June 2023
Robert K. Johnson
Choirofday@cs.com
Bio Note: My poems are spins on our everyday world, which has always gripped me much more than science-fiction worlds. A now retired English Professor, I taught for many years at Suffolk University in Boston. I also for several years was Poetry Editor for IBBETSON STREET magazine. I have had several collections of poems published.

Although I Traveled

to wide blue skies
breathtaking as love,
to cities honking 
with excitement,

to hospital beds
that pinned me to pain
and gardens leafy 
with contentment,

the place I returned to 
most often 
was the barren island
of bewilderment.

Our Parents

looked
	across the street in dismay—
seeing the decrepit remains
of a once respectable house.

We saw
	an abandoned English castle:
a cellar changed to a dungeon
a fort Indians attacked

and played 
	in them every Saturday.
Until the workman came 
and tore down our imagination.
Originally published in Reach Poetry
©2023 Robert K. Johnson
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