{"id":991,"date":"2007-04-24T17:17:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T17:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=991"},"modified":"2007-04-24T17:17:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T17:17:00","slug":"three-poems-by-michael-lee-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/three-poems-by-michael-lee-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Three poems by Michael Lee Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikki<\/span>

<\/span>Watching doves<\/span>
peck away,<\/span>
all day long at<\/span>
a full bowl<\/span>
of mixed seeds,<\/span>
out on the balcony \u2013<\/span>
the cat curls<\/span>
up on the sofa,<\/span>
after a meager<\/span>
meal of house flies \u2013<\/span>
and dreams of<\/span>
sparrows with<\/span>
wide soaring<\/span>
wings.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – –

\n<\/span><\/font>

Hazy Arizona Sky<\/span>

<\/span>7:00 am<\/span>
Sonoran desert,<\/span>
sleep dust covering my eyelids.<\/span>
Morning fireball<\/span>
hurls into Arizona sky,<\/span>
baking down on cracked,<\/span>
& crusted earth \u2013<\/span>
makes Saguaro cactus<\/span>
split its rubbery skull<\/span>
flood dry & open<\/span>
valley with one cup<\/span>
of cool, clear,<\/span>
refreshing<\/span>
water.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – –

\n<\/span><\/font>

Graying In My Life<\/span>

<\/span>Graying in<\/span>
my life<\/span>
growing old<\/span>
like stagnant<\/span>
bucket of<\/span>
rain water with moss<\/span>
floating on the top \u2013<\/span>
oh, it's now such<\/span>
a bad deal,<\/span>
except when<\/span>
loneliness<\/span>
catches you<\/span>
chilled in the<\/span>
middle of a sentence<\/span>
by yourself.<\/span>
ticking away<\/span>
like an old grandfather clock,<\/span>
hands stretched straight in the air<\/span>
striking midnight<\/span>
like a final<\/span>
prayer.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Michael Lee Johnson lives in Chicago, after spending 10 years Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a freelance writer and poet and says he is heavy influenced by Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams and Leonard Cohen. He is presently self-employed, with a previous background in social service areas, he has a degree in sociology, worked on a masters programme in correctional administration, and took a creative writing course at university on a pass\/fail basis \u2013 he failed. He has a huge box of “unfinished” poems dating back to 1965 \u2013 yellowed papers, wrinkled napkins and all, they await the hand of revival. Until recently he had not submitted any poems since the early 70's.

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NikkiWatching dovespeck away,all day long ata full bowlof mixed seeds,out on the balcony \u2013the cat curlsup on the sofa,after a meagermeal of house flies \u2013and dreams ofsparrows withwide soaringwings. – – – – – – – – – Hazy Arizona Sky7:00 amSonoran desert,sleep dust covering my eyelids.Morning fireballhurls into Arizona sky,baking down on cracked,& crusted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}