V2)

 

I find your footprints here in snow, fresh and broken.

Will your lawyer fragment me, talk to Jesus private tonight.

Will belief set me out of chains, battery acid, free?

Life here is a urinal.

Search moon-eye in lonely sea feel swim of exile, sandpaper spots on skin, do not torture me.

Even devil in hell has his standard, private harvest, his jukebox baby.

Jesus suffers with the poor feels lonely in distant planets shares visions of the moon.

Let me drive you home truck tracks, then you left footprints in snow.

Do you hear sounds on the radio, jukebox baby?

I copy over, print remains, over footprints in snow.

 

 

 

Lilly, Lonely Trailer Prostitute

 

Paint your face with cosmetic smiles.

Toss your breast around with synthetic plastic.

Don’t leak single secrets to strangers-

locked in your trailer 8 foot wide by 50 foot long

with twisted carrots, cucumbers, weak batteries,

and colorful dildos-you’ve even give them names:

Adams’s pleasure skin, big Ben on the raise, Rasputin:

the Mad Monk-oh no, no, no.

Your legs hang with the signed signatures

of playboys and drifters ink.

The lot rent went up again this year.

Paint your face with cosmetic smiles.

 

 

 

Harvest Time (V8)

 

A Métis lady, drunk-

hands folded, blanketed as in prayer

over a large brown fruit basket

naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard

inside-approaches the Edmonton,

Alberta adoption agency.

There are only spirit gods

inside her empty purse.

 

Inside the basket, an infant,

restrained from life,

with a fruity winesap apple

wedged like a teaspoon

of autumn sun

inside its mouth.

A shallow pool of tears mounts

 

in his native baby 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.

 

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