1

From Which Place the Morning Rises

Poems by: Michael Lee Johnson

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, freelance writer, and author of The Lost American: From Exile to
Freedom, http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7. He has
also published two previous chapbooks of poetry which can be found at:
http://www.lulu.com/content/936633 or . http://stores.lulu.com/poetryboy He was nominated for
the James B. Baker Award in poetry, Sam's Dot Publishing, and is a contributor in the Silver
Boomers poetry anthology. He has been published in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia,
Scotland, Turkey, Fuji, Nigeria, Algeria, Israel, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of
Sierra Leone, Nepal, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Poland, and Malaysia. Michael Lee Johnson is a
member of Poets & Writers, Inc and Directory of American Poets & Fictions Writers:
http://www.pw.org/. He is a member of The Illinois Authors Directory. Illinois Center for the
Book: http://www.illinoiscenterforthebook.org/directory.html

Michael Lee Johnson presently resides in Itasca, Illinois. He lived in Canada during the Vietnam
era and was published as a contributing poet in the anthology Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came
to Canada in the Vietnam War Era, May 2008.

This array of poems is all new since The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom. This is the
third chapbook of poems Michael Lee Johnson has published.

Visit his website at: http://poetryman.mysite.com/. He is the publisher and editor of four poetry
and flash fiction sites: Poetic Legacy, http://www.poetriclegacy.mysite.com/ ; Birds By My
Window: Willow Tree Poems , http://birdsbywindow.blogspot.com/; A Tender Touch & A
Shade of Blue, http://atendertouch.blogspot.com/; and Wizards Of The Wind,
http://wizardsofthewind.blogspot.com/.
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Table of Contents

Indolent Sun
Forked in Itasca
The Christians Arrived
I Brew in Broth
Bloodshot in my Medical Lies, Eyes
Mother Edith, at 93 (Version 3)
Poem from My Grave
Hanging Together in Minnesota
No One is Here
Bread Crumbs for Starving Birds (Version 1)
Bread Crumbs for Starving Birds (Version 2)
Bowl of Petunia’s
Bird Feeder
Tiny Sparrow Feet
Manic is the Dark Night
In the Garden Where the Flowers Grow
Twist My Words
Berenika

Cinquain Poems, and Near Cinquain Poems

Days Pass
Snowflake
Nothing to Do
No Lights (Version 1)
No Lights (Version 2)
No Lights (Version 3)
Willow Tree Night and Snowy Visitors
I Trip on My Poems (Version 1)
I Trip on My Poems (Version 2)
Charley Plays a Tune
Rod Stroked Survival with a Deadly Hammer
Harvest Time
I Hide my Craft
Mindful, Mindless, October Date
Jesus Walks
Gingerbread Lady
Cat Purrs
I’m a Riverboat Boy: Poem on Halsted Street
Catch On the Fly
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Prelude
From Which Place the Morning Rises is the follow up chapbook to The Lost American: From
Exile to Freedom. The author is no longer in exile, unless exile is considered old age. Here you
will find some of the best recent and pungent poems the author has ever written; some of which
hopefully will stand up to the test of time.

Dedication
I dedicate this chapbook of poetry to Carol Marcus, John Balaskas, Dawn Edder, and Claudia Moore.
These people have put up with reading my poetry, wading through all my emails about poems, acceptances,
rejections, and pure nonsense. To these people I’m truly indebted; without them, life and times would be more
difficult.
 4

Indolent Sun
In early March
an indolent sun
persists in tossing
volunteer rays of
soft flickering sun silk
through dark desolate
willow tree branches−
melting remnants
of snow diamond crystals
from weathered wooden planks
on my balcony.
I’m starting to think life
is an adjective exaggerated
by the sway of seasons.
It is normal feeding time.
Below two floors
wild Canadian geese
wait impatiently−
for the tossing of morning feed;
the silent sound they hear,
no dropping of the seed.

