Featured Contributor Spring/Summer 2021
Poetry
Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 1072 new publications, his poems have appeared in 38 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites.
Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018.
214 poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos.
Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762;
editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089.
Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings: The Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=Michael+Lee+Johnson&type= Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/
Family Feud
Break in the rain, thunderstorms; bolt angular lightning slithers away west. Walking, nanosecond flash family memories, personal, revert, tautology fault of style acerbic chats daggers in heart these words, confused, dicey dungeon sharp spike. A labyrinth, ruined passages, secret chambers, cellmates, now for life. Wind storms move away, young willow trees natter— smallest branches, still snap.
Silent Moonlight (V2)
Record, she’s a creeping spider. Hurt love dangles net from a silent moonlight hanger, tortures this damaged heart daggers twist in hints of the rising sun. Silence snores. Sometimes she’s a bitch. Sunlight scatters these shadows across my bare feet in this spotty rain. Sometimes we rewind, sometimes no recourse, numbness, no feeling at all.
July 4th, 2020, Itasca, Illinois (V4)
(At Hamilton Lakes)
Stone carved dreams for men past and gone, freedom fighters blow past wind and storms. Patriotism scared, etched in the face of cave walls. There are no cemeteries here for the old, vacancies for the new. Americans incubate chunks of patriotism over the few centuries, a calling into the wild, a yellow fork stabs me. Today happiness is a holiday. Rest in peace warriors, freedom fighters, those who simply made a mistake. I gaze out my window to Hamilton Lakes half-drunk with sparkling wine, seeing lightning strikes ends, sparklers, buckets full of fire. Light up the dark sky, firecrackers. Filmmakers, old rock players, fume-filled skies, butts of dragonflies. Patriotism shakes, rocks, jerks across my eye’s freedom locked in chains, stone-carved dreams.