Burning Word

Beams of hazy sunlight stroked Christopher's skin as he took his usual place at the window. The gently rustling drapes, a melancholy shade of mauve, fingered his thighs and calves carelessly like an inattentive lover. Peering out over the newly awakened city, Christopher inhaled the fragrance peculiar to a late spring morning in Vancouver. A lush, green aroma rich with the pungency of Japanese blossoms and lilac bushes clung to the air. Christopher closed his eyes, timidly inviting the quiet of the early day to wash over his nakedness.

There's nothing you can say
that'll make me want to stay.
I'm letting go,
though it's going slow,
and I won't change my mind.
Not this time.

It's over once again,
and I can no longer pretend
that I'm doing just fine,
no, I can't keep lying.
I'm sorry if this hurts you,
but rest assured, I'm hurting too.

Things will be okay,
all I have to do is walk away.

I'm sick of the lying,
and I'm tired of crying.
Don't pretend to look affected,
cause you're the one who wrecked it.
So just stop trying,
cause I'm not buying it.
Not anymore.

So you can try to change my mind,

China blank to none on screens..
All entitled hearts to leftist bless not our fates..
Bless no leftists.
Fierce as tigers come to tiger accords.
Rains will like the arrows into army storms.

Rains are torrents flow.
Storms have reddish acid rains.’
Under works of policies kings can just to order death to peoples.
All agree to lives of fathers all as sons.

Doctors live in funny farms can say the so and so are out of truths.
Match to similar functions just are china policies.
Quell the query as freedoms.
Quell the peoples’ rights to have rights.

A shrill buzzing sound woke him from his slumber. He slowly opened his left eye and let it rest on the ceiling above. For no apparent reason he felt personally responsible for some terrible wrong.

He fumbled out an arm and prodded the alarm clock into silence. Just ten more minutes, he thought to himself, just ten. He lay his head back down and dreamt of wide open plains and a broadsword, the blade covered in blood and grass and muck. Then he awoke with a start and looked at the clock, those ten minutes had turned into forty-five. The danger now was lateness.

Well, I was happy; for awhile, felt nothing
felt nothin,
but a burnin' in my soul.

Felt nothing,
Felt noth'n, like I should have,
Nothing, for any meanin',
Nothin....
but for a burn'n in my soul.

And I reached out and I touched it, and in that flame
I saw my life was over, felt that swift exchange of hands,
between, me, and my lover, and the devil....
he got my soul.

In this, that I have realized, I died long ago,
and this life, which I Have accostomed.
traded my soul, to live in hell.
And that burnin', burn'n feeling, that burnin'

He’s a scarecrow set against the blackness of my backyard, a lanky figure trapped inside the small square of yellow emanating from the porch light. His scarecrow mouth puckers in a guilty little grin. Time for the awkward goodbye.

A mass of tousled, honey-colored hair hangs loosely around his face. It’s stuck to his forehead in places, clinging to the moistness of his skin - a product of our romp. He never takes a shower or stays the night. To do so would cross that unspoken, invisible boundary.

I hope she smells me on him.

Bio: Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, and freelance writer, Itasca, Illinois author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom, http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7. He has also published two chapbooks of poetry. He has been published in USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fuji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Nepal, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Poland, internet radio. He is also publisher and editor of four poetry, flash fiction sites--all presently open for submission: