Infidelity returns and the soul's bounced rent check (A letter to Mary Magdalene)

so i says to Judas the lumberjack "why don't you get down from there? you've got it all wrong. You oughta swing from that tree of a woman they call Mary back in town." and so he says "don't bother me none. I'm just thinkin' 'bout how to get down from here. I'll hang you next for botherin' me!"... blind little ceasar comes in delivering pizzas and mirrors, says we can devour our faces once we're done arguin' over the bill, and ol' Heyzus' mama, she's pregnant again with that absentee landlord's kid. she's a slow learner. welfare checks from heaven ain't redeemable at any bank 'round here, and last time she tried to cash one it got her locked up for fraud. ceasar runs her over in his chariot on his way out and blames the whole lot on her. "you oughtn'ta been sleepin' around like that. how you think Jupiter feels about all this!" "you stay outta this, ya hear! my baby daddy ain't eatin' this one, less you tell him where we're at! you keep your fat mouth shut or I'll cut you in half!"

where's that little shit, gash-cat? if you find him, baby, come spring me. he owed me money so i tore down Judea lookin' for him. don't one 'a your folks know where he's at? there was dope on the ground when I got to his place. where'd it come from? when they hauled me in, cops said it was mine, their probable cause for all the fires and murders. they roasted an' quartered Barabbas the bum an' handed out pieces of 'im to kids on Sunday. I know you were askin' after him. don't know when you'll be comin' back this way. ol' Heyzus sure does miss ya and yer perfume bottle that sprays death and blood of salamanders. thinks yer his ticket out. he's in the cell two storm drains down, and won't shut up 'bout how he's gon' be rescued from this place. what a romantic. they say i'm finna get baptized this week, gon' save my soul or some such nonsense. who knows, maybe it'll work. i miss you baby.

hope this letter gets to you safely. I know the c.i.o.'s are watching.

faithfully yours,
John

A place beyond the embers

out of cold air and shadow
a single thick-stemmed rose
budding, protected by thorns
rises from dead leaves returning
in the form of strength.
Beyond black gates palm leaves bend
beg forgiveness from water
sequestered and just out of reach
in its bowl of stone.

As wind passes through a screen door (Sutra #8)

2.
It is normal
to miss the poet we once were.
We should not mourn it,
but it is, I think,
okay to miss the stale smell of one's body, of
too much coffee and unwashed hair,
to be aware of how the needs of the body,
to eat and urinate and
breathe disrupted the transcription of your visions,
miss how ten line poems
kept you up until daybreak,
screaming-bloodshot eyes forgetting to blink.
I miss most the feeling
of plucking a line from the ether,
some green-dipped gem, wild and fractal,
imbued with fire.
There is no high,
no moment of clarity,
no greater release
than giving birth to something
only I could midwife onto the page,
something that breathes on its own,
pulses.

As wind passes through a screen door (Sutra #8)

1.
The hyperprolific, long-winded mystic is a man
I no longer recognize. I can hear him whisper
sometimes in the youngest hours of morning, a
dry choked cackle when I dream.
He was once me but he was mad, enrapt
and so far beyond any help or medication,
save for time and its passage.
It takes, often, a death
to trigger such a split, a distinction
between what was and what is - but
it need not be sudden. It is slow twists,
subtle at first,
and jagged edges in soul's flesh
that work best to rend
one part from another.

Faith

I pass from one moment to the next thinking only of food, of sustenance and creation. I dream of new flavors, textures and aroma, envision techniques for transformation as I pass silver garlic presses and stark white immersion blenders. I scour cupboard and grocery aisles for sharp spice profiles, rounded bellies of sweet miracles yet unbirthed from oven. In the course of a day I am a traveller, humbled, awed. Each meal transports me to India, Turkey, Argentina, Senegal or Morocco. In Savannah, I tasted evaporating campfire pork, a recipe passed down from a time older than the word chef, and bathed in the Louisianna bayou as steam rose from a bowl of turnip greens. In Los Angeles, Cantonese fusion street food reduced me to my knees, panting and salivating at their pulpit, wide-eyed at visions of light-streaked skies in a future China that almost exists. I watched the food truck disappear around a corner to deliver its gospel to another parking lot full of expectant time travellers, willing converts. After each meal is consumed and the visions have faded, dissipated into memory, I cannot believe I've had enough by the end of it. I have seen countless countries, peoples, pasts and futures through tongue and teeth, lips and nose, through saliva. To experience cooked flesh of fish transformed to butter as its moved across hard range of ridges on roof of mouth, to digest in fading sunlight where silhouettes of powerlines merge with mountains purpled by the passage of another day is psalm, is prayer, is the denial of death, the truest form of faith.

Thank Yous and All Apologies

Hi folks,

I'd like to thank everyone who has visited the site and read the interviews with Charlene Luck and Darrel Holnes, and, of course, a big thanks to those two inspiring writers. For everyone who's dealt with my sporadic updates as of late, an especially big ups to you - I'm not making more frequent postings a New Years resolution, but I will do my best in the next year to post something each month, poetry-related or not.

As 2013 draws to a close, my thoughts are occupied with reminiscence and that nagging "I wish I'd done more" B.S., but I can't help but think of the future. It's been a big year for the blog, and this next year is pregnant with epic possibilities and I'm excited and a little frightened of what may come. If you enjoyed the interviews, I am lining up a few more authors for interviews for a spring feature, and I am kicking around the idea of creating a sister site dedicated exclusively to the business side of writing sometime this summer. I'll keep everyone posted if that latter idea comes to fruition.

In the meantime, please enjoy a re-write of "Nomadic Tongue", a poem posted here back in September. I hope the holiday season was kind to all of you, and I hope you are all still inspired and warmed by writing as I am.

Humbled,

Alexander Lloyd Johnson

Interviews are LIVE

Hi folks!


To the right, under the "Pages" list, you'll notice two new pages featuring interviews with the Fiction Editor at the literary journal 94 Creations Charlene Luck, and poet, playwright and musician Darrel Alejandro Holnes. What these folks have to say about writing is the truth, their truth. The sho' 'nuff.

It is also my hope to send out poems to journals and contests in the near future (this wedding isn't going to pay for itself), but as I take down poems from the blog, I will be replacing them with new ones, and maybe even a guest poem here and there.

Much thanks and love goes out to Darrel and Charlene. Thank you for your patience with me and for your amazing answers to my otherwise dull questions. Interviews with Samiya Bashir and Stephanie Douglass to come later this month.

Your department store security guard and part-time webmaster,

Alexander L. Johnson