Dead Grey Wolf Skins (Tribute: Aldo Leopold)

by Michael Lee Johnson

Dead grey wolf skins hang
on white clotheslines across Baraboo, Wisconsin
the dark surface, side of the moon,
that only exists in memories hung high, long before.
Hunters in the past did their job well,
sold skins, collected a few bucks,
increased deer for hunting, saved cattle,
decreased fear, told tales, short stories, adventures.

The grey wolf face now emergent,
opens his mouth wide in the safety
open in blue sky.
Shows his white teeth against
background of black sky, shadow,
hears thunder again, releases
fireflies at night, monarch butterflies
during the day, guts down pine tree spikes.
He walks once again over landscapes of turquoises.
He consumes dirt road dust, 119 miles to Milwaukee.
His keen eyes are sharp for growth of skyscraper, Pabst Building.
Traveling side roads over many years brings him to the present.
No more violators, hunters with guns, fake Jesus people
slender in His bathrobe Christ repeats two fishes, 5 loaves.

Aldo Leopold feeding inmate in small jail cells, only kills a few for research.
Aldo a Saint of conservation a consumer of cigarettes and butts,
heart wings of doves attached, broken, stroke fire, a neighbor field
heart stroke drops into history.

Wintertime and Barroom Affairs

by Michael Lee Johnson

I head South side to the bar
115 Bourbon Street
to think the gospel
and find the Lord-
I had some time on my hands
and an affair to find.

Broken in my sentence structure
and simple minded with my words
I need help to find the men’s bathroom.

Back to the neon lights, streamers, to the
dance floor I found dark places with humming
lights.

Women of all colors, shapes, designs and dresses
were giving it away, names, addresses, bra sizes.

This night was crawling with flesh-
flesh escaping, vaporizing into the willing arms
of meat grinders and street strangers:
candles wicking of many sizes,
many colors, dripping down like desert.

I’m the prophet of sinner street,
spending nickels and dimes, tossing
the occasional dollar to someone somewhere.

Dancers of the midnight mirror floor swinging lights.

My thump, rhythm, is off, my shoes under a stray table
somewhere.

Tireless dancers so tired.

At home my wife weeps willow tree tear,
she sleeps short of breath, facing revival,
finishing off a fantasy dream climax oriented
with a total stranger or was it the lead singer
of the Buckingham’s?

It’s a Chicago night you know,
chill and wind tossed around on
Michigan Avenue shoulders.

I’m ending this poem in reality now,
and elsewhere heaven and hell descends-
I’m shut out of a box of love and a dozen roses
clipped like a flowers eye when the touch
of first snow falls.

Winter of love, walls of clear cold.

I head home from
South side 115 Bourbon Street
to think the gospel ,
to wonder about Luke.

Chicago Street Preacher (V2)

by Michael Lee Johnson

Street preacher
server of Word,
pamphlet whore, hand out boy,
fanatic of sidewalk vocals,
strummer seeker
between your cracks of notes,
salvation for living,
damnation, prayers dead−
47th from Ashland to California-
promoting his penniless
life, gospel forever,
Kingdom here come,
later this evening−
wearing same hunter
camouflage colors
yellow, gold, sorts of green,
a J. C. Penney outfit outlet,
underwear he wore a week ago
color dyed piss yellow.
Everything is singular.
He is homeless, spiritual
sexual dream, bed mate,
bedbugs.
Jesus, comes out spirit.
At times Danny sorts feelings
like a dangling modifier,
or an alleyway schizophrenic
with his cause.
He sorts feelings in mystifying end points.
Danny darts off behind
and old oak tree, nearest bathroom
to take a leek,
here he images Krishna
blowing wild on a golden
geese flute.
Beneath a spare Stradivarius
tingles his rib cage.
Back into the bungalow
night street Danny has thoughts
of quarters, Salvation Army, silver dimes,
the Beast, gospel songs, local hookers,
green bills, and wino wine.
Vulnerability knits midnight sky,
rejected sew fry early July morning sun.

Apparently, David

by Michael Lee Johnson

There are categories of hell here.
Apparently
David died of
chronic liver disease
February 28, 2012.

