in this spare forest windy accents are longing to enter the mouths of the silent actors to make mon: of this than a wooded matinee. With these trees standing at moral attention you can ask questions: Are these really The Wonder Years? Or to vary a theme: Is the world a tenable place to live,
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Nicholas Johnson All families have their lore, their mystery and nostalgia to put on movie screens. My Lady of the Cinema still screams out for revenge, love, abuse; she leaves me to contemplate the ruins, the old house and sea. Where is the bright light sent to intervene and save us
by Nicholas Johnson When you came and sat on the edge of my bed, lowered and raised your voice, I knew your voice was the best medicine. It conjured up visions of our recent holiday, the houses spread out at random, the jazzy blues of the meadows where the inhabitants always awoke at dawn with
by Nicholas Johnson I’m not cut out for life in the slow lane. Get back in the car and don’t slam the door. Don’t ask me to explain this epic catalogue of aches and pains. I don’t want to live like that anymore. I’m not cut out for life in the slow lane. I’m still
by Nicholas Johnson The red of repeated questions and their red answers. The stacked red of chips on green cloth. Fat chance. The red shift of stars, love retreating, color of debt, red-eye express. The sick red of light through closed lids, the red sweep of the second-hand blurred lines of where you have been
by Nicholas Johnson Flights to elsewhere are more necessary now that awakening itself is setback after setback as the mutual news sinks through: We both look through a single window after all. The view is bricked and bricked and capped by towers pushing back the sky. The more trustworthy, perhaps, can hold their tongues, but
by Nicholas Johnson On the beach they approach me, the stone angels, mouths a dark choir of ooo’s, mouthing words with their blank Byzantine faces so they sound like waves sucked back to the spellbound sea. Circling, they bow their heads low, halos of stone dipping. Their legend stings with reproach and disintegration, Grecian faces
by Nicholas Johnson Rusted, abandoned in the upstate woods, the red flatbed obviously used for target practice. Shot full of holes, looks real good against this tree. Abused after the crash, gutted, left to rot, dirt in the back became a bed for flowers, weeds, trees grown in the wrong place. Doesn’t hurt to take