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
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Saturday, 12 September 2009
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
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
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
Wednesday, 2 September 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
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
Saturday, 29 August 2009
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
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
Friday, 17 July 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
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
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
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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
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
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
“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
Monday, 8 June 2009
Monday, 1 June 2009
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
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
