Matthew Johnson
When I Ran Away From Home and Only Took a Backpack of Rap
I’m fine here, watching the world pass on by in a window;
The seasons are lopped off through panels.
Flickering train-car lights shine like soft, distant stars.
The nights are ripped open, and the dawn is sewn with coffee.
Flames and fools flirt by shooting smiles at one another.
A million faces, with their darting, sleeping, and dark-circled eyes,
Overlook me.
I keep to myself. I’d rather not a group of strangers converge
On the boy who bothers no one. There’s glory within the dirt floor.
After so many snows, the wheels on the railroad turn the white to black slush.
There’s no other glee or satisfaction, I declare, than drowning out
To uninterrupted jazz samples from old nightclubs and cabarets.
I’m used to the shakes and swirls and sudden stops and sins of trains,
And of people; I listen to too much hip-hop.
The seasons are lopped off through panels.
Flickering train-car lights shine like soft, distant stars.
The nights are ripped open, and the dawn is sewn with coffee.
Flames and fools flirt by shooting smiles at one another.
A million faces, with their darting, sleeping, and dark-circled eyes,
Overlook me.
I keep to myself. I’d rather not a group of strangers converge
On the boy who bothers no one. There’s glory within the dirt floor.
After so many snows, the wheels on the railroad turn the white to black slush.
There’s no other glee or satisfaction, I declare, than drowning out
To uninterrupted jazz samples from old nightclubs and cabarets.
I’m used to the shakes and swirls and sudden stops and sins of trains,
And of people; I listen to too much hip-hop.
Biography
Photo taken @ Scuppernong Books (Greensboro, NC)
|
Matthew Johnson is a former sports journalist who wrote for The Daily Star (Oneonta, NY), The USA Today College, and The Carolinian. A Northern Transplant (upstate NY and southern CT), he has earned his MA in English at UNC-Greensboro. His poetry has appeared in Maudlin House, The Roanoke Review, The New Southern Fugitives, The Sport Literate, The Maryland Literary Review, and elsewhere. He is a one-time Best of the Net Nominee (2017) and his debut collection, Shadow Folks and Soul Songs (Kelsay Books), was released in 2019. Twitter: @Matt_Johnson_D
|