-2008-
 5

Forked in Itasca
I am so frustrated
I want to chew
the dandruff
out of the internet hair implant
and dislodge it,
for a lost love affair I never cared
about and hardly knew.
Don’t tell me about my sentence structure,
I am human in these simple words.
I swear to you I curse.
Then the ram of my affair falls short
frustrating my approach to the world
at my fingertips.
No Yellow Pages here my love.
The dial up of my local connection
is wretched, stuck unincorporated
in the land I approved to live in,
monopolized by Comcast the
robbers of the poor and the humbled.
All I hear is the rambling of the railroad tracks.
I grow numb in my deafness faint with my hearing.
Did I ask for your opinion?
I am a frustrated foreign camper
in my own community.
Of a village I don’t live in,
but I love this local village I lie about.
I am estranged.
I tie knots in contradictions
when I travel light and far,
visit home I long for a journey
past where I have never been.
Is this the reason I am lost
forked in between
the poet I think I am
and the working man
my bills dictate?

-2007-
 6

The Christians Arrived

Salvation Army and
the Christians arrived today,
Christmas, like every other Sunday morning
feed the homeless, chasing the rats from the bathroom,
basement, kicking the dead flies out of the corner spots
where the cat used to lounge−
clean the toilet bowl, a form of revival and resurrection.
I privately pastor to these desires though I myself am homeless.
I forgot what it’s like to be a poet of the cloth,
savior in street clothing with a warm home to blend into.
I watch them clamp the New Testament in one hand,
And pull a cancer stick out of the pocket with the other.
It’s all a matter of praising the Lord.
Everything is nonsense when you’re in a place where you don’t belong.
Even praying to Jesus from a dirty dusted pillow seems strange and bewildering.
Someday I will walk from this place and offer spare meals by myself to others;
feed the party in between the theology, the bingo of sins and salvation.
I forgot the taste of a Stromboli Sandwich with a six pack of Budweiser
with or without the Chicago Bears−it would make every Sunday a Salvation
Army holiday.
Today is a fairy creating miracles from the dust of the floor
multiplying fish and chips, baked ham, ribs with sauce Chi-Town type,
dark color of greens and veggies tip me to the Christian
clock on the wall peeking down on lost and unsaved.
I feel like a fragment.
A birth date the way again to begin, fragmented.
Pinto beans mixed with graffiti fingers,
Christians arrived on Christmas day−
they always do every Sunday morning.
I pastor to these desires.
It’s all a matter of praising the Lord.
The Christians arrived today.

-2007-
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I Brew in Broth
When the silence of my
life tickles in darkness
delves into my daily routine
caught in my melancholy music
at times, not exact;
then exuberant auto racing playing
at times, not exact−
a new poem published or a kick in the ass−
kick smacks like tornado alley
in the tomato can
left over paste
of my emotions
at times, not exact;
I realize the split of legacy,
of loyalty on its knees fractured
like a comma or sentence fragment,
naked like a broken egg
between friendship and hatred,
I stew like beef broth
simmering
sort of liked, sort of hated,
not exact.

-2007-
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Bloodshot in my Medical Lies, Eyes

Bloodshot
American medical eyes,
lies.
The bloodshot in
my eyes creates sling shot
of a corrupt medical culture.
Private medical is a sinful devil
that eats riches and leaves those in need behind,
54 million left behind,
far from the mission of Christ,
or the oath they based their medical degree upon.
Blood shoot, sling shot, old fashion mafia
connections, a symptom, a collapsing structure,
damn crooks with lab vests on.
They love talk about premiums, exclusions,
pre-existing conditions.
Toss your medical blood rag
over the wallets of sole proprietors,
small businesses.
Doctors and insurance companies
are vampires sucking the sweat off your balls.
It’s an innocent killing, imagery tossed
in the jock like Bengay or red hot chili peppers.

-2007-
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Mother, Edith, at 98
Edith, in this nursing home
blinded with macular degeneration,
I come to you with your blurry
eyes, crystal sharp mind,
your countenance of grace−
as yesterday's winds
I have chosen to consume you
and take you away.