Fact, I was a newspaper reporter.
I am a chronic drunk.

David’s drinking became his sin.
Sin is the crack of the Devil's butt.
It tossed a good man into hell.
Dandelions faded with him when
the burning began.

His widow was a chronic bitch.
Locals called her "Nightmare Boogie."

His wife of 14 years
celebrated his passing;
she pissed on his pictures.

She was simple a mindless fragment.

Her life was understated, full of fragments.

She got drunk on the night David died.
She thought it was butterscotch wine.
Confused, Cherry Lee, kept it simple;
she recognized the mix up,
it was butterscotch schnapps.

Either way, Cherry Lee helped
evaporate David's heart.

There were no memorial services.

David's ashes are still in a fruit box;
mounted on the top of her toilet bowl.

No urn, present or past tense.
No obituary, too late.

Only a label, a tag on the cinerary stating:
"this is David's discount Funeral Home."

There are no survivors here.

Jesse’s Homeless Face

by Michael Lee Johnson

Someday Jesse wants to go home.
I see his world,
all it’s hidden concepts
embedded in Jesse’s aging face-
life has whispered by leaving
memory trails-
wrinkled forehead,
deep as river bed ruts
dried with years, weather-beaten,
just above his bushy eyebrows
that are gray and twisted-
much like life drawing memories
across his empty face.
Jesse has a long oblique
Jewish nose with dark
blue opal eyes,
that would pierce
even the pain
of his own crucifixion.
Life tears flow though
a whole new ghoulish
apparition, a vision
of homelessness plastered
east of Dearborn Bridge,
near Lower Wacker Drive,
downtown Chicago-
where affluent citizens
seldom go unless inebriated;
puke-stained, or in a taxicab.

Jesse’s hair sprouts skyward,
groomed like an abandoned
dove nest in wild Chicago
meandering winds.
Puffed eye bags of weariness
sag likes sandbags,
one slightly heavier than the other.
Weeks of breaded growth
contour his chin in color blends
of white and black.
Over one shoulder drapes
a grungy gray blanket found
in Lilly Mae’s garbage can,
the other shoulder,
naked, but tanned,
bears itself to the elements.

Jesse panhandles during the day.
At night and early Sunday mornings,
you can find him behind
a local McDonalds,
near Cracker Creek,
sharing leftover burgers
and sugar candy
with river rats-
Jesse considers it an act of religious charity;
age 69, someday soon,
Jesse wants to go home.

Picture, Cap and Gown

By Michael Lee Johnson

Cap and gown
history major,
minor in math-graduation under
the maple tree,
bright red leaves,
but the times don’t show it;
a full face grins.
There’s a shadow
below your nose
above your lips,
it settles into
a gray mixed day.
You stand on farm land
with no plow in hand
or in the distance bare;
no damn cows to be seen
no red barn or damn homestead
just open acres of space,
and downed fences,
and some idle brush
blending with quill feathers
flushed within a background
of branches.
Life is a simple picture.
Life is a simple picture,
repeating with tree shadows
hovering around leaves.
Dirt background is dances freely
it is here memories are folded
into prairie wind.
You are still framed
in solid black and white,
you can’t leave this space alone,
from now to your own eternity,
to your salvation or your grave.
Your whole life now has spots
and spaces behind it.
Did you grow older and have children?
Did you marry a man of the plow
or that chemist you had the brief
affair with in agricultural school?
Did the graduation certificate
rolled up in your hand
like a squashed turnip,
donut, or dead sea scroll
faded by moisture or sun
wind cursed with sand?
I pull down your life
and frame it here
like a staged curtain
hand full of future,
present, passed, and pasted
in a space dimension of
3” x 5” tucked beneath
a simple footnote of time.

Even as Evening

by Michael Lee Johnson

Even as evening
approaches night-
dandelions shake
dust loose from their yellow-
a robin pulls
the last red worm
from the moist,
but callous
ground,
shadows fade
into fresh fall night-
small creatures
with trumpet
sounds dominant
the adjacent
woods.
A virtuoso!

