Depression is an overused word
It might make an easy rhyme
For poets who labor under the impression
That they can climb to the heights of expression
By showing no discretion with each and every
Narcissistic emotional self-obsession confession.

But of all the poetic depression transgressions
From the front of the procession
To the straggling indiscretion
The worst and least touched on
Is that it's boring...

Depression and talk of it
Leads to the inevitable compression
Of each and every tidbit
Or texture that prevents a poem from becoming a lecture

It flattens the curve
It scans the sculpture
A man of depth dwindles to a nerve

But depression doesn't let them see how it narrows their view
The circle it drew around appropriate questions
Ignore the censor and suppression
Be vigilant of the slightest dispossession
Starting to understand this oppression?

Don't let it convince you that you can see more clearly
From the bottom of a pit
You have no idea what you're missing

Getting nowhere!

One whole Earth
round and flat

Here's a balloon
Here's a plate

Reminds me
to celebrate with

An oblate pear
on steroids and
a flat Greek cake

A stupendous combination

Instead of the joy of coming into a port and stepping onto land, land
That is familiar and loving
In love
With having my feet home again
The earth below rejoicing
After so many months at sea

I am instead adrift.  There is unbroken horizon
Spread out vast all around me
My eyes ache in my head from only seeing the sun, only seeing
The flat blue waves

I am so ANGRY that I am unloved I am so ADRIFT without my home port
I call out and the wind pretends to be an answer
All I want is to be longed for
For someone to pace
For someone to watch the sea

Instead, two separate lives, one at sea, one at home.

I lay awake
hour after hour
while you did the same
in the very next room.

You've told me before just
how apprehensive you become
when the page is empty
and the stakes are high.
You have high hopes,
but when you bade me
"good night and sleep well"
I did see the flicker
of doubt-insomnia-excitement
hiding just behind your tired smile
like a candle in the wind.

It is near impossible to sleep
when you lie awake,
when love lies awake
in the next room.

But I am a coward,
afraid of losing you
long before I can call you mine.
And so I while away the hours
wondering if you want me
to walk down the passage
and crawl into your bed
just as much as I do.

We lie awake instead,
praying that sleep takes us
and carries us across the boundary
separating yesterday and tomorrow.
To take you to a bright tomorrow
me; into another lovesick Monday.
But sleep evades us
It is near impossible to sleep
when I know you lie awake
and love lies awake
in the very next room.

Saucerful.

The candy lights won’t come back on.
My boots have been swallowed.
The table cloth chess players.
Roped into hallowing out their arms.
It’s ok the blankets don’t know any better.





Garrett Johnson.