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