FOUR POEMS by DANIEL JOHNSON

After Reading the Diaries of a Poet

Two selves reach out

to touch each other

like some quotidian

Creation of Adam

in which Adam

is a little green

around the gills

from last night’s

excesses, chemical,

anxious, but zealous

and proud, and the God,

the pot-bellied old man,

has lost his hair, seethes

judgement born

of trumped-up wisdom.

---

Altar

After Joseph’s Stella’s "Voices of the City of New York Interpreted"

Cities are

paneled—five:

the battery, the under-

ground, the crystalline

facets of tower

tops, then white broad-

way and the bridge,

with its strong

sweeping cables

over purified cerulean

waters. Every-

thing’s buzzing

with coming, sans

nostalgia; memory’s

only made by happen-

stance, rough

material to build

upon. The will-

be soars

in Fauvist bursts,

and in the back

behind our is-ness

the night resigns

to manmade light.

---

Origins

1

A child sees

a trail of ants,

a fizzing parade

of six times

six times six

times six.

2

The ants are

entering

the base

of a tree,

disappearing

into an opening

3

where the bark

has grown soft.

The child

wonders what

they’re doing,

what’s keeping,

	4

these a-million-legs,

to-ing

and fro-ing.

The child

wonders what

else there is

5

to wonder

about

the ants,

their movements,

missions.

To be

	6

an ant

inside

a tree—

The child

bends, tears

at the bark.

---

Landslide in Ken’s Pub and Pizza

I order two slices of pepperoni

and a Pacifico. The beer comes golden

with a green wedge of lime and the pizza arrives

greasy and shining. The red lamplight glows against

the dark, burnished bar counter while Cleveland

goes for a first down, and, for once,

doesn’t stink up the joint. And now

the lovely Stevie Nicks gives the place a push.

I hear a woman say she saw Mac in ’89

and they didn’t hold up. Another guy tells her

to pipe down, he loves this song, and my neighbor,

an old man quiet with his beer and newspaper,

mutters each chorus. A Friday night. Somewhere

it’s all shouts and bass notes, but it’s this also, and good.

---

Daniel Johnson is a writer from New Jersey. He’s a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork, and he teaches at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. His work has appeared in journals such as Southword, TIMBER, and Reed Magazine. He’s on social media @djohnsonwrites.