At Sunrise
Quietly entranced
Insects chatter ceased
And bird-song begins
Tea cup sweetly scenting
A table set for morning-prayer
Out on that upper-deck
Porch-swing
Gently rocking barefooted
Night’s gown trailing
Eastward on the mountaintop
Edged in God’s
Prettiest and brightest lace
A precious light beacon-ing
Yesterday’s mortal souls
To His glistening promise
(The Mountaintop Porch-swing, Tennessee
~August 29,2006)
Debora Short
Go to: poemhunter.com
to download Debora Short's eBook of poetry.
Judy Garland, a very lovely lady,
sang for her people by the hour,
a gay, lively flower,
some wanted a piece of her petals,
and some wanted her golden fleece,
her celebrity and her money,
and a taste of her honey,
a star was born,
on the yellow brick road,
the wizard's power does not erode,
success goes up, success goes down,
this lady's will got tired,
after being repeatedly fired,
her physical body withered and died,
but her star still twinkles and glows,
through season's highs and lows,
bee's pollenate at her flower's dawn,
and attend to her under the rainbow,
greatly loved and adored by her fans,
loyal fans still nurture and pollenate,
her legendary spirit they cultivate,
and none of her flowers have gone.
Louis B. Mayer, the former head of MGM, was a controller and manipulator. When he wasn't able to get actors to do what he wanted, Mayer would get others to do his bidding. When Ethel couldn't get Judy Garland to behave the way he wanted, the studio hired doctors and psychiatrists to give Judy pills, psychiatric treatment, and shock therapy. Later, he got director, Vincente Minnelli (who became one of Judy's husbands), to get Judy to do what Mayer wanted. As June Allyson (one of Judy's closest friends) has stated, Minnelli was not right for Judy. Initially, Minnelli got Judy to do what was in the best interest of MGM (along with Minnelli's personal and professional interest), and not what was in the best interest of Judy. MGM's "The Pirate" was not a success and, after that, Judy chose a director other than Minnelli. Judy constantly worried about her commercial success, and it has been said that an actor is only as good as his or her last picture. Judy was overworker and was, many times, completely exhausted. Nevertheless, Mayer thought only of MGM, constantly abusing Judy by using her as a propertied workhorse. Mayer pitted actors against actors and, when June Allyson became pregnant, Judy was brought in to replace June in MGM's "Royal Wedding". Like "The Pirate", Judy did not think that "Royal Wedding" was a particularly good project (she thought, at best that the picture was a minor musical)--and Judy, justifiably, complained. "Royal Wedding" was really Fred Astaire's picture. Nicholas Schenk, with Loew's Incorporated (MGM was a division of Loew's), brought in Dore Schary. Dore Schary, who later replaced Louis B. Mayer as head of MGM, went along with complaints from Fred Astaire and Nicholas Schenk. On their advice, Schary fired Judy and, after what was a traumatic experience for her, Judy was never to be the same performer as the audience first knew. June Allyson has stated that, after Louis B. Mayer was fired from MGM, quote: "He (Mayer) took the studio with him." Judy Garland, the seemingly tireless workhorse, was repeatedly abused (but not always knowingly) right up to the end of her career. Judy, the beauty, had a beast for singing. But, it was the beast (along with alcohol, downers, and uppers) that killed her. At her passing, no tactics of control and manipulation could reason with, or summon Judy, to go on singing.
In a World of Insanity, the Sane is Outcast
Profiting from the vernacular of propaganda, insanity within
the widened moments of opportunity, the specialized healed,
broken-off cast from popular culture's limbs—
the willing with the open eyes.
Gauging existence as in the specific surroundings
of thermometry, weight truncates, evaporates into
nothingness, showing malnutrition of thought, placing
valuable investigation of ontological glorification,
regarding why such neglectful disappearance of
personifications have occurred so rapidly.
One voice enters an unconsciousness, a forgetfulness,
a realization toward becoming an alone entity.
This voice is sane.
Immediately, the voice is outcast.
For in the world of the insane, saneness is incomprehensible,
a biodegradable occurrence, relegated to the breaths
deep below formations of the disregarded.
Much of what is Aftermath is Illusional
The seen is seen in imaginary implications.
Simple, the tones of drawn metaphors, combining
clever contours with colorful endeavors,
meant in a further attempt to multiply
delusional, aggravated mind manipulations.
Therefore, hiding within minimalism, arranging an
attachment which complies with the combing through
dense, emotional caveat which may ensue,
realization must occur, reoccur, historically
fashioned in the shapes of future's looking back
can create dispositional forthcoming cons with smiling faces.
When Focus is Shunned for an Obvious Blur
Accolades for a foreign concept, akin to smiling into
desolate molds of immovable poverty.
Frightened by reality's existence, the
metaphysical advantage of knowing
epistemologically each organic organism
splaying forth, finding directional attributes
inside the mind's multilayered meanings.
Many though, find these many meanings too lucid,
and retract their existence into a hiding within a falling
smaller, more monotonous with the à la mode
popular lifestyles, there the duality of
roaming within curtailed patterns of
both relegated breaths and unfortunate steps
toward delusional comprehension.
The poem of Hoping.
The summer has arrived suddenly.
It hangs on the wall for all to see.
In the hall that large picture of me.
It’s been hung there for years.
I do wish they would take it down now.
They think of me as being such a good boy.
But the truth is, I’m ashamed!
They never knew me.
In fact they don’t know me, never took the time.
Much to busy to ever see the real me.
In that picture is someone different.
In that sad wooden framed picture is a happy boy.
