Mollify-ing the effects of
The ******-logical Damage from beliving believed
Lies. Falsies called True, True called False.
The words working madly to make sense fail
Wishing hoping praying
define praying we know how to hope and wish

but praying, more than asking, acting asif
the prayer is a sayer of something
a doer of somehow someway deeds of deliverance

Hearing heart hear me wish I knew how to
receive the answers for earth’s wealth to be
used as rain is used.
This is me praying this is not me looking for human feedback in the form of funds,
I am asking my father,
who is where the kingdom of the creator is served in equity,

Where is the kingdom of heaven?
Who do you think knows?
Whom did you trust to convince your vincible mind?

Do the ants and birds agree with your opinion?
Have you considered the lily,
really?

Is this life on earth a foraneus state of mind for mankind,
wombed and un, beyond the bounds of our higher
realm whither message bearing services
do the work of angels and runners
in ancient times.

Subject me to your order, your rule, your common sense
that you know what I mean

I speak in spirals, twisting vortices in all that ever mattered
or ever shall, as the I’ll go rhythms tic

tic
tic
today, the day
to do da day, jubilee believe me, truth known
truth be known by some
simple minds.

Oh does she.

Last step.
Shirt caught.
But she doesn't care.
Boots.
Through mud.
But she doesn't care.
Eyeshadow.
Looks up and down.
But she doesn't care.
Hair.
Blue.
And.
Brown.
But she doesn't care.
Sweater rip.
I help.
But she doesn't care.
But then she cares.


Garrett Johnson

even temporarily, this day, your emeralding grass handkerchief,
equates our dispositions, so differently identical,
your name, our initials, in opposing corners, embroidered,
your grass tapestry upon this troubled earth, a scented, joint, poetic
remembrance, that though it’s but words that bind us, we! we know!
the songs we sing of ourselves, we sing in synchrony harmony.

time passes
as seconds
when we meet

but it slows
as the mount carrying burdens
and in its holes filling with loads
when we are wide

when i saw you
i forget the world
except your shiney smile

when you go
my heart is off
and escaped after you

it is your prisoner
and wish it lasts for ever

I never thought brick dreams could tumble in the wind.
My wife collects our scattered memories in a undersized bin
like a child on the tide line collecting beach glass and seashells.
She listen for the sound of blood amidst the dying wind
mistaking rustling pages for her breath cycling in and out,
her pulse beating on the surface of paper, cloth and wood.
She searches for artifacts that match/mismatch my cancer-
the progeny the tornado left scattered in the brick and wallboard.

I listen to the wind and rain ping on my ward’s windows
unaware of her scavenging, unable to sleep in the harsh light
that doesn’t erode the pain or the glitter of memory,
the constant Kabuki of nurses, doctor and blood drawers,
the chant of machines that make me mistake
the sterile for the sacred, the soundtrack for the profound.
I see my wife in the mud, inches from my eyes,
putting away the jagged, clear granules of our life.

I loved this old crooked tree
that refused to grow straight
with the sky but willed itself
to stretch with the horizon,
limbs resisting what every oak
near it wanted— to kiss the sun.

It had a brother, long since cut down,
its stump never uprooted, ground to chips.
Decades of weeping, trying to caress its kin,
had left it defiantly stunted, a hunchback
to its grief, its refusal to be another proper tree,
limbs desiring earth’s comfort to cloud’s hope.

The tornado swept south and
my old brick house was
left a blasted finger to its whims.
The old crooked tree was uprooted
like all the others oaks, yet granted the mercy
of caressing its waiting brother in its final fall.

My wife spent the time after the uprooting
like all the others after the storm,
dealing with the adjusters, collecting
the ashes, saving the memories that remained.
No thoughts of trees preoccupied her
and I was convalescing from cancer surgery.

Before we moved into a temporary place,
before the winds of rebuilding where beginning,
I asked for a quick drive by to see the damage
because I only ,imagined the destruction
from the aching confines of a hospital bed
and needed to firmly root it to mind and soul.

The reality was a little worse than the imagining.
The roof was gone, only an L of bricks remained.
The PTSD, anxiety, the sheer exhaustion
was already planting in my wife.
I cried for her. I cried for the last sight
of the old tree hugging stump, earth beneath.

the last thing you told me
was your darkest secret
there was no after

no time to react
but only wonder
about not knowing sleeping next to you

when you shared what you did not want to
i stared not wanting to hear
no words escaped so i embraced you

you left in a matter of minutes
postponing to a later that never was
did you think you had scared me away?

a million things i would have said
had we been lucky enough
to meet again

you never heard how much you matter
we did not hug goodbye
i wish you knew: after all, i don't care