"Oh, where did Jesus disappear

to”, she murmured,
over and over again,
in a low voice
dripping words
like a leaking faucet:
"Oh, there He is my
Angel of the coming."

-2007-
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Poem from My Grave

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−
ground hogs 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 or piece
remote found in scripture from Sodom & 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 where 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 dry matted pine needles,
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-
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Hanging Together in Minnesota

Two thousand men on death row
in the state of Texas. I've never
been here, still I'm worrying
myself to death.

Webs of worry travel fast,

scan over my memory bank
back and forth like a copy machine.

I refuse to get out of my bed

I'm covered with burnt dream ashes
held in custody my cobwebbed anxiety
sheets waiting for the lurking armed
system of justice to take me away.
Their loud speakers keep screaming channeled
commands vibrating through my eardrums;
their messages keep cross-firing against my own desires.

There must be a warrant out for my arrest.

I will not listen, period. I will shut out the sounds period.
Insanity echoes with stressed sounds.

It's Sunday morning, prayer time, I swear I will block out

the church bells ringing on Franklin Avenue, ringing
at St. Paul's Baptist Church.

Religion confuses me like poetry or prose.

I curse I will hang where Christ used to dangle;

on a wooden cross, post in a Roman Catholic hole,
or was it protestant reformation?

But, I'm the thief, not the Savior.

I don't want to die in my worry, my words, stranger in this world alone.

I want to resurrect the dream before the wounds arrive, and placed me in exile.

There must be a warrant out for my arrest,

long before the sounds of cell phones came ringing.
Mixed in war, thunder, and sentence fragment I lie here.

-2007-
 12

No One is Here
I walk in a poem
late at night that sings no sober song,
no lyrics for the living,
toss in a few lines for the dead.
It fetters my anger
with hostility and sticky jam between
my toes and worn out shoes.
I find myself walking 2300 South Western
Avenue in Chicago at 3 A.M. like a damn dummy;
thinking of Mayor Daley's sales tax proposals,
lack of health care in this country unlike anywhere else
in the free world,
and some boxers who shoplifted some goods
out of Marshal Fields department store earlier
this evening-
no one is here to spit at me,
to fist my face in brick,
or steal my wallet giggle,
or my car keys or jiggle coins
out of my jean pockets.
Disgusting, it hangs,
it beats metal drums in my inner ears,
over and embeds, like an RK 47 going off.
Loneliness is an elbow plunged
in one’s ribcage at night.
I get in my car, bruised,
bandaged,
go home−
wait for God,
sprinkle prays,
the fairy dust
of healing.
Go about, the next day,
my visitations, crusades for the world.
No one is here.

-2007-
 13

Bread Crumbs for Starving Birds

(Version # 1)

Stretched across the ravine,

the walking bridge
is covered with snow.
Steam lifts from the narrow river bed below.
The hand guided ropes
are glazed over with ice.
Raccoon tracks are pepper sprinkled
in front of me like virgin markers
leaving a fresh, first trail.
Once across, and safe,
I toss yellow bread crumbs across
white snow for starving birds.

-1996
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Bread Crumbs for Starving Birds

(Version #2)

Smiling across the ravine,

snow cloaked footbridge.
Prickly ropes slick with ice,
snow clad boards pepper sprinkled
with raccoon tracks, virgin markers,
a fresh first trail.

Across and safe,

I toss yellow bread crumbs
onto white snow, for starving birds.

-2007-
 15

Bowl of Petunias
If you must leave me please
leave me for something special,
like a beautiful bowl of petunias−
for when the memories leak
and cracks appear
and old memories fade,
flowers rebuff bloom,
sidewalks fester weeds
and we both lie down
separately from each other
for the very last time.

-2008-
 16

Bird Feeder
Baby,
born
just
a
sparrow−
first flight
from balcony
to tree limb.
A chip of corn falls
from the feeder
to the ground.

