Against The Night

By PMF Johnson

These poems sparkle up a smile about a long love's journey that still bangs along sprightly as an old jalopy. Here is the tale of a marriage built in parts like a bicycle, old-fashioned as fudge. These poems burn, soothe, scrawl for help with a sharpened spoon. Poems to replace your breath with fire.

Many of these poems were previously published in magazines, including The North American Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Atlanta Review, Midwest Quarterly, Portland Review, and others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PMF Johnson
• Release date: Oct 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370348008

PMF Johnson

P M F Johnson has a new book of love poems available, Against The Night. These poems have that rakish-tilt-of-the-hat attitude, exuberant and sensual, tracing out a long love story. He has placed poems with The Threepenny Review, The North American Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Evansville Review, Measure, and dozens of other magazines. He has won a Plainsongs Award, been a semi-finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize, and had his poems selected for several "Best Of..." anthologies. He is married to the writer Sandra Rector.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

Against The Night and Careful first appeared in Nimrod International Journal.

Instant By Instant first appeared in The North American Review.

Ensorcelled first appeared in The Atlanta Review.

City Girl and In Our Prairie Aerie first appeared in The Midwest Quarterly.

Wife first appeared in The Portland Review.

Apology first appeared in The Apple Valley Review.

Dawnation first appeared in Kestrel.

Glasses first appeared in Convergence: An On-line Journal.

This Girl took Honorable Mention in The Helen Schaible Contest.

Too Many Ghosts first appeared in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry.

Deep Joy, Sandy My Love, Showstopper, Six AM, Anniversary Dinner, Don't Unwrap Without Me, Landlocked, Valentine's Day and Your Love first appeared in The Avocet.

Sparrow, Waiting For My Sandy To Come Home and Writer's Group first appeared in PoeticVoices.

Empress Of My Every Day, Free Form, Plum Blossom, Whom I Knew and With Devotion first appeared in Calamities Press.

Against The Night

Those are tiny books

batting around the lamp tonight,

little educations leafed out

and about their own business

rooted in ancient urges;

those are your toes aflutter

in the folds of hope

that blanket us, as I

lean closer to you and murmur,

and the night gathers its increase,

a thousand branching stories

woven to bind us together.

Part I

Our Cladding Disassembled

(The 2010's)

In Our Prairie Aerie

far in the north change

is more

steady than sudden

flowers pop through snow

watered by

warmth reaching underneath

winds bring spring in a shift

of the rose

sheeted over a slog of weeks

where food is wisdom

woman you

are the finest wizard

here the evening book read

at bedside

melts Twain into Colette

twigged-together walls

hold out

the prairie rain

or lack of rain

anyone

else's weather

hold in like cupped

hands

the concentration of a candle

concentric intentions

the appliance hum

of our little forever

Taking Your Stock

Perspective gives oddity

often great weight,

even profundity --

plopping not

just celery, carrots

and onion in

your stock but

fennel, parmesan,

yesterday's stew,

using what's

handy cleverly.

No one knowing

you might doubt

your skill with

scale, resolving

what's missing

or askew in

any kitchen:

a kindly host

bearing gifts

that like cheese

or a proper soup

deepen as they age.

What might be taken

as strange you

prove sagacious,

the rind and roux

delicious.

Learned By Anniversary 2 x 12 (Steps)

Stepping over

must never

be overstepping

or stepping out,

not a cross

nor crossing out.

Despite the wanton

of any garden it's

deep intent that

fashions charm.

The simplest paths

take the same

dozen steps

chosen again

and again

to form.

Your Day

It's a celebration

of a click,

as of a door

made easily

to open or

the window next

to it. Put on

the happy conical

hat, blow a horn,

you'll barely know

it's your turn

to slick on

another layer

of wisdom --

as with paint,

the beauty

of surface

lines due to

earlier coats

barely hidden.

Apology

Poems chewed by dogs have gaps.

Bones cracked.