I Trip on My Poems

by Michael Lee Johnson

In the night when poems
are born, I search for no one
but the hidden words.
Conjunctions are just meeting places
like personal ads for wild women.
Even my lady friend criticizes me
for being uncreative, disconnected,
a time degenerate.
The secrets stretch inside my metaphors I
cannot find them all.
I miss spell check;
grammar is a liar;
syntax is drug substance I refuse
to understand.
I am a trouble-free minded poet
with the training of an uncultivated monster;
I chew on my experiences, go back
to the prey, the kill, usually alone and spit.
But I have no sense of formality.
Even near my tender moments
when the images blossom into a rain flowers
I trip on stems cut my way loose to nowhere.
I go there to see what I can find.