-2007-
 17

Tiny Sparrow Feet

It's calm.
Too quiet.
My clear plastic bowl
serves as my bird feeder.
I don't hear the distant
scratching, shuffling
of tiny sparrow feet,
the wing dances, fluttering, of a hungry
morning's lack of big band sounds.
I walk tentatively to my patio window,
spy the balcony with detective eyes.
I witness three newly hatched
toddler sparrows, curved nails, mounted
deep, in their mother's dead, decaying back.
Their childish beaks bent over elongated,
delicately, into golden chips, and dusted yellow corn.

-2007-
 18

Manic is the Dark Night

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 feel 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. I
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-
 19

In the Garden Where the Flowers Grow

I want to take Islam where their God has not been before-
to the garden of Jesus, olive oil presses, Gethsemane−
trees, flowers, fruits, vegetables didn’t poison anyone there.
Passion was sweat on the ground and brow.
There weren’t darts of hate, misconception or terrorism;
children on their knees five times a day some brainwashed to hate.
Christ didn’t lead them astray nor make them pagan pink.
There is no God apart from Allah, and Mohammed is the Prophet,
but it’s Jesus who makes the garden grow with or without water.
Then and now, the apples grow in my garden of forgiveness.
Figs trees grow far away where I can’t reach them but believe in them.
Like the Tamarisk tree, Christ is a source of honey,
manna and wafer, a taste so sweet in the desert so dry.
You don’t have to be a scholar to write poetry, religion, or understand
the Eucharist; but you need to be a real saint to know the difference.
Islam, is Judas Iscariot among your converts nose pointed toward
Mecca today?
I want to take Islam where their God has not been before−
to the garden where the flowers grow.

-2007-
 20

Twist My Words
I see the spring dance all over your face in green
you were arrogant before you viewed my willow tree
outside my balcony.
Now you wave at me
with green fingers
and lime smiles.
You twist my words,
Harvard collegiate style,
right where you want them to be−
lime green, willow tree, and
dark skinned branches.

-2007-
 21

Berenika
Do what I tell you to do
your face is like flour dough
your nose like a slant directionally
unknown like an adverb−
tossed into space.
Your hat is like an angel
wedding gown draped
over vodka body
like a Christ shield
protecting you in innocence.
It is here I kiss your lips as a total stranger;
bring myself closely to your eyes;
camp out on your narrow lips
and wait for the morning
before I slide like a sled
deep snow, away.

-2007-
 22

Cinquain Poems, and Near Cinquain Poems

Days Pass

Days pass,
Cold is winter,
At night birds hide in trees.
Doves at bird feeder don't count days.
No cares.

-2008-

Snowflake

In spring
Last snowflake falls
Temperature is rising
If it knew how long it lasts,
why bother?

-2008-

Nothing to Do

Summer
As the world burns,
Nothing else to do, but
Step into liquid cool waves
And swim.

-2008-
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No Lights
(Version 1)

Depressed,
No lights inside,
No lights outside of me,
Blood dripping from my eyelids
Alone

-2008-

No Lights
(Version 2)

Depressed
No lights inside
An eternal catnap
Blood dripping from my eyelids
Alone

-2008-

No Lights
(Version 3)

Depressed
No lights inside
An external catnap
Blood dripping from my eyelids
Alone

-2008-
 24

Willow Tree Night and Snowy Visitors

Winter is tapping
on the hollow willow tree’s trunk−
a four month visitor is about to move in
and unload his messy clothing
and be windy about it−
bark is grayish white as coming night with snow
fragments the seasons.
The chill of frost lies a deceitful blanket
over the courtyard greens and coats a
ghostly white mist over yellowed willow
leave’s widely spaced teeth−
you can hear them clicking
like false teeth
or chattering like chipmunks
threatened in a distant burrow.
The willow tree knows the old man
approaching has showed up again,
in early November with
ice packed cheeks and brutal
puffy wind whistling with a sting.

