between toes

Holiday in Cromer

Slicing seawalls cut feet,
salt breaks over fish ’n’ chips.

Buckets of cool water
dislodge castle foundations.

Chicken pox sister’s blisters
divide parental duties.

Pushchair brothers in shades
drip icecream into nappies.

Walks stretch to France and back
to fetch forgotten suncream.

RNLI pencil case
swallows sand like seagulls.

Cardigans break breezes
pulled in by setting sun.

At night twelve flip flops sleep
on three caravan steps.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

impressions first

little electricy on the prairie

Seeing Ball Lightning Is Believing

“A long ball of fire was rolling down the stovepipe…
Ma tried to brush it into the ashpan.”
On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder

The ball entered the church,
evaporated Holy Water,
knelt at pews till they smoked,
burnt hymn books into soot.

At each station of the cross
this impossible electric force
caressed a carved Christ with fire,
splitting and doubling his strife.

At the altar there was no stoop
to bended knee, no crossing,
just sparks and ascending flame:
vestments burned thread by thread.

Until Ma Ingalls took up her brush
to sweep that pentecostal ball away.
The good parishners were careful
not to play cards in the pews again.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

always look down

Bittersweet

Strong tree trusting, standing solid,
brokering bird-ant treaties, while
I, climber, gently finger roots.
I grow taller, crawling bark, leaves
forsaken for height. Stretching up,
noosing and tightening, I am
careful never to strangle in
my time-lapse sun-chase through twigs
bent, sometimes broken, creeping
only upwards, past the lower
branches, reaching light of my own,
with this supple, wind-waving crutch.

Strong tree feels me, red ants tiptoe
over me. I am comfy here
where birds squabble; where parasites
retire without once looking down.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

my vessel is 'healthy' & I request free pratique

Privacy

Your arms look so tired.
As if you’ve been carrying
heavy shopping bags home.
I would’ve helped if I’d known.

I want to decipher flagging arms,
why you’re sometimes spread,
sometimes pointing at carpet.
I should watch more closely.

You are always presentable:
lipstick on before you nip out
to fetch a sunday newspaper,
hair up to take out rubbish.

I want to hold your wrists
tight to take the weight.
If you didn’t look so tired
I’d dance you round the room.

You’re drawn into the corners
of my notebook. I flick the pages
to see you windmill. I can always
rub you out when you’re wrong.

Semaphore was a strange way
to communicate the message
I’ve diligently translated:
“Please stop watching from bushes”.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

drunken walking caution triping [sic]

tourism

Outstanding Natural Beauty

My balcony is roofless.
I sit in heat. To the right,
the Ship on the Green,
ahead is a brick wall.

I climb onto the railing,
turn my back to bollards
beneath. Facing my airless
bedroom, I look down at

the map of my private
national park. Birdshit marks
scattered sights of interest,
outstanding natural beauty.

The drainage hole is blocked,
a dark smear of sediment
pollutes an estuary
with an oil slick’s dull sheen.

Opposite, tarpaulin
piles into stormy seas,
it’s eyelets winking sun back
like scattered storm debris.

But then, in a corner,
shielded by blue plastic waves,
two small eggs lie on twigs,
a raft for sea-smoothed pebbles.

I climb down to my room,
cooled off, freshened by breeze.
Through the open window
I await the mother’s return.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

capital letters

From a High Point

The city sleeps on its side,
knees brought up into an s,
tucked in tight by the river.

Sometimes there’s a sleep-shout, but
mostly there is quiet: dark
corners; quiet, listening streets.

Heavy-lidded, one eye is
always left open.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

for the steak of caution

There was a tuna fish…

silver-scaled, a small part of his shoal,
aligned with the blinking eye’s every
minute movement, iridescent kite tail
flashing and flirting with the surface.
Here is tension, safety in numbers,
one pixel in a reproduction of strength.
A scale shed quietly in warmer waters,
he hangs back to swim without comparing.

Cutting up towards mottled, gridded light
he is caught in a trawling net, now pushed
against strangers, now dragged out of sync,
moving as one mass. A lump in the throat
of the blinking, shifting Atlantic Ocean,
spat into a tin can, stacked with hundreds.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

feeling like a fishy in a can

edible webs

An Infinitely Blank Canvas

A spider can spin in zero
gravity but I cannot write.
I see blank lines where spiders
see an empty invitation.

Through my window, netted fence
turns tarmac green. On the sill
the spider is unimpressed
with that empty, catchless weave.

Perhaps it lacks decoration –
that well-placed ornament
to lend some ambiguity,
so it can be read as a flower.

On the inside sill my coffee
evaporates. Nothing appears.
An absence does not create
a water cycle, or a web.

Spider webs were once layered,
to create silken canvases.
The paper I throw away will
become single-ply toilet rolls.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

go away loser

Closer

Closer than skin to flesh,
Closer than sea to shore,
The closeness of heat.
Close like hair to head.

The closeness of back, arms,
close as stomach to chest.
Close as air, water born,
we lay down our selves.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

soot & saliva

After the Celebration

Outside the back door, off the street
lit with snow-glow, though dry, quiet,
half the family huddles, smoking.

We shoot breeze through chattering teeth
– Grandad’s dying, Isaac’s growing –
as we pass the glowing lighter.

Above, the steamed pane, its bright light
breaking through the false snowy glow,
tells us someone’s in the bath, warm.

A wind biting our necks and ears,
gnawing at us cold ones outside
to drag deeper, fill our chilled lungs.

We feel the pull of the pure-lunged
and finish, one by one, moving
like ball bearings to a magnet.

The cold light behind the curtains,
we huddle now around the warm
glow of the box in the corner.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

a canvas out of zero

dressing ghosts in leather

Closed Circuit

Sat on the top deck, smokers smoking,
my father blows growing rings.
Signs above jammed windows read:
“For your safety CCTV is in operation.”

The shutter clicks on my empty plastic
camera. Pointing it at the narrow sands
of Colwyn Bay, I imagine I can store
moments on the invisible loop of film.

When I’m allowed to use my father’s
camera he crouches behind me,
shows me how to twist focus, to set
lightning. Often I forget to wind the film.

We look at a simple electronics kit,
silver solder, silicon semiconductors,
resistors control current, capacitors store
charge, concealed under a circuit diagram.

Left to create my own devices, no more
am I pictured on my father’s knee when
we attend weddings, christenings, funerals.
His camera sometimes stays silent.

Now, in pedestrianised zones I’m caught
in low resolution, followed by the whir
of little motors. Circuits concealed, swivelling
heads watching, like owls, with nightvision.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

tracing mirror balls

The Body of the Dance

As he dances through and beyond,
past and back, returning to the
time before he started to dance,
he shifts and skips, changes focus:

Seeing others spiral and twist,
breaking through thrown squares of light;
picking up mirrored tiles, to
hold, to squeeze, to eat.

Watching them dance through letters formed
by dashed lines, through sharing better
toys (the least-chewed), through losing
first names to a last initial.

They dance upward, older, taller,
round the social circle, in-out,
weaving a learnt-friendship maypole
of go-to-school, make-friends, close-mind.

He danced to a stillness of thought,
and of mind, and he fell apart
from the throng. He was no dancer;
he was removed from the body.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

weeds in textbooks

The Scholar as Carp in Pond

“I was swimming through learning all along,
I drew breath from it, blew bubbles in it”
said the scholar who was as carp in pond.

“I drank until full and my mind grew strong,
though I never could quench my thirst one bit.
I was swimming through learning all along.

“I had friends, and lovers, and I was fond
of trivial pursuits, cheap magic tricks.
Cyprinid, the scholar as carp in pond.

“I studied, neglected to maintain bonds,
scaled heights on the desk where I loved to sit.
I was swimming through learning all along.

“I cast back to find the stroke that went wrong;
when my skin became scales, my neck gained slits”
said the scholar who was as carp in pond.

“My eyes glassed over, I folded my tongue,
so mute and benighted I’ll now admit:
I was drowning in learning all along.
I’m a scholar as carp in a small pond.”


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

no room at my inn

tie your bows tight

When the Bow Breaks

I loved the swing in our back garden;
I would swing alone for hours, free
to kick my shoes through the hardened
dirt beneath, stretch to touch the tree
that grew by the swing in our back garden.
My legs wrapped under the wooden seat,
I swung back, looked up at the bar, then
plunged forward to the familiar creak
of the noisy swing in our back garden
complaining as I dangled underneath.

That creak worried me; the chains were bound
to break. Looking up I fell back, hands still round
the links, my head a crude brake, slowing me down,
harvesting dirt until I let myself crumple to the ground.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

roll up, roll up

When I Am A Man

When I’m a man I want to be a soldier.
I’d like to line up to be measured
and examined by buttoned-down doctors.
I’d like all of my hair shaved off.

I’d like it if I could race my mates
by running far with a heavy pack,
and hold my breath for too long
in a tunnel flooded with rank water.

I’d like to have no private space;
to lie in rows with twenty-nine other men
and sleep only when exhausted,
mindful of snores and soap in socks.

When I’m a man I want to go to war.
I want to stand in ranks with men
whose clothes match mine,
our faces painted to match too.

I’d like it if my big, shiny boots
stomped proudly around the world
to wherever they were needed,
to kick down doors and kick ass.

Those liberated could watch our troop
walk long roads flanked by burnt cars;
a victory parade for the boys,
a thumbs up on every burnt hand.

When I am a man I’d like to ride in a convoy
of camouflaged trucks, dogtags tinkling,
the smell of burnt hair in my nostrils
as I polish my boots, and explode.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

smoking lessons

The Protégé

The fire burns brightest at noon,
its smoke moves at speed across
stranded houses, through windows
open or closed, through sunlight,

across streets and into a room
where you lie at the soft pedals
of your silent piano, letters
and trophies strewn over the floor.

Smoke drifting at a speed too fast
for drift, travelling to grass, wood,
concrete; streets of soot smothering
the lungs of all who are out,

whispering in a strangled classroom,
a place with no air where sameness
is taught and learnt by teacher, pupil,
caretaker, where small chairs sit, stained.

Crows cough, couples discard clothes,
release blunted limbs from tight binds.
Wisps curl around lampposts, lick
at doors, sweep under arches,

into my room through a skylight,
swirling off mirrors to remind
with highlight the scars from the hot
weight you pressed into my arm.

I look out over rooftops,
wood and concrete, sharpness dulled
and softened by sooty tongues,
midday saliva-dew on the grass,

to the fire I lit at the bandstand,
where you played with burning release,
and behind, to the sun, not rising,
not setting, the slowest strobe I’ve known.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

stay out of my church

unleavened

Fear
after Alice Oswald

From time to time your fear is like a weight
and when released that weight begins to fall

and hard and fast it strikes sharp like an axe
and when the axe keels through it’s like a ship

and if the ship is yours it has five masts
like matches stood on end and when a match

sparks into life it’s like a story told
and once the story’s told it grows like yeast

and this when yeast is needed for your dough
which kneaded proved and baked is like a stone

and when the stone is chipped it’s like a tree
battered and bruised by strong winds like a riot

and when the riot recedes it leaves a desert
which is like fear, which is like nothing else.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

taxmen

On Trees

Upon completing his transaction, our man leaves
the assistant damp with tears, exits his loathed branch
of HSBC. He is handcuffed to a trunk.

He crosses the road to walk through green trees, their trunks
make him feel secure, at ease. Above, on a branch,
he sees a grinning imp, fanning itself with leaves.

Panicked, he shoots forward, eyes darting backward, leaves
the imp behind him, wavers, then takes the right branch
at the fork. He stumbles over roots, drops his trunk.

It opens. Face knots with horror, legs become trunk.
Rooted in soil he claws, grasps, as arms become branch.
Around him his money plays in the breeze like leaves.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

huffs & puffs

August, 1945

On thursday the ninth,
my china fell from its hooks.
My jar of teas spilled onto the floor
and my spoon toppled from its saucer.
The pebbles I’d arranged on the shelf
fell quickly but in sequence onto new tiles,
and the light leaked from my photographs.

All of the windows cracked like nutshells.
The curtains fluttered like ball gowns,
then lifted for invisible can-can legs.
The door opened and then kept going
and the upstairs became a basement
and my hair blew across my face
and my eardrums burst.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

euler characteristics zero

brace mirror

An Impossible Bottle

Instead of a galleon, I take long-handled tools
to a life and proceed to fill a bottle with
a powerful telescope facing a loaded gun;
a crystal ball shaped as a Romantic artist’s skull;
a reminder of good times carved on the keel of a pirate ship;
a beautiful woman sat on a stumbling block.

Piece by piece I place the first bottle
into a smaller second bottle, which is now
a leaking sea wall around a tower of creativity;
a song of inspiration; a mangled arm;
a prompt to set out like a stream in a heatwave;
a silent, destructive conscience wearing braces.

Looking in through thick glass at the original bottle
I see, if I squint, that it has now become
a useless plaything in a pit that has a bottom;
a container for dreams in a container for nightmares;
a vessel for liquids drunk at daybreak in Paris;
a jewellery box with a sign reading “Do not touch”.

Looking further still, I can see the first now contains
a seldom seen animal on a useless television;
a key to the paint box; a lock on my intellect;
a ticket to “Anywhere” with a gregarious friend;
a puddle contained in a monument to beauty;
a cabinet for a friend of mine; and my ribcage.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

stops & searches

Routine Enquiries

At London Bridge I step onto
the escalator, stand in line.
Creeping slowly upwards,
late, greeted by a smile:
“I need to search you, Sir,
under section 44 of the Terrorism Act.”
Why me?
He wears helmet, stab-vest, steel-toed boots.
I’m in a yellow jacket, bright blue jeans;
hardly trying to blend in.
White skin usually does the job.
Open my bag: gloved hands go in.
Prodding and poking.
“Any clothes in here, Sir?”
Only my black balaclava.
“That’s my umbrella sleeve.”
His hand continues through its motions.
“D’you have any I.D. Sir?”
Reach for my provisional driving license.
Still need to learn.
“Right, Sir. I’d like to take your address, but
you’re free to catch your train. Sir.”

Silently I shut my wallet,
quickly zip up my bag
and put my earphones back in.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

castaways

The Faith Issue
after Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

I launch my faith into water
with its frail raft of pregnant words,
the way a castaway might stow
a letter scratched onto dried bark,

laboured over, rolled carefully
into the one precious bottle,
sealed in its womb with husk & leaf,
catapulted from the high cliff

at dawn, when the tide will slowly
deliver my vessel from shore,
only to have it bob in waves
aimlessly till landfall, finding

berth with a child in plastic shoes,
who toes at the bottle before
pressing it to his navel; who
throws back my ill born faith.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

pratique