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Poems by Jeffrey Johnson
Late Fall The white of an apple turned into air
is the transparent thin-place of autumn.
Children can smell it in wind off the lake
when lawns, iced over lively with winter
refracted into scattered and spread splints
of silver and green, reflect autumn’s end,
compacted, wrapped and polished in apples
full of winter’s refinement of fruit flesh
and seeds into fire strung through branches
of conifers: star threaded, moon-beam draped,
clasped in silver for her hands and her hair. Blessed Assurance In the lobby, with our hair combed
and our hands washed, we’re ready
for our matinee performance.
Later, with our eyes wide
and our legs colt-fresh, we’ll step out
lively into rainwash that splashes
streetlight shining and headlight beams
to the star-scoured moon-polished kettle
Others, much like us, will follow,
dressed in their best clothes, shoes polished,
to fill this waiting room again.
Summer News I saw Satan fall like lightning
on a pocked and twisting rooster.
The evening sky was bruised and roiled
as God came booting, panting,
hunting, pelting good green corn
with shotgun hail. God must have aimed a shot
above Jesky’s barn,
that’s when I saw Satan fall like lightning
from the storm-slate sky.
Others saw great rolling balls
of red and orange, or so they said they saw this fire, when (crack and sizzle)
down he sailed, in the downpour,
through the hay mow,
landing on a splintered feed trough,
sprinkling sparks to straw as stiff
and ready as the matches from a box.
Copyright © 2006 by Jeffrey Johnson. All rights reserved.
This page published July 2006.
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