-2007-
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I Trip on My Poems
(Version 1 Revised)

In the night when poems

are born, I search for no one
but the hidden words.
Conjunctions are just meeting places
like personal ads for wild women.
Even my lady friend criticizes me
for being uncreative, disconnected,
a time degenerate.
The secrets stretch inside my metaphors, I
can’t find them all.
I miss spell check;
grammar is a liar;
syntax is drug substance I refuse
to understand.
I’m a trouble-free minded poet
with the training of an uncultivated monster;
I chew on my experiences, go back
to the prey, the kill, usually alone and spit.
But I have no sense of formality.
Even near my tender moments
when the images blossom into rain flowers
I trip on stems cut my way loose to nowhere.
I go there to see what I can find.

-2007-
 26

I Trip on My Poems
(Version 2 Revised)

In the night when poems

are born, I search for the hidden words,
secrets stretch inside my metaphors
Even near my tender moments
when the images blossom into rain flowers
I trip on stems cut my way loose to nowhere.
I go there to see what I can find.

-2008-
 27

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.

-2007
 28

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 grandchildren who hardly know her name.
Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or the pull of a lever.

-2007-
 29

Harvest Time
(Version 4 Final)

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 are 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 starts
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.

-2007-
 30

I Hide my Craft
I hide my craft
under the armor
of the armadillo−
tucked beneath its armpit,
hovering near it’s stomach
with insects buzzing noon
day sun issues and indigestion-
away from the editors
punitive critics,
and pay on demand
print money mongrels;
cold bacon and lard
under the pages
between poems
and the words
stick I write
everything
with a scent or odor.
I look up at the sky
and giggle my nerves
like gold chains
waiting for the next
editor to tell me
my mind doesn’t work,
flow with my words quite right.
I count them one
by one
those for me on one
side; those against
me on the other.
I hide my craft
under the armor
of the armadillo.

-2007-
 31

Mindful, Mindless, October Date

Mindful of my lover
running late, as common
as tying your shoestrings;
I’m battered as an armadillos shell;
I put my bands around my emotional body
armor native to myself and walk like a stud
in darkness.
Everything in October has a shade of orange you know−
a hint of witch and goblin.
In the leaves between my naked feet
and toes, as I pace my walk in the parking lot,
I count them−
I count them color chart fragments and bites:
oranges, reds, still mostly greens.
Barefooted the time of the tears, the year fragmented.

I am male battered in a relationship

tested without my testosterone
no sexual rectification or recharging
of my batteries needed.

I lie limp.
Native to myself−
mindless of my lover running late.

Then she arrives.

-2007
 32

Jesus Walks
Jesus lives
in a tent
not a temple
coated with blue
velvet sugar
He dances in freedom
of His salvation
with the night and all
days bearing down with sun.
He has billions of ears
hanging from His head
dangling by seashores
listening to incoming prayers.
Sometimes busy hour’s drive Him
near crazy with buzzing sounds.
He walks near desert bushes
and hears wind tunnels
pushed by pine stinging nettles.
Here in His sacred voice
a whisper and
Pentecostal mind−
confused by hints of
Catholicism and prayers to Mary-
He heals himself in sacred
ponds tossing holy water
over himself
Touching nothing but
humanity He recoils
and finishes his desert
walk, desolate, alone.

-2007-
 33

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.

-2007-
 34

Nikki 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.

-2007-
 35

I’m a Riverboat Boy:

Poem on Halsted Street

As sure as church bells
Sunday morning, ringing
between Halsted and State Street,
Chicago,
these memories will
be soon forgotten.
I stumble in my life with these words
like broken sentences.
I hear and denounce myself in the distance,
mumbling chatter off my lips.
Fragments and chips.
Swearing at the parts of me I can’t see;
walking away rapidly from the spiritual thoughts of you.
I am disjointed, separated from my Christian belief.
I feel like I’m at the bottom of sinner’s hill
playing with my fiddle, flat fisted and busted.
So you sing in the gospel choir; sang in Holland,
sang in Belgium, from top to bottom,
the maps, continents, atlas are all yours.
I detach myself from these love affairs
drive straight, swiftly,
to Hollywood Casino, Aurora, IL.
Play fragments and chips.
I guess we gamble in different casinos,
in different corners of God’s world,
you with church bingo; and I’m a riverboat boy.
No matter how spiritual I’m once a week,
I can’t take you where my poems don’t follow me.
Church poems don’t cry.

