Robert K. Johnson Verse-Virtual 2016 December

December 2016

Born in New York City (in Elmhurst), I lived in several different places there but have memories only of The Bronx (off Fordham Road). Then my family moved out "on The Island"—to Lynbrook, where we stayed till I graduated from Hofstra (then a College). Several years after my wife, Pat, and I married, we, plus our two children, settled in the Boston area and have remained there (except for my daughter, Kate, who has lived in Manhattan for quite a while). I have been writing poetry since I was twelve (many moons ago).

Van Gogh's Last Paintings

The reeling stars, the cypresses'
green leaves spiraling skyward,
the fields of blazing yellow wheat
hurling themselves beyond
the borders of the canvas
explain

how, for Van Gogh,
every day was a torrential river
his rowboat was trapped on
and no matter how frantically
he dipped and tugged the oars
he could not steer the boat
to shore;
the only way
he could keep from drowning
was to pull the trigger himself.

previously published in MUDDY RIVER POETRY REVIEW

"Love" and Love

Even after graduation
from high school, I still
set the bar at breasts
and behinds, still lived
like a teen cruising slowly
while looking for girls
who measured up enough
to stir a flutter

until, on a different day,
I saw her,
someone
way beyond pretty or not pretty,

and the car--all on its own--
roared to a hundred miles an hour,
left nineteen years of my life
in the dust, and hurled me
toward a foreign country
I'd just begun to learn about.

previously published in ABBEY

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