John Philip Johnson
Poet & Writer
the January poem
Winter
for Sue
Tea in cups, garden catalogs,
birds at the feeder.
Winter in the window,
in the rituals of scarf, hat ...
from Southern Poetry Review
Imagine Crowd Noise
An old time radio announcer stayed home
for away games, unbeknownst to the fans,
and read the play-by-play off the wire,
making up details, playing crowd noises,
giving his listeners the game they expected,
his voice as familiar as the rituals
of men on first and third, nobody out. A swing...
from Rattle
Midas at the Beach
When Midas went to the beach
everyone in his kingdom was nervous.
They liked the foot shaped patches of golden sand,
scooped up like cattle patties,
and they were used to the nimble ruckus
of the entourage, staying somewhat close
but avoiding the bump. Their fear was for the sea,
for his first step, for the yellow muck hardening
from Ruminate
The Ascension
Instead of rising in the sky,
what if he had stayed,
laid down on the ground,
and said goodbye with an ineffable smile,
dissolving into a puddle
of something like water or a starless night sky,
from Rose and Thorn
The Image
The humanification of things.
Like what happened to Rabbits
with Peter, only all the rabbits now,
clever little things, blowing grass reeds
to make their vowels,
lip-smacking it up with the Nietzsche-reading
vegetable patches, so adroit ...
from Rose and Thorn
Gothic Poem
There's banging in the attic, then groaning,
and while you postulate some natural cause
what you don't know or want to believe
is that your roof has been ripped open
and crows are settling on your stuff, and, if you'd look,
stroboscopic bursts of lightning reveal ...
Peter Rabbit and Nietzsche:
from Word Riot
The Wife & I on Cough Drops
The next morning, you picked
my cough drop off the bedspread
where it had stuck, dried,
after I coughed it out
like a bullet.
I’d thought last night, while I
was coughing, This would be
a lousy way to die ...
Painting by Bills friend, Carlos Frey,
who can be reached by clicking here.
The new issue of Mythic Delirium, one of my favorite venues, has my "Plutoid" on page one!
And Spillway Magazine, edited by Susan Terris and godfathered by David St. John, has let me put the rodent back into "Mickey Mouse."
Liebchen
for William Kloefkorn
I remember you playing basketball in high school
thirty years before I was born.
I remember your grandmother calling you Liebchen
when you were very small – Mein Gott!
I remember the time your father bought grapefruits
where you could eat the membranes, they were that tender, that sweet.
I remember you delivering the Wichita Beacon,
except it wasn’t really Wichita nor was it the Beacon.
I remember how genially you collected the myth of living
around yourself, how comfortable you were in your bones...
from a William Kloefkorn Tribute in Hobble Creek Review
John Philip Johnson
Poet & Writer
