The Spider Inside Her

The broken spider
spins webs inside her,
laboring with broken legs.
The web weaves crooked,
so her lies sound stupid;
a broken spider can still lay eggs.

And, lay them it does
before it curls into dust
and sifts into the folds of her brain.
Where in the warmth of her throat,
a spider sack grows,
spilling spiders like black chalky rain.

She chokes on their cancer,
while they bite and harass her,
vomiting black clouds of ballooning arachnids.
She coughs into the wind,
spraying them like phlegm;
they’ll find homes in the brains of her kids.

–Michael Johnson

A Juggernaut Bride

Don’t think it a maybe that the baby is crying
or the discontent whisper is just a former wife sighing.
I march from my home like a soldier to work.
There’s not enough dollars.
I’m living in squalor
but financing a lifestyle where I’m labeled a jerk.

I’ve broken my knuckles
cut open my flesh
while hefting the houses of whores.
I charge them a quarter
for the things that I porter
and return home just as broke and as poor.

But, each day I go back
bruised blue and bruised black
for the compromised pay of a dime.
I hang my head low.
and stare at my toes
then march home like a wandering rhyme.

Something must give
if I’m ever to live;
I just want some more time with my kid.
But, the ex-wife is shouting.
Her payment she’s doubting.
In the interim, she’s flipping her lid

God damn it, I’m trying.
Stop your harping and crying.
The check will arrive on the first.
Are you really here fearing
I’ll fail in my rearing
of the child we conceived and you birthed?

I’m only a man
with sore muscles and hands
doing the best job I can.
Do you know what it takes?
Do know what’s at stake?
Am I to sift gold from sand?

I won’t fail our daughter.
It’s the lessons I taught her–
lessons on how one can thrive.
I taught her to fight.
I taught her to write.
I taught the kid how to survive.

By the time that I’m done,
she could kill with her thumb
and describe it in tear-jerking prose.
She’ll have ethics and morals
and know how to quarrel.
She’ll be as dangerous an Antarctic snow.

She’ll glide like winter wind
with eyes that see sin
and the halos that people conceal.
She’ll be Amazonian inside.
She’ll be a juggernaut bride.
And, she’ll change the world more than the wheel.

–Michael Johnson

After the Flames

She was no predator.
I let her
do what whiskey did with whinos–
tear holes in our lives
so large you could drive a freaking truck thru

I wrote odes and lymrics to dreams of vengeance,
acidic words meant to give offense,
where stale joy came from artificial sunshine.
The fire I felt
burned and feels sublime.

Now years, I find I’m lonely.
Comforted by none who seem to know me,
realizing I’ve been waxing wicked
about a woman
I shared a kid with.

Now that her world is finally tumbling
with her begging and quietly crumbling,
I wonder at my marshaling malice.
Did my fury
ruin Wonderland for Alice?

I don’t know,
I enjoyed the show though.
I feel sorrow that my prediction–
that she’d taste ash and ruin–
has finally found fruition.

My anger realized autumn.
The fuel that fed it has found its bottom,
and in the silence I hear my echo
smell old smoke
and feel some sorrow.

The predator, I think was me,
and I’ve eaten my last feast.
I’ll probably build her back her Rome,
because, now that the fire is out,
I find myself with too much stone.

— Michael Johnson

Not Myself

For moonlight,

I did set away;

Down the garden path

to play.   

 

Past rose and climbing vine,

daisy and lonely pine,

I set off into the pitch

to find me piece of mind

 

Fields filled with frolicking phantoms

who come into my ear as disturbed leaves,

giving chase by lunar light

before vanishing as thieves.

 

What wight or specter follows

my person through the hollows

ever matching my stride with step,

following as Death unto the gallows?

 

Deeper in the dark,

sentinels rise as oak and yew,

and the first flakes of winter dreary,

fall soft as a kitten’s mew.

 

But by step-and-step,

I do determine

my night time stalker

be more than vermin.

