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Karl Johnson Jun 2017
yesterday    I woke up late
                     forgot to shower
                     skipped a class
                     couldn't relate
yesterday    was complacent
                             cold
                             quaint
yesterday    changed as the leaves do
                     my heart matched the trees
                     red when it fell
                     on my sleeve for you
                               I saw       yesterday     today
                 Nobody feels       yesterday     like you do
       Everyone listens to       yesterday     speak, sigh, cry
          But forgets about       yesterday     who what why
         Sometimes today is my      yesterday
                              I am scared of
                    can't run away from
                                                         yesterday
that feel when a word looks whack after looking at it so many times
Karl Johnson Jun 2017
Initially
        he thought to
        bring sight to the Blind
                       Desiring OsIris or
                       Evoke E(see)kiel
        
        But he looked in a mirror
               and couldn't see
                                      his self
         His mirror
         betrayed him
         transparent, anti-Narcissus
         he was

         Now
         he feels he has
         too              much
                    V  i  s  i  o  N
                                            his (soughts) self(s)
                     go in one             (thoughts)
                        eye and             (oughts)
                               out
                               the other
he, So Self-Aware, scares his mirror
                               wHEre
                               Who
                              (did) you see            then
                               Do                             now
                                                                 becoming
                                                                 tomorrow . . . ?
Karl Johnson Jun 2017
I'm a mime stuck in time
you can only hear my hands
and I can talk all I want
But when my mind is sick
I need a Horologist.

Like my fumbling fingers fail to
pick the tick out my mind
   Infecting my thoughts and
   ******* my time

Seems like the sun's
always setting on my dial
As it waxes and wanes -
I haven't seen the man's face
                 in a while

Look up for reflection
but only see Khronic-Introspection
National poetry day
Karl Johnson Jun 2017
The Middleman is at the start
with a fistfull of pockets.
He walks more than he talks it, with
empty hands.
Orange Peel knuckles; peeling, showing
A segmented truth. He mocks it.
   Wholly revealing hisself with
waterbottle lungs,
   Breathing, squeezing; knuckles popping
   cracking, rabble-rousing-
The
Jenga game of a rib cage -
   - sounding skeleton and shouting -
As the beating heart un-falls apart
Unprotected, Uncontained.

By what unscrutability
can a pure heart be blood-stained?
   As his vain-ed cadence flows below the stone
The stone; a frame, posed.
Humble, yet reigns.

Like, the middleman comes to the end and
By God! Someone's killed the messenger, By God!
   Inadvertent
   Changing channels, all this
   static passive
   staging Battles
   A rib cage match like unintended, homicidal rattles
      As spinal shivers, the Middleman Delivers.
Karl Johnson Jun 2017
Solar Apathy
like a slow sunset
my brain's in my head
sometimes I forget

Because these thoughts
are comin' from my chest
when I feel undercast
it's Cardiac Arrest

And I'm glaring at the sky
in Lunar Protest
'dont' understand why
but it's what I know best

Ask me
   From midnight to noon
why apathy's
   Got me like cycles of the moon

And when I see your eyes
it's my heart's sunrise
and my brain can breathe
and my heart knows why

They way I miss you's
how the sun knows the moon
Is this solar apathy
the way it has to be?

Oh, the night's terrible beauty
   and each look in your eyes
puts my heart in my head
   and my brain in the sky
Karl Johnson Feb 2017
I heard there's a cafe
whose only patrons are hungry poets.
You can grab your favorite latte
and dream dreams that can only be
Imagination.
Sculpt in the sky and revel in its beauty
Clouds become construction blocks
take it all in
and call it living.

Practice Pen Strokes and go swimming in words, like
real current events and conversation.

The paint of your tongue,
what EXCELLENT Palette.
Don't you see
We speak in
Masterpieces.

Not so far fetched, real
images that add color to our breath.

— The End —