Revolutionary
Snow
Michael
Lee Johnson
Poem
dancer,
Russian
yellow in revolutionary white snow.
Am
I really Yuri Zhivago
Hidden
in this funeral procession
Held
high by pallbearers, looking at my dead father?
Lifting
him up stairs into the Russian Orthodox church?
Only
for the sake of snowflakes & the pouring
of
aged Vodka on the casket?
Only
for the growth of rebellious youth,
the
sweet aging of wrath?
Does
a somber poet lose his flavor
Of
word and dance & turn to medicine—
like
children finding meaning
in
racing around rooms and mazes
holding
hands and losing direction
before
their breath stops, the punctuation dies?
Poem
dancer Russian yellow in white snow—
50/50
the poet dies alone.
***
Michael
Lee Johnson lives in Chicago, Illinois, after spending ten
years in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada during the Viet Nam era. He
is a freelance writer and poet. He is interested in social and
religious topics, and the need for universal health care in the
United States. He is presently self-employed, with a previous
background in social service areas. He has a BA in sociology and
worked on a Masters Program in Correctional Administration.
Michael Lee Johnson has just released a book titled The
Lost American: From Exile to Freedom, about one man's journey
into exile over the Vietnam War many years ago, his struggle,
his survival, his road to recovery and strength manifesting itself
through his prose and poems.
©
Michael Lee Johnson