-2007-
 36

Catch On the Fly

Full barrel up 53 north,
heading to Lake Zurich, IL,
Christian talk radio 1660
on the radio dial,
crisp winter day
sunbeams dancing down
on the pavement like midgets.
85 mph in a 65 mph zone,
just to aggravate the police,
black Chevy S10 pick up,
shows what a deviant I am
in dark colors.
Running late for a client appointment,
creating poems on a small hand held recorder
knowing there is not payment for this madness
in this little captured taped area of words.
Headlights down the highway for a legacy
into the future, day dreaming like a fool obsessed.
Working out the layout of this poem or getting my ego in place,
I will catch up with the imagery when I get back home.
This is my life, a poem in the middle of the highway.
Scampering, no one catches me when I'm speeding
like this.

-2007-
 37

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Originally published by: “What to Wear During an Orange Alert”, Orange Alert Press,
http://wearduringorangealert.blogspot.com, editor, Jason Behrends.

1. Last year you published a full length collection of poems entitled,

The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom, what can you tell us about your collection?

It was an accumulation of poems dating back to 1967 that I had carried on my back in Canada, in exile,
during the Vietnam War era. Many of the poems remained in a cardboard box for many years untouched.
With the advent of the internet to sublimate the snail mail approach I decided to try to publish them off
napkins, tainted yellow paper, etc.

2. Having been published in both print and on-line formats, do you feel one carries more weight or is
more legitimate then the other?

This is an interesting question. I love print format; but, I realize online is the wave of the future due to
little profit in the poetry artistic world to the poet or the publisher. Traditionally, print publications lasted
longer and you had a solid piece of "hardware" in your hands. Many internet publishers come and go and
are replaced as quickly so I keep a detailed credential list of both. But, as times change, print publications
are disappearing one by one and the net is the wave of the future. I only wish I knew how it will evolve so
I could be a mind reader into the future of God's plan for us all.

3. You also record audio version of your poems. Do you feel poetry is meant to be heard as well as read?
Do you feel your poems are more effective in an audio format?

This is a question I love. I have a good audio voice and for many years practiced the wonderful voice of
Carl Sandburg, my idol. I think Mp3 and other variations of technology to come will, in fact, be the
future; but, I'm 61 years old what does an old man know about the future? I'm all for it.

4. You are publisher of four different literary sites. Why four sites, and how did you decide to enter the
world of on-line lit publishing?

These are wonderful questions since they challenge my sanity. I work full-time, self-employed to
survive, I run four individual poetry sites, try to write, and keep up with my long-term lady friendship, a
brilliant lady--Carol Marcus, (a wonder photographer-volunteer of her time for over 40 years to the
community of Villa Park and a good writer herself), love my cat Nikki, and pray a lot to Jesus Christ my
Lord when I'm not swearing too much! But to the questions: I have grown to love editors (for the most
part) and poets who devote their spare time out of "love not money" for the advancement of literature in a
society that doesn't read that much anymore. I also learn from others writings and enjoy the angles of
their words and thoughts-they stimulate me...a reciprocal relationship. Why four sites? It’s partly due to
different formatting of the websites themselves; but, mostly due to the different themes and levels of
submissions, including content. I tend to place poems according to the way I feel. If nature poems come
in about willow trees, they go to place; if they are love and romance related they tend to go to another
site; if they are science fiction oriented or mystical they tend to go to another place, and so on. Put
simply, I'm happy with the four sites, but I don't want anymore!

5. The anthology called "Crossing Lines" sounds fascinating. Was there a community of writers that
traveled north at that time? Did you write about your experience at the time?
 38

I love your questions. It was published in May 2008. Yes, I wrote many poems in Canada in exile. I
love Canada even though I was somewhat deranged emotionally at the time. Who in their right mind can
deny the advantages of universal health insurance when you have 54 million Americans without access to
a hospital in the United States? But war resisters didn't tend to hang together but did find refuge with
many fine Canadian families who believed in the anti-Vietnam movement at that time. Writers tended to
cluster in the Vancouver, Victoria Island area and the islands in-between the mainland and Vancouver
Island. But I was not a joiner. I went my own way, and I don't regret it.