 

Heavy is the heel

that makes mulch of autumn timber.

The thudding echo of un-careful feet

moving me to remember.

 

A time in a distant land,

in a forest filled with war,

I heard again the creeping tread

and recalled my pledge of never more.

 

I put foot before and again,

making haste through a hickory thicket.

The war was fresh once more

and I fled from what once was wicked.

 

No stealth did it exhibit.

It crashed and cursed the stars.

No matter where I hid,

its presence wasn’t far.

 

It happened of a sudden.

The forest it spit me out,

and I stared upon distant lights

hearing those distant shouts.

 

It came crashing from the woods,

causing a brave heart to quake and cower.

So, I hid inside a hole,

in water dark and sour.

 

He found me hiding there

dirty, sick, and tired

and offered me his hand

to pull me free the mire.

 

He swaddled me with blankets

this beast become a man,

and led me home once more

across the wintered land.

 

The nurses greeted me.

The doctors checked my health.

My dementia changes me.

Sometimes, I’m not myself.

The Escape Pod

It was the silence I feared;

thick and oily and black as ink.

It embraced me like a lover,

stroking my downy cheek.

 

The road was yards away,

but I couldn’t hear the traffic.

Everything sounded white.

The cars; the wind; the havoc.

 

I saw only the car,

upside down, wheels spinning;

a helpless turtle belching smoke.

My horror was just beginning.

 

It was the blood that drew me on.

A beacon of fear.

I came upon her with burglar’s feet

and knelt so very near.

 

I did not know

she lay dying.

I saw tears.

She was crying.

 

I took her hand.

She took mine.

She said, “please don’t leave”.

I replied in kind.

 

I watched her eyes.

They opened wide.

Her soul escaped,

somewhere outside.

 

Her hand went limp.

So did mine.

She lay still.

I kept crying.

The Fall of Troy

The night Ole Troy died,

I witnessed fools in motley,

wearing whorish paint.

The whores were oh so costly.

 

The night was bitter cold.

The north wind came to call;

Jackets and scarves were worn tightly.

And Troy, had all the girls in thrall.

 

On that night of knights,

fools danced with broken whores.

The robots tried to laugh.

The robots tried to score.

 

The wolf and I

hid behind the seat.

We watched Troy drink

and tried not to make a peep.

 

There was the fragile whore

with thighs covered virgin blood.

She had a broken brain

and an inky soul of sludge.

 

Troy drained his beer,

hiding it down low.

I thought I might like to laugh,

but then the whores would surely know.

 

We feared the queen;

the queen in emerald green.

The dragon riding tyrant.

The matron made obscene.

 

The queen saw it all.

She knew what others thought.

We never looked at her

for fear of being caught.

 

Through child windows

ole Troy outside crept;

Up to the dragon’s back

to await the touch of Death.

The maiden flashed her eyes,

promising Troy her precious virtue.

Troy would accept the gift,

whispering, “I promise not to hurt you”.

 

The maiden fair

was a green-eyed fiend.

Who at Troy’s end,

chose to flee the scene.

 

The queen, she steered her dragon.

Troy, he set his feet.

And to another dragon,

Troy’s plan was to leap.

 

But, the queen was holding court.

The whores, they came to bleed.

The motley fools were there.

They spilled their foolish seed.

 

Troy was up there all alone.

The queen’s court called for his return.

The north wind cut like razors.

Troy was unconcerned.

 

As Troy chose to leap,

his foot slipped. He fell.

And as one might expect,

he broke his head like Humpty’s shell.

 

He was rolling in the street,

screaming incoherent words.

The queen’s court gathered round,

depressed and deceivingly disturbed.

 

I kept ole Troy’s secret.

The foolish whores simply cried.

The fools, they danced and capered

including the foolish bride.

 

The queen, the whore, and the maiden fair;

all approached him truly scared.

They thought they might give the fallen help,

but instead, they stood and stared.

 

Troy was ever the knight of nights.

For him, all the maidens sighed.

Yet, at the very end,

still Prince Charming died.

The Farmer’s Rose

No longer does Demeter

kiss the ground beneath my feet.

Too many years of hosting corn

had left the garden leeched.

 

It is useless clay beneath me;

a field of plough-cracked stone.

But once, it was a bountiful garden

sustaining my family home.

 

As a child, I rode the plough

my father pulled about

and dug my toes in rich dark soil

doing my best to just help out.

 

I spent my summers in the corn

playing at hide and seek,

listening to laughter amongst the rows

with pollen-dusted cheeks.

 

But now, the seasons turned

on this beloved stretch of land.

It will never again know laughter

or the touch of a ploughman’s hand.

 

It’s become nothing but a bridge

connecting our home and barn

one must carefully choose to cross

lest the thorns inflict them harm.

 

Most seasons, I spare it not a glance.

Here, the cocklebur reigns.

The ropey weeds and blackberry briars,

in concert, this ground reclaimed.

 

I mourn the loss of the enchanted garden

where my siblings and I came to play,

but a silver-lining, if one exist,

is how nature marked the grave.

 

The Morning Glory is mourning glory.

Watch how the blossomed serpent grows.

It winds and twines and kisses our eyes,

and to the sky, the Farmer’s Rose doth go.

Writing Prompt: A guy goes to hang himself and finds another body already hanging there. A girl sits nearby.

The woods were dark. The path uneven and criss-crossed with gnarled roots. He stumbled and staggered along, adjusting the coil of rope on his shoulder frequently. Somewhere in the darkness there was honeysuckle growing. He could smell it. It made him remember her. There was honeysuckle growing on the rock wall outside her window. He ducked beneath a limb and wiped cobweb from his face. The woods had spider silk strung between the trees everywhere. He imagined the woods as a giant cocoon. The silk was always sticking to his face no matter where he went within the forest.

He looked for the bend in the path. He’d come here everyday since the funeral. It was here that she’d met him. Or rather, it was here that he’d met her; seated beneath the Grandfather Tree sketching the burly trunk and twisted limbs. He turned the bend and tripped, staggering forth into the clearing.

“Are you okay,” she asked, setting aside her drawing pad.

“I’m fine, Sam. I always forget about that last root.” He said, stopping to admire her perfect skin. “You’re glowing.” He pointed out, gesturing toward her face.

“You do have a way about you.” She giggled. “Thank you. Do we have to do this again?” She asked.

“I don’t see how we can stop.” A breeze blew through the forest, rustling leaves and carrying more of the honeysuckled scent to them.

“There was honeysuckle growing outside my window. Remember?” She asked, excited. “You loved that smell.”

“I remember.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and refused to look away even though the urge to continue was building. He couldn’t help but admire her seated there in the splinter of moonlight piercing the canopy of the Grandfather Tree. The moonlight made her glow so brightly. “Why do you keep coming to tree?” He asked, shaking out the coil of rope.

“Where else would I go? My love comes here every night. I will sketch him for eternity.” She proved the point by taking back up her sketch pad and pencil. “Maybe tonight, with the light filtering in as it is. Perhaps you could, ” she hesitated, “maybe hang yourself from that limb over there instead.”

He looked up at the decaying body already hanging from the tree. His decaying body. “You would think they’d have cut me down already. I’ve been hanging there for weeks.”

“This was our place, Shawn. We came here because no one else did.” He threw the rope over the limb.

“Not that one. The one beyond it. The light will shine on your face.” She interjected, pointing with her pencil toward the limb.

He pulled the rope down and tossed it up and over the limb she wanted. “Will this do?” He asked. She nodded, making that pouty look he loved so much. She made it everytime she was deciding on how to start a new sketch. “I know the tree is off the regular path, but it just feels like nobody misses me.” He said, tying off the end of the rope to one of the gnarled roots of the tree. Convinced the rope would hold, he climbed the trunk of the tree and shinnied out onto the limb.

“I’m sure they miss you, baby. You didn’t leave a note though. How are they supposed to know you’ve gone missing if you don’t leave a note. You’ve always been a loner, and since my funeral, you’ve withdrawn even more.” She started her sketch by drawing the Grandfather Tree.

“Are you ready?” He asked, looking into the darkness beyond the leaf-covered clearing. The Collector’s were coming to watch him hang himself again.

“Not yet. Give me another moment. I need to sketch the limb first.” She brushed her long black hair out of her face with the back of her hand and resumed drawing.

“Are you going to draw me with charcoal tonight?” He asked curiously. “It has a more artsy feel about it.”

“Artsy?” She laughed. “That isn’t a word, baby. And no, I’m not going to use charcoal. I was thinking of something different for tonight. Something special.” She said, setting her pencil aside. She pulled a flat hinged box from her art kit and opened it, pulling out her pen.

He slipped the noose around his neck and tightened it, slipping the loop closed. “I wish I had used better rope. This one itches. You know, when I did this for the first time, that was what I was thinking about as I fell. I was thinking about how much the rope itched. It’s strangely upsetting? I had wanted my last thought to be about you, but there I was falling thinking about how uncomfortable the rope was. I never deserved you.” He said, suddenly changing the subject.

“Sure you did. After all,” she said, dipping the nib of her pen in the blood spilling from her wrist, “we’re two of a kind.”

He smiled down at her then, and watched the dark pits where eyes should have been widen and recess, spilling their blackness across her perfect skin like vines climbing a wall. He smelled the honeysuckle on the breeze one last time and fell. The limb shook, dropping leaves as his body came to a sudden stop, feet dangling, limbs convulsing, rope swinging. She sketched the man she loved in blood, recording every detail vividly. When she finished, she tore the page from her pad and set it aside to dry, then cleaned her pen and replaced it in the box. She shook out her hair, retrieved her pencil and waited.

“Are you okay, she asked, setting aside her drawing pad.

“I’m fine, Sam. I always forget about that last root.” He said, stopping to admire her perfect skin. “You’re glowing.”

Forests of Glass

The trees are hunkered down

with ice upon their boughs.

The sky is grey as fishing lead,

and the Winter wind blows south.

 

The limbs of the Weeping Willow

fan out like a bridal train

as the willowy wands that dangle

give way beneath the strain.

 

For beneath the gloomy skies,

the trees are dark and cold.

The ice encases limb and leaf

of trees both young and old.

 

The blackbirds come to test the limbs;

the crow and ravens black.

Sometimes the tree limbs hold the weight

but other times they–CRACK!

 

I walk among the sparkling trees

easily imagining they are glass.

Each limb is a beautiful figurine

some blower has thought to craft.

 

When the skies turn blue once more,

the sun will rise above the rim.

And, the frozen forests will sing with light

and the blue birds will add their hymn.

Raindrop

It was deep, this pit;

this pool of liquid glass.

I could see pebbles twelve feet deep

like a physicist sees simple math.

 

I slipped in while they were away.

Only my eyes for them to see,

hovering above the the placid pool,

still as leafless tree.

 

I hugged the contours of the pool,

keeping to the shade

while leaves from a Mulberry

smoothed the ripples that I made.

 

I remained in hiding

till the rain chased them off.

I emerged like a slippery serpent;

my movements slow and soft.

 

Golden leaves, my coming launched;

going before me, my armada.

Ghost ships sailing for foreign shores;

their crew, persona non grata.

 

Raindrops fell like rockets;

tears of our forgotten god,

sinking the leafy ships

the bugs had nibbled and gnawed.

 

I watched it all with my crocodile eyes,

seeing the birth of that silver mist,

which was no more that queer little tears;

children of a rain drops kiss.