It was the only day they saw me playing football.
Their jobs took up all their time.
So please take that monstrosity down.
At least until day release is over.
RIGHT PLACE RIGHT TIME
If it all was to stop, all the respect and prestige then where would you be?
If you never had it, would you have wished for it, like I do?
Do you never wish you could give it way, just a little here and
there. Spread the wealth beyond the confines of your high priced
mansion walls?
Daddy was good to you, don’t you think? All this luxury and
material things, diamond rings a plenty, in fact one for each finger,
by the looks of it. Tell me, do pictures of the poor not linger in the clean parts of your mind?
Have you ever took the time to realise, your not special, you
were just born lucky. Right place and all that. You don’t need a
pretty face, when you drive what you drive, do you?
Just think, you could be me. Born with a wooden spoon in
your mouth and your gums impaled with splinters of limited chances.
LOOK FOR ME
Look for me in the windows of cheap clothes shops.
Look for me in Ford Escorts when traffic stops.
Look for me when you have lost your way in life.
Look for me in your fancy Bacardi & lime.
Look for me my dear when you have some spare time.
Look for me where ever you feel the need to go.
Look for me, and if you find me, promise me you will
let me know, what it is you find?..
Because to tell you the truth babe, I’m still looking for me.
He will have a poem in the next issue of avantgardetimes. I'll announce the release in the next issue.Bathroom Visitor
A horsefly
travels the world
of my bathroom.
Stops at the kitty litter box
on occasion for refueling.
One thousand round trips
including the bathtub area,
and buzzes past the toilet bowl.
Steady pilot, good mileage.
Frequent flier miles.
I swat his journey to an
abrupt end.
Jesus Knelt in Grief
Over the Death of Children
Breaking out of silence,
Jesus knelt to his knees
in moist desert sand,
wrote messages
with his fingertips
to children-
"water is water, toys are toys,
but by my fingers burn with life,
though I toil over tombs with grief and tears-
I'm the living and I am the dead.
I was born to life to bring
new hope into the death of children.
I'm the messenger of the morning sun
the prayer book between the morning dew,
the play fields of your daily adventures.
When I kneel here again,
the end will be the end.
Fire will be willed into my words.
Driftwood and sand will turn to stone.
I drag my fingers across hot sand once more;
morning will come without a daybreak.
Birds will no longer sing, and crickets
lose their songs."
Cell Phone Mania
Hollow people,
small people with big ear openings,
aisle walkers of endless babble-
big heads, small heads, big thoughts,
no thoughts at all, mounds of
words piling up on each other.
Free time is cell phone time.
Jaw bone structures jumbling up and down
like pairs of disjointed loose lips;
skeletons of moving gestures
fingers, and hands dancing in the air
pointing to here, pointing to there;
scare those who walk beside them
scare those who sit beside them
in moving cars.
Peapods cell phones jammed in and around
earlobes like miniature rubber mallets.
Speaker phone gadget grinding against white teeth
Conversations, at the grocery store, dripping out
of dried mouths about brand cans of peas or pears,
which softness of diapers preferred for the babies ass.
Free time is cell phone time.
They roam and talk everywhere seriously about nothing.
Weekends are free times for ignoring the rest of the universe.
Babies carry deactivated phones with 911options
in grocery push carts designed like miniature cars.
The world is a plastic phone shaped and held
like a household fixture communicating
with no one, no one of consequence
or importance.
Free time is cell phone time.
Michael Lee Johnson's 1st chapbook of poems and his first paperback of poems
both available for purchase or download at:
"The Lost American: A Tender Touch & A Shade Of Blue" (Chapbook with 57 pages)
http://www.lulu.com/content/936633
"The Lost American II: From Exile to Freedom (Full paperback with 98 pages)
http://www.lulu.com/content/972649
In approximately 45 days a new paperback book, by Michael Lee Johnson, will be available for purchase and download at iUniverse Publishers: http://www.iuniverse.com/
Mr. Michael Lee Johnson lives in Chicago, IL after spending 10 years in Edmonton, Alberta Canada during the Viet Nam era. He is a freelance writer and poet. He is heavy influenced by Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, and Leonard Cohen. 200 plus poems published. He is a member of Poets & Writers, Inc; Directory of American Poets & Fictions Writers: pw.org/directory . Recent publications: The Orange Room Review, Bolts of Silk, Chantarelle's Notebook, The Foliate Oak Online Literary Magazine, Poetry Cemetery, Official Site of Laura Hird, The Centrifugal Eye, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Scorched Earth Publishing, and many others. Published in USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria Africa, India, United Kingdom. Mr. Johnson has a paper book pending publication with iUniverse Publishers.
About Conscious Discussions Talk Radio Show
Dave and Lillian Brummet, authors of the book Trash Talk, are thrilled to announce their talk radio show called "Conscious Discussions". Listeners are invited view the website and click on the Test session
to hear what the show will be about. Anyone interested in appearing on the 1/2 hour show as a guest is welcome to contact the Brummet's through one of their websites (see below). The show will be recorded live and airs every Tuesday at 10 am PST.
RADIO SHOW DESCRIPTION: Discussions about the environment, the value of the individual and the world of writing.
HOSTS: Lillian and Dave Brummet, authors of Trash Talk (waste reduction), Towards Understanding (non-fiction poetry) & Purple Snowflake Marketing (book promotion).
KEYTAGS: author, book, book promotion, education, energy, environment, family, interview, lifestyle, money, promotion, recycle, reuse, talk show, trash, trash talk, waste, water, writing, zero waste
LOCATION: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions