Song Title: Sands of Time 
Genre: Reggae

Chorus
Sands of Time (4ce)


Verse 1

As I examined what’s happening around me, 
I’m left with no choice than to re-evaluate my thinking 
Oh yea, Oh Yea (4ce)
The truth staring angrily at me
Staggering situations my eyes can’t bear
Excruciations my heart has endured
Frustrations becoming a part of me
My cold treatments to people around me
The failure that I’ve become
The losses I’ve encountered
My hopes being dashed
I began to ask to ask myself:
Would you leave those vices in the 
Sands of Time (4ce)

Verse 2

I expressed my dissatisfaction through my reggae music
Oh yea, Oh yea (4ce)
My left and right side brain made active
Feeling no pain but sweet sensation
Melodies pure and flowing
Sounds of courage being heard
Ray of hope arising
The healing power manifesting
The love that’s assuring
The brightness of freedom
Peace that’s bounding
Make me see the possibility of leaving the positive vibes in the
Sands of Time (4ce)

Verse 3

The world is witnessing catastrophes
Oh yea Oh yea (4ce)
People dying
Diseases and starvation abounding
Rights denied with no justice
Truths fast becoming myths
The yearning for materialism on the rise
Leaders clueless about the future 
But through my music,
Sharing the optimism of hope
Illuminating humanity rightly
Seeing the right to posterity

Are what I will leave in the:
Sands of Time (4ce)

My Life

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

My life began with a skeleton 

with a smile and bubbling eyes

in my garden of dandelions.

Everything else fell off the edge,

a jigsaw puzzle piece cut in half.

When young, I pressed

against my mother’s breast,

but youthful memories fell short.

I tried at 8 to kiss my father, 

but he was a welder, fox hunter,

coon hunter, and voyeuristic man.

My young life was a mixture

of black, white, dark dreams,

and mellow yellow sun bright hopes.

Rewind, sunshine was a stranger

in dandelion fields,

shadows in my eyes.

I grabbed my injured legs

leap forward into the future.

I’m now a vitamin C boy

it keeps me immured

from catching colds or Covid-19.

Everything now still leaks, in parts,

but I press forward.

Jesus and How 

He Must Have Felt (V3)

 

Staggering out Wee-Willy's

dumpy dive bar, droopy eyes,

my feelings desensitizing,

confusing my avocado fart,

at 3:20 a.m., with last night

splash on Brut aftershave.

Whispering to my outcast

self-sounding is more like pending death.

My body detaching from myself,

numbed by winter's fingers.

I creak up these outside stairs

to my apartment after an all-night drunk,

cheap Tesco's Windsor Castle

London Dry Gin—on the rocks.

I thought of Jesus

how He must have felt

during His resurrection

dragging His holy body

up that endless stairwell

spiraling toward heaven.

Most Poems

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

Most poems are pounded out

in emotional flesh, sometimes

physical skin scalped feelings.

It’s a Jesus hanging on a cross

a Mary kneeling at the bottom

not knotted in love but roped,

a blade of a bowie knife

heavenward.

I look for the kicker line

the close at the bottom

seek a public poetry forum

to cheer my aspirations on.

I hear those faraway voices

carrying my life away-

a retreat into insanity.

Poets in the Rain (V4)

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

All poets are crazy. Listen to them soak

sponge in early rain medley notes sounding off.

Crazy, and suicidal, we know who they are:

Edgar Allan Poe, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas

the drunk, Anne Sexton, Teasdale.

This group grows a Pinocchio nose.

At times I capture you here under control.

I want to inspect you.

All can be found in faith once

now gone in time.

With all your concerns, I see

your eyes layered in shades of green,

confused within you about me.

Forgive me; I’m just a touch

of wild pepper, dry Screaming Eagle

Cabernet Sauvignon, and dying selfishly.  

We don’t know if it is all worth it.

I have refined my image, and my taste

continues to thrust inside your crevices.

Templates of hell break loose thunder, belches, and anomie.

Asteroid Ceres looks like you are passing gas,

exposes her buttocks, and moves on just like ice

on a balmy rock just like yours.

I will wait centuries, like critics, to review

this fecund body of yours-

soiled, then poppies,

poetry in the rain.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL.  He has 272 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for five Pushcart Prize awards and six Best of the Net nominations. 

He is editor-in-chief of three poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 443 published poems. Michael is the administrator of six Facebook Poetry groups. Member of the Illinois State Poetry Society. Do not forget to consider me for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination!

For Good Health

Nothing

is more real

than music

in silence

and silence

in music

fortissimo

snuff box

blaring

Gesundheit!!!

Dog

your very footsteps

wobbly

into the future

waft

like a billowing

consciousness

small

among the groovy

solaces

of your mind.







Tri-annual Sprout


Sometimes it’s like

those two guys discussing

between themselves

when it’s just me

three gorging on my

reflection in the mirror.






Half Wit’s Domain


Raised (like free range poultry)

on a diet of

“stupid son of a bitch”

and all the fixin’s

I never measured

a small man

in a normal sized body

for Japan or Vietnam

little big man moniker

followed me in fights

I’d win

lose on purpose

pulp

danger took me places

power dynamics

in confined places

infighting

head butting

the groin

bashing

gouging

wise men

fear to tread.

icicles hang
from the clothesline
housebound

# # # 

only a scarf
where the snowman stood
incessant rain

# # # 

twilight
school janitor reties
the snowman's scarf

# # #

Ukraine under siege
shelves of toy soldiers
collecting dust

# # #

Corey D. Cook's sixth chapbook, Junk Drawer, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in *82 Review, Akitsu Quarterly, Black Poppy Review, Duck Head Journal, Freshwater Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Nixes Mate Review, and South Florida Poetry Review. Corey lives in East Thetford, Vermont.