This is how I will pay.
Not with insidious STD,
unplanned procreative outcome,
nor tremulous hangover.
Not even with
will-you-respect-me-in-the-morning shame
at just how and where and when
and how loud.
No, for the rather lively late night,
I will pay
with the steady stream
of grating utterances
otherwise known as
reasonable questions
from my loving,
world-curious children.
Ahhh ! That one could fuck all night
and not be too tired to parent in the morning.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
I would like to do, again & anew,
What we did & didn’t yet do.
On top, below, askance, askew:
All about me, all about you.
Unexplored territory, the tried & true.
I would like to do it all again & all anew.
Not too many tricks; just a few.
Perhaps a new stance, a different view.
I’m being candid; my words are true:
I want many more, not just a few.
Toes a tangle, clothes all strewn,
The motion, the moan: in sync, in tune.
Let’s not wait ‘til the day is through.
Let us go, without further ado.
All again & all anew, I would like to do
what we did & are about to do.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
for Pat, now Patrick, from a long time ago
Stroking the uneven fret board
that is the rise and fall of your breath,
my finger finds its perfect indentation,
where sides, right and left, become center.
There, a generous hollow
suggests essential absence,
which I fill.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
Holy heat
from deep inside.
Not where thighs meet
but earth’s great abide.
Tempting late night,
lake, woods, fields
becoming mosaic light
as the darkness yields.
Encircled in stone
once wet, once wood
hot crackle, hot moan
a fire here stood.
Tower of ashes
expands full height,
then collapses
glow takes flight.
Fleeting sparks
amid darkest blue;
flashing arcs
dispel the dew.
Left: aching embers
thrust apart,
now re-membered
what from the start
was log, even tree
before becoming
fiery geometry.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
Lead you astray
Turn crystal to clay
Mix raw umber with oil
Giggle as you recoil
Smear your arm
No cause for alarm
Seek you out
Map the route
Roundabout way
Swerve, then sway
Bet a day’s wage
Can’t act my age
Define the context
Subvert the pretext
Seek raucous grace
Do an about-face
Imbibe all night
Make it just right
Add sugar to wine
Sangria tastes fine
Admire my toes
Discard my clothes
Invent your desire
Ride, ride, ride it with my fire
Flowing at absurd angles
beyond henna and hurry,
luminous hair
with hues surpassing
typical sartorial idiom.
She is twirl, shift, shadow
in the lineage of Saraswati:
destructive, creative
on scale according to breath.
And pulse:
momentary diastole,
actual systole.
Incendiary release
on streets made wicked
by grown children
lacking her laugh.
For every purple,
she seeks the density of clay.
For every green,
she approaches journeywork of the stars.
For every illuminated tangerine
that teases the tongue,
she scatters upward confetti
that trace city air:
A glorious night
of paper fireworks
igniting to wreak havoc
on the backsides of her knees
damp with lurid panting, pulling play.
No slow show greets her
near the edge of all abandon.
It is rush and random.
Opalescence cascading,
coalescing, acquiescing.
the smoke, the desert
all meet at her heat:
to feel the edge
of her farcical, fanciful friction.
Uneasy balance of emerge,
a teasing moment of take
that glides into give.
She does not diminish,
does not turn to husk
or withered wisp.
Her life is a living artifact
of provocation, mischief.
She becomes
solid
fluid
vapor.
Eminent reminder
of her place
on and in and of.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
My mind’s eye
begins the story
of my needy finger tips
wending their way
along your arm.
I want to be blind & read you
like the Braille book that you are,
that you would be to me.
New chapters draw me in:
the roughness of your sharp elbow,
the musky forest where your arm
meets your utterly smooth chest,
the hollow where your ribs
meet well above your belly button.
You are a novel
I cannot put down,
will not put down,
will lie to my boss
& call in sick to finish,
leaving each page dog-earred
& meticulously consumed.
I am overcome
by the imagined sensation
of what each section
of your delicious body
would taste like:
the lull of sweet
as my lips graze yours,
seeking and confirming
our mutual delight;
the sting of your unshaven cheek
as my own cheek slides across,
then nudges, then pushes into yours;
the tease of sour as I nip, then bite,
the nape of your neck
& chew the lobe, my breath
hot & weighty in your ear;
the flirt of salt that lingers
on your shoulder blades,
each jutting out as I
grasp your arms behind your back,
an enticing resistance
urging us onward.
I see the moist notations
my tongue traces
in the margins
as I move downward
along your spine,
each vertebrae sighing
as my sweet breath hovers,
teasingly, there at that delicate place
where your one back
becomes two palmfuls of flesh .
My parted lips bounce over
the smooth texture of your hips,
solid & firm under kisses
as I turn your body
from back to front,
cover to cover,
bringing a swirling infusion
of tongue, lips, & breath
to your navel.
I am wet.
I cannot go on.
I blush at the thought
of putting to paper
what else my mind’s eye
has conjured.
Perhaps I have not made good
on my promise to complete the novel
of your enthralling body.
Or there remains a sequel
yet to be written.
Awkward dinner of new acquaintances,
multitudinous children surrounded us,
their delightful ways eliciting languid laughter.
We watched your son, then mine,
your daughter, then mine
place their flat palms solidly on the floor
to raise squatting bodies in ever greater feats
of upper body strength and personal fortitude.
This child’s contest done, you extended the challenge
and held yourself up an impressive length of time.
The children, having discovered distractions elsewhere,
only I was the admiring audience.
In the vibration of your straining forearms,
my own pulse quickened. I hardly knew you,
yet already bound by this bold tension.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
In this actual garden, lush with verdant seedlings
centered in fecund peat, moist ritual spring mounds
swelling with late summer portent,
my knees are encrusted with disgorged weeds.
Abandoned work gloves mean dirty hands, gritty nails.
Truly something I can sink into: my whole body, my whole earthy self.
Dusk descends, coerces me out of the garden, to the kitchen sink.
With cleansing tenderness, soap swirls sensually in my hands,
disrobing dirt and sweat with a stream of rushing abandon.
It is time: too long in coming, that is true.
First, I dry these rough hands with the lustiest of cotton.
Then cradle the phone with the long lingering message of your hunger for me.
Next, this latest act of self love: with budding pleasure,
I press the erase button.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
A book,
Binding tight,
Shelved among dust and mold,
Unread, might as well be unwritten.
Fiddlehead fern,
More rust than green.
Its curl a violin carved of oak,
No verdant expanse waiting to unfold.
Wooden joint
masterfully coupled,
Years of straining against each other,
Producing a mortar of pressured stability.
Not
the way I mean to bring my tongue to your groove.
Not
the way I intend to fiddle the fern of your longing.
Not
how I’ll crack your binding & read your pages ragged.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
Just sometimes I feel that way:
one mundane object
an unrelated comment
some random gesture:
All I want to do is bed you.
Yes, the echo of your sighs
gone from my ear too many days now,
of course, that arouses me, too.
In the solitude of my bed
As I drive my car on errands
Sauntering among sidewalk crowds
smelling vaguely of you.
It is something like Billy Collins’ eye
beholding a painting’s racy charge
undetectable to even the most randy of
the general populace.
There are surprising prompts out of nowhere:
not just the shape, but the distant heat, of the chandelier torch
a child’s exuberant peddling full speed in the new spring air
the hard concrete corner on the Mezzanine with its luminescent glass floor tiles where quiet hovers, deceptively suggesting seclusion
It’s not all that often, not really that frequently:
just with each exhale and every other inhalation.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
wending its way along
the gentle of my inner thigh.
Not some foreign tongue
whose dialect I cannot discern.
This lingua franca, common between
two lovers, leaves me breathless,
yet still I interpret its meaning.
Some translations cannot be circulated
without the poet’s permission.
Grant me it. Now.
What manner of publication ~
not chapbook,
provincial local newspaper
nor high literary journal ~
suits this love we make?
Permit me my moans, rendering
expressive tonight’s version
of your familiar tongue.