Carl Sandburg, Idols in the Sand, and Galesburg Shacks

By Michael Lee Johnson

Idols are what idols appear to be.
Idols are men that idols are.
They’re the sleep walkers,
the self-styled hobo's,
saints in small villages
people living alone.
Birthright of saviors, railroad men, famous poets.
Birthright of little places, big hearts,
speakers of cold skillets and dainty bedrooms.
Folk songs fall, black and white,
divided cracks celebrated brick streets.
They form modest communities,
quiet spaces, momentous churches
named my denominations and breed-
rail tracks divide their ideologies, brands
of beer, run down shacks divide their lives.
Property vultures, ex Maytag mongrels’
Maytag treason, traders of trade, traitors to Mexico,
walk simple steps away.
Jobbers walk and jobs move away.
Streets quiet lights, slate deserted
house shacks of many races abandoned, colors
form rows PMS color charts leading to his birth place;
folk songs, Swedish heritage, Remembrance Rock,
savior of a poetic dream born in a slum.
Just a roadside museum,
mile and a half walk from downtown,
summer sweat, drenching summer heat,
Galesburg railroad days June 2010, ending-
beginning humidity, snippets of beer bottles
tossed around, Saturday night drunks
lie in flush untailored grass.
A three room shack, half-pint bedroom,
curtains merge the window with sun rays,
more summer heat.
Idols grow as children, their ambitions-
toss them away.
Idols are what idols appear to be.
Idols are men that idols are.

Hookers on Archer Avenue (Version 3)

by Michael Lee Johnson

Late evening, early morning,
I search the night for whores,
young, bloody with desire.
Night streets are silent streets
accept for hookers and their Johns.
One wants the dart of groins
the other green eyes in dollar
sacred treasures-
snatch the wallet, a consecrated craft.
Both hit the streets quickly
satisfy needs quickly.

I’m an old buck now rich with memories
more than movement, still talk, take porn shots,
with a peeking eye, snoop around
department store corners,
and dumpy old alleyways.
My hair is gray, my teeth eroding,
thoughts toward prayer
A.M. Catholic Mass,
then off in early morning
to the mailbox, a lethargic walk,
I pick up my social security check-
comforts my needs.

Evening settles into bed time
with a western romance novel,
ambushes, excitement,
old transgressions stretch
and relax.

No desires, homage
to the day, to the night.

Gingerbread Lady

by Michael Lee Johnson

Gingerbread lady,
no sugar or cinnamon spice;
years ago arthritis and senility took their toll.
Crippled mind moves in then out, like an old sexual adventure
blurred in an imagination of fingertip thoughts.
Who 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.
Her live-in maid smirked as Gingerbread Lady gummed her food,
false teeth forgotten in a custom-imprinted cup
with water, vinegar, and ginger.
Years ago, arthritis and senility took their toll.
Ginger forgot to rise out of bed;
no sugar, or cinnamon toast.

Bird Lady

by Michael Lee Johnson

They call her old maid Misty, as in fog, she misses the sun.
She runs a small pet store, more for the injured and lame,
alone and half the light bulbs have burnt out.
In the backroom everything smells of dust and feathers.
The cockatoo is cuddly and named Brenda, but has bad toiletry manners.
The macaw is well hidden, and fetches a high price on the open market, called Ginger.
Misty is surrounded by wired bird cages,
jungle noises in unfamiliar places,
and sleeps on a portable cot.
When parrots or parakeets shout shrills in the night,
her eyes squint and flash out in the dark but no one sees it.
Squinting is a lonely habit.
Misty works alone and is getting old.
On a wall, near her cot, hangs a picture-
but is it Jesus, or St. Jude Thaddaeus
carrying the image of Jesus in his hand or close to his chest,
difficult to tell darkness dimmed at night.
Misty sometimes sleepwalks at night from small room to the other-
she bumps, sometimes trips and falls, her warfarin guarantees bruises.
Misty tosses conjectures: “I’m I odd, old school, or just crazy?”
Her world is eye droppers, bird feeders, poop in cages, porcelain knickknacks.
Love left Misty’s life years ago, when World War II ended and so did her marriage.
As she ages everything is measure in milliliters, everything seems short and small-
medications in small dosages day by day.
Today is dim, raining outside, and old maid Misty still misses the sun.