Michael Lee Johnson
Poets Out of Service (V5)
Like a full service gas station,
or postal service workers,
displaced, racing to Staples retail
for employment against the rules of labor,
poets are out of business nowadays, you know.
Who carries change in their pockets?
Who tosses loose coins in their car ashtray anymore?
iPhones, Smartphones, life is cam ready to shoot, destroy.
No one reads poets anymore.
No one thumbs through yellow pages anymore.
Who has sex in the back seat of their car anymore, just naked shots online?
Streetwalkers, cosmetic, bleach blonde whores,
plastic altered faces in neon night,
do not bother to pick pennies or quarters off the streets, anymore.
The days of nickel bag of candy, pennies lying on the counter top-
for Tar Babies, String licorice, Wax Lips,
Pixie Sticks, Good and Plenty, no more.
Everyone is a stop end player in time.
Monster technology destroys culture fragments, efforts in mindlessness.
Old age is a passive slut, conversations distilled, serrated
measurements by number of slim toothpicks,
matchbooks of many colors vanished.
Time is a broken stopwatch gone by.
Life is a defunct full service gas station.
Poets are out of business.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a Canadian and USA citizen. Today he is a poet, editor, publisher, freelance writer, amateur photographer, small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 880 small press magazines in 27 countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. Author's website http://poetryman.mysite.com/. Michael is the author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom (136 page book), several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems. He also has over 88 poetry videos on YouTube as of 2015. Nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards for poetry 2015.
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles