Driving There

Packing your things
into our car
this morning,
and driving you
to the city split
my thoughts
in two. Split
my determination
in two. So
if I seemed
uncommitted
to accelerating
when the light turned,
or uncommitted
when our exit came,

it wasn't due
to the early hour.
It was because
my heart at every
opportunity
wanted to turn
the car around
and drive you away
from today,
toward another day.
A day without worry.
A day without fear,
without pain,
without hospitals,
without cancer.

R.L. Johnson, 11/2/2017

Bilateral Mastectomy

1 of 3 poems from

Her Cancer Journey

A Proposal to the New Confederacy

I propose a compromise to America's Historian-in-Chief Donald Trump and his loyal supporters: Put statues of slaves - chained to the auction block, tied to the whipping post, dead in the field - at the base of your "beautiful" Confederate monuments and we won't tear them down. They can stand forever in accurate context for all the world to see. Your cherished history will be saved. You will be able to proudly take your children and grandchildren to these monuments and show them exactly what your Southern States so gallantly fought to preserve.

R.L. Johnson, 2017

Leap

Truth
is the narrow

footbridge

spanning the deep

chasm

between us

and our future.

Deception
is a green

wild-eyed belief
that one can leap
to the other side
without falling
into the abyss.

R.L.J. 2017

Taking My Sweet Time

I turtled up the hill,
slothed across the street,
snailed up the steps,
and glaciered my way
into the foyer.
"You're late" she said.

R.L.J. 2017

Going to a Funeral

I got up this morning

to continue my journey.

It’s a long goddamned grind it is.

The trip to my funeral I mean.

I’ve been at it for as long as I can remember,

and even before I can remember

when I didn’t realize where I was going;

when I was a toddler wandering aimlessly;

and later riding my tricycle

half the time in the wrong direction,

away from my funeral,

and toward something else.

Toward something I can no longer recall.

Toward something that became

just the memory of a memory.

Toward something that once was

an audible and visual recollection

that repeated itself again and again

in the back of my mind,

and then slowly faded away.

It was a recollection from another life.

A recollection of the end of that life.

The one before this one.

The one in the wrong direction.

But I’ve been pointed right now

for almost fifty years,

walking the zigzag path

toward my funeral,

knowing full well that I’ll likely drop dead

a few days before arriving.

But with the help of the living,

I will show up on time.

R.L.J. 2017

Goodbye Truth

Alternative facts,

they fall like rain

into gutters of lies

that flood the drains,

causing rivers of hate

to erode the land,

cutting through valleys

and canyons grand,

sweeping the truth

into the sea,

to drift away

conveniently.

R.L.J. Notes on the Trump Administration 2017