I Am Old Frustrated Thought

July 26, 2010 ✍ Poetry cover story poem unrhymed

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. He is heavy influenced by: Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg.

I Am Old Frustrated Thought

I am old frustrated thought
I look into my once eagle eyes
and find them dim before my dead mother,
I see through clouded egg whites with days
passing by like fog feathers.
I trip over old experiences and expressions,
try hard to suppress them or revisit them;
I'm a fool in my damn recollections,
not knowing what to keep and what to toss out --
but the dreams flow like white flour and deceive
me till they capture the nightmare of the past images
in a black blanket wrapped up
and wake me before my psychiatrist.
It is at times like these I know not where I walk
or venture. I trip over my piety and spill my coffee cup.
I seek sanctuary in the common place of my life.
Solid footing is a struggle in the sock of depression
it is here the days pass and the years slip like ice cubes.

-2007-

More by Michael Lee Johnson → More poetry → Full issue →

4 Reader Comments

Alexandra
07/27/2010
04:37:58 PM

A thought-provoking look at aging. " I trip over my piety and spill my coffee cup" is especially evocative to me.

Bernie
07/27/2010
09:02:38 PM

A very rich piece, Mr. Johnson. "I'm a fool in my damn recollections,
not knowing what to keep and what to toss out" is a particularly good phrase -- clear and sharp in its imagery. "Solid footing/sock of depression" doesn't set well with me. Too contrived compared to the quality of the rest of the work. None the less, good job.

Anonymous
07/30/2010
11:14:31 AM

Wonderful !

"Solid footing is a struggle in the sock of depression ..."

Everyone has a favorite part. That is mine.

But I believe that all agree in their opinion of the whole.

Michael Lee Johnson
08/04/2010
10:56:00 PM

Thank all of you for your honest comments, I really appreciate them good and bad. It is hard to be perfect through out a poem. I always find myself in revision of "completed" poems-they seem to forever evolve. Often that evolution has happened as a direct result of comments like these and from very good editors generally, in small press.