Michael
Lee Johnson
Untitled I
Walk
(Psychiatric
Assessment)
Untitled I
walk
through life
with a shrink
from Yugoslavia,
whose as large as big
foot.
With a novel in one
hand,
and shaking his fingers at
me
with the other,
he wants to control me with a
shovel,
tie me in knot balls, emotional
twisters,
and squeeze the emotional
pages
out of my life like a twisted
sponge.
I retaliate, control him
back,
wage war in a vicarious
cycle
squeeze his testicles like
electrical wires
inside my mind’s eye,
cut his tongue with
razors,
dull his clinical
words.
Play his game, only
better.
He picks up the play
phone,
threatens to call the
police,
leashing me in my
corner
like a trapped dog
forces me to bark
into submission
like a beagle basset
bitch.
He treats me with word
babble.
I tell him he is a damn Ukrainian
idiot.
Peeved off I race
to the parking lot, head to the
bushes,
like a blue racer snake
threatened,
hop bunny rabbit into my
S-10
Chevy pick-up truck,
memo pad in hand,
scribbling ruminating
notes
I surrender naked till my next
prescription,
untitled I
walk.
South Chicago Night
Night,
south Chicago is filled with
drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers,
pick-pockets and pimps,
a few whores on 95th street
south
fill out the night agenda with
silent whispers;
thousands of tiny fingers of
greed snitch
dip into pockets other than their
own.
The night air is full of insects
and Lake Michigan perch smells.
Ladies diligent in the
night,
High on the rise of condo
balconies and drugs
Paint a picture, gesture to
strangers on the streets
below, “do you want a
date?”
The neon signs are blinking and
half the bulbs
are burned out.
Mayor daily or is it Daley, is
tucked in sleeping blankets tonight
in south Bridgeview; while most
of the trouble lodges at the Salvation
Army where Christ lives with
sinners.
Parents, despair. Surrender
their children for
bucks and old silver coins traded
earlier at the pawn shop;
some drink gut-rot sweet cherry
wine and act as slave pushers−
but the children continue to roam
the streets in designer clothing.
Before the warmth of morning sun,
lips grin,
sidewalks fold turn up and open
to foot traffic,
the city of Chicago trembles from
the taste of delicious dew.
Just a map image and
picture−frame shadow
of the city with the “big
shoulders.”
Mayor Daily or is it Daley is
sleeping and ducked away sound tonight.
The big city drifts, and in the
morning light, sailboats
lean against the side walls of
Lake Michigan sand and shoreline.
Michael
Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer
from Itasca, Illinois.He is
heavy influenced by:Carl
Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton,
Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg.His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled
From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version
of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available
at:http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa
. The original version of
The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at:
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7
. He
also has 2 previous chapbooks available
at: http://stores.lulu.com/poetryboy
.
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