6. What's next for Michael Lee Johnson?

I'm not a good writer. My spelling is terrible, my grammar is worse, my syntax is beyond belief. I
actually failed creative writing in undergraduate school at Lethbridge University, Lethbridge, Alberta. It
was a pass, fail course, I failed. I find it ironic now that many professors are sending me their work. I'm
not into poetry for money (damn it!), but I'm into poetry for legacy. It's my desire after I have left this
world, in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord, (when I'm not swearing so much) that I leave a body of work
that will be shined upon after I have left this world. I can think of no greater contribution; but, I would
only be laughed at this point.

Bonus Questions:

1. Coffee? If yes, where can you find the best cup in Itasca? How about the best cup ever?
Damn, I love these questions! No, not Starbucks, though one is just down the street to the East on Irving
Park Rd. The best cup of coffee, in Itasca, is at Michael Lee Johnson's condo. I blend, I pour, I mix all
kinds of Coffee Mate—a disaster as Carol, my friend, reminds me of each Sunday morning! Creme
Brulee, etc. full of bad unhealthy things!

2. What type of music do you enjoy? Do you listen to music when you write?

I listen to nothing when I write but God, myself and my spirit. I love music, mostly old time rock and roll
and Patsy Cline exemplified my friend John Balaskas, Fifth Avenue band. If you need a good band call
for wedding, engagements, etc, they are the best: 847-297-2463. Good old and new stuff! They have a
wonderful female singer, Kris.
 39

Many Of The Poems In This Chapbook Have Appeared In Small Presses Below.

Acknowledgments:

Poetry Cemetery, The Smoking Poet, Semaphore: Signals in the Distance, Midnight Times, Word
Catalyst.com, Bewildering Stories, Events Quarterly, Now Events Weekly, Alone Togethers Weblog,
Why Vandalism?, The Cerebral Catalyst, Scars Publications and Design, Tales From the Moonlit Path,
Ken*Again, Happy Spring Equinox!, Wild Violet: An Online Quarterly Literary Magazine, Covert
Poetics, Pen Himalaya, The Fifteen Project, First Thought, Censored Poets, Café Del Soul, The Cynic
Online Magazine, A Southern Journal, Oplus (Sam Smith: The Journal), Ardent Journal of Poetry, Pens
On Fire, Yellow Mama, American Poets Abroad, The Houston Literary Review, Ink Sweat & Tears,
Demon Minds, Mademoiselle's Fingertips, Static Movement, Poets Haven.com, Above Ground Testing,
Kritya (Poetry In Our Time), Madswirl.com: A Creative Outlet, Deadbeat Press, Panic! Poetry, Heroin
Love Songs, Vol. 2, Iddie: A Literary Journal For Creative Thinkers, Poetry Sz:demystifying mental
illness, Long Story Short, Ovi Magazine, Official Site of Laura Hird, A Literary and Arts Magazine,
Letterfounder/Answer Shirker, One Real Story, Monkey Kettle (UK), O Sweet Flowery Roses, Gloom
Cubboard, POCKET CHANGE ~Poetry & Art Journal, The Hiss Quarterly, Rattlesnake Press, Decanto,
Masque Publishing, C&R Press, Poet’s Ink Review, Sketchbook: A Journal for Eastern & Western Short
Forms, Snakeskin Poetry Webzine, Read This Magazine, The Penwood Review, Silver Boomers
Anthology (Freckles to Wrinkles), Naugatuck River Review, The Write Gallery Creative Writing Web
Site, Aireings Poetry Magazine, Tinfoildresses Poetry Journal, The Linnet's Wings,
Languageandculture.net, American Diversity Report, Mississippi Crow, The Curious Record, Southern
Ocean Review, Thorny Locust, Flutter Poetry Journal, and The New Verse News.