Kentucky
Is it’s own worst enemy
And it’s drunkest fan
I’m sure you’ll understand
Yah know, it’s just one of those things
If you got the time
We can talk about it
If you’d like
There just aint enough time in the day
And I don’t wanna keep yah too long
There’s just a lot goin’ on all the time
An’ not a whole lot of anything good
‘Sides good aint what yah think it is.
Just me and the cat. Of course. Should be asleep. Instead we’re eating popcorn and watching home movies that came to me when my folks moved to the new place. Brittle, fading colors from back before my hair slid off the top of my head. Aren’t you that cute blonde in black with white polka dots? If I weren’t such a camera-hound, I’d have turned and danced with you. Oh, a fool I was. Could have been looking into your eyes. (Lol I wasn’t there.) Yeah. But I still might make a poem out of this. A poem about the poetry-in-motion that is you. Ahhhhhh. (I wish I could think to make a poem. That’s cool.) I wish your head would clear. At least of pain. Don’t much like when you cleanse it of me.
1:
Trajectory
ellipse of a cosmic pulse
a binary focus
2:
Line of star and sphere
swept in equal area
equivalent time
3:
Equilateral
elliptical, interval
constant multiple
This secluded forest clearing
Is both lovely and endearing
Iconic on this third street
Amongst the brick and concrete
Running its freedom course
Driven by a mocha force
Special to me as the only place I know
That you would on occasion go.
You’re ignorant
And I’m a plagiarist
Cause these feelings I swear you once had
You made a rip
And I’m stitching it
Hoping it won’t feel so bad,
Won’t feel so bad
Under thoughts you
Always feeling so sad,
I won’t feel so bad
It’s an early, morning
And the flowers on the table are dead.
My eyes are getting blurry
And the sun won’t set in my head.
Can I resurrect me again?
You might strain.
How long before trust reappears?
Long, heavy years.
And when I meet the reborn me?
Define you freely.
Others will always guarantee
a time when you’re pain-free but you–
only you–construct your breakthrough.
You might strain long, heavy years, but define you freely.
(To see more about this form: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovillejo)
Of
all
the wealth
I measure,
it’s pots and pans and
poetry that bring me pleasure.
As I contemplate my leisure,
cooking, trope and rhyme
I treasure
the most
of
all.
Poem 11, June 11
Chester Johnson, Poem Three
I told the CO that day at Stearns,
“I don’t want to be in the National Guard.”
I said, “my father served in the Navy and
I want to join the Navy, too.”
I did not want to go
for training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
CO gave me a letter and told me
to take it to a Navy recruiter.
They sent me from Stearns to Somerset, Kentucky.
From there, I made my way home.
A Navy recruiter came to Albany
and signed me up.