Femme wannabe
sheathed in black velvet,
shapely curves suggesting
ample breasts, hungry
hips, silky thighs.
Black-haired butch,
suave in grandfather’s tails,
intent gaze charming
all in the room.
Her fingertips at the
other woman’s waist
exude heat as she
hands over a drink.
These two no longer
dance together,
but still she leads
this way and that.
Martini a false excuse,
the giddy femme follows,
her unspoken offer
tempting, but unheeded.
The host has already
moved on to other guests.
wrong angles for his appraising gaze.
He’s not flirting with his wife – if that’s
who is sitting at the table with him.
It is overflow because he’s bored
with her incessant drivel or wasp-ish
at what’s going unsaid or distracted by
the news of his friend’s recent relapse.
Maybe she’s not his wife and it is
because he wants to jump her bones
and hasn’t yet found a way to let her know.
It’s definitely not the foot,
unremarkable in shape and size.
Or apparel, which borders on
aesthetically offensive:
white athletic socks, sturdy sandals.
It is itself: of itself, for itself.
…and utterly sensual.
It is the recurring sweep of the curve,
How when it reaches the top of
its simple circle, foot slows,
not out of hesitation,
possibly out of anticipation,
but most likely
out of sheer satisfaction.
Momentum suggestive of other intimate rhythms.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
The fact of your recent visit to the lake was revealed in the honey tint of your skin peeking out from under your rolled up sleeves. I could have stared at your forearm for hours. Perhaps the hair on your arm, above your wrist and up further, has always been that illuminated hue of gold and I had been immune. In that very moment that I was held captive by the sight of it, by the sight of you. I imagined the honey, the gold: the treasure if I were to touch your cool, then ever-warming, skin.
My mind’s eye begins the story of my needy finger tips wending their way along your arm. I want to be blind and read you like the Braille book that you are, that you would be to me. New chapters draw me in: the roughness of your sharp elbow, the musky forest where your arm meets your utterly smooth chest, the hollow where your ribs meet well above your belly button. You are a novel that I cannot put down, will not put down, will lie to my boss and call in sick to finish, leaving each page dog-earred and meticulously consumed.
I am overcome by the imagined sensation of what each section of your delicious body would taste like: the lull of sweet as my lips graze yours, seeking and confirming our mutual delight; the sting of your unshaven cheek as my own cheek slides across, then nudges, then pushes into yours; the tease of sour as I nip, then bite, the nape of your neck and chew the lobe, my breath hot and weighty in your ear; the flirt of salt that lingers on your shoulder blades, each jutting out as I grasp your arms behind your back, an enticing resistance urging us onward.
I am wet. I cannot go on. I blush at the thought of putting to paper what else my mind’s eye has conjured. Perhaps I have not made good on my promise to complete the novel of your enthralling body.
Or there remains a sequel yet to be written.
Pulsing, panting
Erotic & maternal
Visual rhythm,
Textured sound
Expanding, contracting
Deafening & illuminating
Sex could not be grander than this;
Love not nearly so convincing.
How stay atheist in its midst?
How distrust Nature’s ritual as holy
And everything else right as it is?
But like these Northern Lights
Always beyond my simple grasp.
Professional attire,
correct posture,
proper attitude.
Serious adults
talking seriously
about serious topics.
I nod my head,
contribute minutiae,
pose attentively.
Yet all I think about is
Your one hand gently,
firmly at my neck:
teeth on my nipple,
tease of pressure mounting.
Your other hand, skillful,
between my legs,
heat swelling, rising.
You, hard, inside me.
My finger tips trace
every measure of your body:
the smooth, the textured, the hairy,
the tasty, the hard, the wet,
the curvy, the boney, the supple,
the curly, the sharp:
the all of your body
that begs me to consume you.
Days later these images flash
across my mind’s rather libidinal eye:
I shudder.
People must think
I have developed a tic.
If they look carefully,
they discern not
a nervous nature,
but reminiscent pleasure.
(cc) Karen G. Johnston
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