the reason.

I searched every place
my heart and eyes would carry me,
the highest carriages
the lowest spaces
beneath my feat.

I looked forward through time
and back through dying,
ashen remnants of the past
inside and outside
of all that had ended and
all that might last.

I remembered every word
that rolled of your tongue,
like rhythmic waters,
a babbling brook.
dead lust
and silent fuss.

I gave re/dance to every song
that had ever moved us
like loose limbs
in a timid breeze
a hope to cling to
a lie, believed.

I searched through the words
you put to paper
promises,
in black and white.
Mementos of the thrill
and the fight.

Eyes open
or clicked to my cheeks,
lids flushed down
and wet with the stench
of wholesome tears,
I could not find the way,
No good or bad season,
I could not hold down the reason.

Jason Christopher Johnson
December 6, 2013

All away.

You wept onto stone shoulders,
There could have been no comfort here.
This body grew weary
from the fear and fight
you brought.
The nights had grown so long
so cold.
All the notes,
flattened inside the song.

You spoke to deafened ears,
A debt, unpaid
A death, unmourned
Never knowing,
when the life had left.
the most quiet, final breath.

You reached to grasp a limp hand.
There could have been no hold here.
These arms had become simple
from the bearing of pain
you had sewn.
The days became fluidly
staccato.
no milestones,
nothing wholesome,
no thing right,
only the wrong.

You fought an empty battle,
Weapons formed
in the war,
languished near
and faltered far.
Shooting cannons of vapid
promise
into simple, silly ruin.

And, I pulled together
all your holds,
and words,
the promises and the hope
spoken with might.
and all the dreams that
you brought to my feet,
I piled them low and neat
and in the light of my new day,
put them all away.

Jason Christopher Johnson
December 6, 2013

Untitled :: Lines written on the year of a long Fall Day.

And the moon appeared suddenly
But we had yet to see the sun
I laid so tightly to your chest
I could count your pores one for one

The sheets became an earthen place
Planted into you
Into me
A relentless, forgiving sea

The walls were like strong hands
And there is safety here
You are hope
Visions, clear

The floors became clouds
I lingered afloat
In the winds that were your arms
All tumult
Calmed

And our hours passed
Never feeling a single tick
A song of entrance lingers on my ear
A simple heaven in each kiss

Sharing the same breath
No air between us
The world silenced
No tumult.
No fear.
Only trust.

And the night skies now dark
When we had seldom known the day
Spending each breath in your arms
Melding in your sway

The night meets us once more
Feverish and lustful in its implore
To hold our hearts here
This simple day in a long winter year.

Jason Christopher Johnson
November 23, 2013

Lovers above the light.

Lovers above the light.

And I was born into hope,
An amniotic thing,
Full up with pride and distinct
smiles.
And you knew nothing of surety,
of compromise,
of the sanity
that true pleasure can bring.
a truth with no ear to bleed.
a note with no melody to sing.

And we melded, blended
Into a wholeness,
Through fits and fights,
We became
lovers above the light.
Where no one could see,
Where your wholeness
could remain.
A beautifully, masculine thing.

And, I floated with you,
As long as the shadows
were born and lived
here.

And, then
The darkness drifted away,
For all to see,
this love from you and me.
In your implore,
Inside your plight,
We were no longer lovers
above the light.

And, you moved away,
toward another
stay.
toward another way.
And, we
Became just two...
People in the light.
No more mornings,
Followed by passion filled
nights.

And, you moved
Toward a missed light,
where you could show
beliefs and misguide.
In the light.
In the fight.
No more love for you,
above the light.

Jason Christopher Johnson
October 9, 2013

a hope, deferred.

A hope, deferred. 

And the darkness moved in,

An obliging smother to

the light,

A hope without belief. 

A fear without fright. 

Your hand raised to me,

Like winds to the limbs

of some rotten tree. 

Your smiled turned,

bleak. 

The angry whimsy 

of your fist & feet. 

And the pain moved aside,

Settled embers,

After a fire. 

The front of a storm,

The laud of the first born,

The roomed shires of the forlorn. 

Hope sprung from

a freshwater brook. 

an insight,

with no look. 

Settlers in some foreign place,

The movement of anguish,

in your face. 

I wanted nothing more

Than to be a cherished moon

among your shore. 

all the truths 

beyond the lore. 

giving less

when I needed more. 

And nights...

Came and went. 

And no stars fell here,

My heart swollen

with fear. 

Eggshells underneath,

My hope,

beneath this breach. 

And, you were like 

edgy things. 

and I was not pure. 

our love was not

sure. 

The funnel of some cloud,

The whisper shattering

the loud. 

The dead leaves neath 

the tree

that can bear no more rings. 

The opera, 

where no diva sings. 

There was. 

There is

an end 

to all my hope 

to all our dreams

to all our means. 

to all these things

Jason Christopher Johnson

In kind...

I vacillated far too long,

Waiting on a word, 

Ears perked up for your song,

A note, the whisper that wouldn't come.

I walked around, softly,

Head bowed, 

Tongue pressed down,

Beneath my teeth, 

Hands outstretched, holding your crown

A chaste, serf thing. 

Going through all these things, 

Before you wake, 

After you slumber,

In and out of mind,

Praying for the day it

Would all be returned in kind. 

Jason Christopher Johnson

September 5, 2013

an awakening.

To sit,
in some hopeful repose
that your broken measures
will meet my whole means,
battling some fitful dream
of listless love and
maddening screams.

To stand,
in longing wait
for your love to reach out
to me
like sands and shore to sea,
a crippled now
a broken bow
a saddened glimpse of we.

To walk,
in some dreaded, dangling
pace
in want for some peace
that only you could bring.
the wait of the shark,
for it's prey
the pleading of the nocturne soul
for the breaking of a day.

To pray,
to some distant,
distinct god
for the fullness of you.
like the insistence of the color
blue
the murkiness in I,
the purity of you.

To dream,
of some day
of some way
that you could advance
here,
to me,
to complete
the beat of my heart,
the rhythm of my drum,
the lyrics of my heart/song.

To believe,
there should even be
a smile here
or a tear there,
a restplace on your shoulder
a homespace for my own cover
like some weakened lean-to,
that I could ever be enough for you.

To know,
I would never have
your hand,
in any way,
inside any plan
like the thunder
that never brings rain
or the sounding of the
bell that surely will bring
the heart pain.

To live,
inside this life
without you at my side,
no relation of strength,
the moon,
no tide.
the river, free
and currents, wild.

To wake,
each day
without the sanctity of your hand,
the pleasure of your delight,
being the final piece of your plan,
Like the tree with dying
roots,
I am moved,
from here,
away from you,
into the yonder
of my own insistent blue.

Jason Christopher Johnson
August 19, 2013

sans pride.

let me nurse your wounds
when you are not well,
be the one to hold you down,
like anchors
when your feet cannot reach the ground

let me finger your hair
under the veil of the palest
moonlight
wrapped up in thickened shawls
of balmy southern air

let me feed your ego
without pride
like a manservant to some
king thing

be the one to consummate
all your wants and desires
quench all your fires

let me make you know
the power of your beauty
the sanctity of your smile
the weight of your hand
so strong
so mild

let me be the one
to take care of your whole dream
build for us
this something

smoothed out stones
rights forged from wrongs

let me be your laughter
when your days grow long
your place to lay out some peace
when the world stops your song

let me hold you
in the faint whisper of daybreak
fight for you
steadfastly
longingly

let me be the promise
you could never make
that you never had
a glimmer of some good thing
a real, whole chance...

Even after...

Even after I moved away
from the fires of you,
I still burned.
Heavily degreed,
like a slave child
toiling for naught
in the heat of the day

Even after I settled a homeplace
for my heart, my dreams
the reach of your arrogant pain
stifled my roads
like storm debris
in country, Southern places

Even after I took the tokens of you
Down off the altar place,
You reigned over my days
like thick, heavy clouds
threatening to burst with
chaotic Rains

Even after I laid down
some places of peace
for my hands and feet
you snatched away
my rugs
and created in me
a ruin I could not recover from

Even after I swept away the ashes of you,
you brewed up dust storms
like the evil winds
of forgotten
Western towns
and, scattered you
about my life once again

and, even after the pieces of me died,
Prostrate heart.
Fitful mind.
Hopeless abandon.
You still came here,
to my holy place.
A demon, man thing
taking all the notes I had to sing,
and, took again,
your reign as King.

Jason Christopher Johnson
February 9, 2012

Whole of the Remains

I have become the mistress
of all burden things.
The shadow that lurks,
even when all suns have set.

I am the loathsome child,
With brittle hands,
Soiled cheeks.

I have become like sharp half notes,
ruining a song with
vacant phrasing of manhood,
never having known the boy
inside.

I have become the old man
Sitting on dank porches
deep in the Mississippi Delta
in the blistering heat,
fingering decayed remnants of
sugar cane.
Forgotten, desperate.

I have become the mouth
With no voice.
The song with no melody.
The smile with no laugh behind it.

I am staccato
and uproariously foolish.
I am empty,
with no place to dip my cup.

I have become gone.
I am old brittle leaves dusted up onto
some quaint roadside
Full of peace but,
Dead.

Sing no songs for me.
None jubilant or easy.
None holy or to angels.
Cast me down,
like old dead crops
like men do old whores.

Leave me out to rot.
I have become the detritus you avoid.
Some thing moved away from all
good
things.

I am eighth notes,
in a long melody,
With only whispered phases of manhood,
never having known the boy
inside.

Jason Christopher Johnson
February 9, 2012