Hail All Hallows 2025
 “Shadow Walker" is a tender meditation on love beyond the veil. A poem of return of seeking and of that unbroken thread between mother and child. |
 “I Conceal My Craft " Michael Lee Johnson transforms vulnerability into resilience. The poet hides his art beneath the armor of an armadillo -- a symbol of endurance and self-preservation -- while reflecting on the solitude of creation amid the clamor of criticism and commerce. This is a meditation on artistic survival on what it means to protect one’s voice when the world demands conformity and on the quiet steadfast joy of writing for truth’s sake. |
 In “Eclipse of Thought " Michael Lee Johnson captures the liminal beauty of reflection caught between light and shadow. The poem reads like a celestial meditation -- a moment when reason falters and imagination takes wing. Through the imagery of sun and moon in transition Johnson explores how inspiration emerges not in clarity but in that suspended instant between illumination and eclipse -- where thought is born unfinished and infinite. |
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In “Dead Grass-Old Poets " Michael Lee Johnson resurrects two literary titans - Poe and Emerson - and sets them wandering through a surreal afterlife where memory fades wit endures and even ghosts grow weary. Through vivid ironic imagery the poem becomes a contemplation of genius stripped of grandeur: of how great minds once full of thunder settle into the soft hum of mortality. It is at once elegy satire and séance -- a poetic encounter where reverence and rebellion meet beneath the same pale sky. |
I Conceal my Craft
of an armadillo snug in its embrace
nestled near its warmth
as insects buzz under the midday sun
where stories collide with struggles
and words fester like unresolved thoughts
distant from the critics' needle pen hearts.
Their relentless demands cold cash
and hollow praise layered thick with honey
on pages between verses where every line
holds a lingering scent or memory.
I gaze up at the vast sky and chuckle.
Speaking in tongues nervously out of mind
shining chimes waiting for the next critic
to declare my thoughts don’t flow
out of character my rhythm’s a misstep.
I tally each word joy and sorrow.
One poem one collection of verses for me;
One poem one collection a poetry book against me.
Breathe shallow breathe hard for the heart with age.
I conceal my craft under the armor of the armadillo.
by the sun-
I see a different
version of the moon.
A movie not yet seen in darkness.
A story not yet told by prophets.
No movie mongrel
has siphoned the
joy from the wing
the eclipse.
Clever this fore night.
How the transition
of sun and moon
clouds my thinking.
Create this poem--
somewhere in between.
Dead Grass-Old Poets
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Tweedledee and Tweedledum were way past
the recollection of years of recalling thoughts.
Diddling away time storytelling in front of children
playing leapfrog with words.
Posing as loners pulling whirligig toys around.
Contemplating a simple facial gesture
towards God visualize a different image returned.
Reflections those darting sinful shadows plaguing the dark.
Poe never remembered much amnesia sniffed out of a bottle.
His impish actions created a theater of glued horror.
Poe stumbles through dirt mud paths
town streets those night bars local deadly.
Emerson's thoughts are not nearly the same.
He never walked intoxicated tripping
on bygone wooden street planks.
Ghost encounters were never the same
no steps no stones no delusions.
Emerson's self-reliance minus bubbly suds.
Emerson's grave inscription
Sleepy Hollow slumber I rest--
"Passive Master lent his hand."
Dead grass old poets deceased.
Poe "Here at last I'm happy."
Rolling over three red roses
and a bottle of cognac.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum.