In My Opinion Kindness Affects You
They say kill ‘em with kindness
But gloss over the fact what it does to you
What God has meant for me ain’t necessarily meant for you
Sometimes you damned if you don’t and you damned if you do
Been through too many things
Seen too many things
And people want to marvel at the pain
But you ain’t Shang Chi looking for ten rings
In My Opinion Kindness Affects You
You either lead by example
Or be the example
Wished for positive vibes
And the support is ample
No longer putting the weight of the world
On my shoulders
Nothing more than I can handle
Take a walk in my shoes
Gonna need more than some sandals
Bottom of these soles
Shows the journey of a tired soul
Being better than what I was
The purpose that’s sole
Driven through too many points
Guess it finally took a toll
Take a walk in my shoes
But you couldn’t fit the mod
In My Opinion Kindness Affects You
Just what I think, and what I say
That’s what I mean when someone asks
How are you?
Well, I’M O.K.A.Y.
Bio:Follow R.D. Johnson on twitter @r_d_Johnson R.D. Johnson is a pushcart nominee, a best of the net nominee for Fevers of the Mind "(Not Just On) Juneteenth" Reggie is an author reigning out of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of 9, he found a love for writing while on summer vacation. With influences from music, Reggie has created a rhythmic style of writing to tell his personal experiences and beyond. Reggie has several books available on all major online retailers and his work can be seen in various literary magazines. He currently has two columns, Drunken Karaoke featured on Daily Drunk Magazine & REPLAYS featured on The Poetry Question. https://thepoetryquestion.com/category/replay-rdj/
The Fevers of the Mind Press has a huge collective of poets, writers, interviews, recommendations & more in the new book https://amzn.to/3sjgWnz (Deluxe edition) *released early 2021*
includes contributions from myself (David L O’Nan), HilLesha O’Nan, Rob Z photography, Ankh Spice, Catrice Greer, the Poetry Question & Chris Margolin, Jenna Faccenda, Ethan Jacob O’Nan, Icefloe Press, Robert Frede Kenter, Moira J Saucer Darren Demarree, Abdulmueed Balogun, Bradley Galimore, Anisha Kaul, Foy Timms, David Ralph Lewis, Paul Brookes, Sidney Mansueto, Lawrence Moore, Karen Mooney, Jenny Mitchell, Makund Gnanadesikan, James Lilley, Richard Waring, Vern Fein, Ediney Santana, Rachael Ikins, Samantha Terrell, Al Matheson, Ceinwed C E Haydon, Will Schmit, Dai Fry, Barney Ashton-Bullock, M.S. Evans, Megha Sood, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Matthew M C Smith, Lucy Whitehead & Merril Smith as well as an interview with Americana/Indie/Punk musician Austin Lucas ,Troy Jackson, Book Reviews for Hokis, David Hanlon, Susan Richardson & Norb Aikin, Karlo Sevilla, Steve Denehan, A.R. Salandy, Steve Wheeler, Sher Ting, December Lace, Ken Tomaro, Kushal Poddar, Tan Tzy Jiun, Amy Barnes, Jason DeKoff, Raine Geoghegan, Jim Young, Tim Heerdink, Damien Donnelly, Kristin Garth, Mela Blust, Jackie Chou, Rickey Rivers Jr, David Hay, Kari Flickinger, John Ogunlade, Z.D. Dicks, Julie Stevens, Gayle Sheridan, Wil Davis, Samantha Merz, Iona Murphy, Gerald Jatzek, KC Bailey, Samuel Strathman, Mike Whiting, Peter Hague, E Samples, Ann Hultberg, Jane Dougherty, Michael Igoe, Maxine Rose Munro, John Everex, Lacresha Hall, Kelly Marie McDonough, Gabe Louis, Linda M Crate
Deluxe Edition is over 300 pages and includes all of the Poets, writers, interviews, musicians, photography & more.
Knife dreams of stone and wire
of edge, curling upon itself,
wire, once burnished away, reveals
the sinuous and bright word of cutting,
the long tongue of scar tasting bitter orange,
laceration stained hibiscus flowering,
rain sluiced into the bay, sweltering cauldron,
broth of migrations.
We did not dwell, ephemeral precludes
habitation, residency is the privilege
of those less soluble, less phosphorescent ,
we left no trace, no photographs, not even ash,
mouthfuls of sunset and the shimmy
of gossamer night unfolding every horizon.
Room could not contain, windows
being more than apertures, points
of egress where we vanished into the breathing
of sea, iron bellied clouds concealed as weather,
tide of carrying, tide of shell calling us by name,
those once lost, those who could not remain.
Voice at the ear, voice of the cloud,
swirling through palms as wet prairie
opens itself in a supplication of frog singing
lit by lightning, sleepless wet season,
irrigation ditches filling with water
not yet dark, not yet caramelized,
our names flow through creeks, cypress
knees, long plumes of moss licking
the surface as we make our way
out to the flashing jacks, silvered
mullet, tangle of mangrove, leaves
salt frosted and blazing verdure.
Accompanied by gifts, shelf clouds
piling on shore, white feathered egrets,
slivers of lightning, the low glide of pelicans,
we receive more than we can make in return,
we name more than we can remember, endless
recitation against erosion, we are bound to voice
of tide, of wind, raucous calls of rookeries
where our dreams slowly feather, singing
their way into flight, drawing us from roof
and door, returning us to a world without habitation,
without the naming of place, tides of giving
washing our bones smooth as wave, moon bright,
curling in the mouth of conch, relentlessly.
Speaking of Home, Beyond the Wind
All thaw and sweltering, not yet
season of moonflower or sphinx moth,
sleeping by day, dreaming of manatees,
buoyant in the spring, blue flow silvered
with schooling jacks, jumping mullet,
boiling white sand, living by the light of a cold flame,
speaking to the mirrored burning,
lost as we are, on the margins, talking
to the moon in less dangerous
than conversations with men, which is more
dangerous than swimming with alligators,
shadows treading water, elegant logs
with shining eyes, the weather here
is affectionate full of heat and damp,
thunderstorms brewed up for the taste of coldness.
Lightning licking its way through cypress
and pine, the dog wedges herself
under the table as the cracking approaches,
sizzling despite the rain, gouging out
long strands of bark from the pine next door,
waiting for this, bursts of illumination
wind straining at the oak, a song
out of darkness, an answering voices,
a defiance of what would deny us
the everyday gentleness and motion
of tide, nightgown soaked, shiver
in my voice, the dog is not amused
at any venturing out in the rain.
Some can't abide tangle and clutter
of thicket, slash of straight line wind
and deadfall, shaggy cabbage palms
or the wicker woven arms and knees
of mangrove, some can't abide
that their god has not yet struck us down,
or caust us from the precipice,
or that we are not afraid, having known
the song of the blade for so long
we have become the flowering
no edge will part from the earth,
the vine that will not fail, the fox
sleeping in the shade of oak and cedar,
a wave rolling out of the Gulf no fence
will restrain, no hand will push down,
no prayer will deny that we are such as we are,
wind in our hair, sea in our eyes,
fragmented and worn, we too will add our shells
to this shore, to the constant arrival of tide and star
of moon and sun, to the constant repetition
of the litany of belonging.
Flat
Water, not anguish, lifts oaks
the first steps of flight, yet leaves
cannot overcome the heaviness
of memory, so much despair soaked
into the aquifier drawn forth, hydraulics
of root, trunk and limb, beyond the trees
blanket flower, railroad vine, gulls
facing windward, waves stacked
on sandbar
Brittle is how the tooth cracks,
blade chips on bone, the self shatters,
shards pooling on the floor, resolve
to endure vanishing as cold sets in,
warmth flowing out, body anticipating
the glide into quietude.
Arc flows through a line
in the sand, it is a far shore, sea
flowing from here to there, a woman
inscribes glyphs in the sand,
what is mending, the cup once broken
becomes new, the shell remade speaks
of a ghost, without hymn or prayer
we are without, unattached against sun and rain.
When you're small
and want to vanish but don't know how,
there's no way to see how you'll learn
to turn the pain inside out and eat it
like an orange or how fifty years will pass,
the hard cold breath of morning cracking
sternum, memory will come, as stealthy
as wind as the taste of the sea ever on the tongue
salt and the swell of wave, tide washing
through lacerations, scars forming a text,
a chart of what horizon long ago swallowed,
submerged lands.
A drowning that returned you, moon pale,
a form that cannot leave the sea, facing
oaks and pine, palms open in supplication,
beyond the treeline an orange burning,
a brighter flame filling the sky, a wind darker
than crow, the only tongue between us
being glyphs inscribed in sand, lifted
from the body, unlaced from skin, visible
only to sea and moon, tide erasing
each word before barnacled memory
solidifies the text of departure,
form dissolving into wave.
I am standing, sleeveless,
wind-soaked night-
gown. To dream
myself, dislodged, in this
midwest
is the dream.
How
a lower spine will be
rebuilt.
My body
has become a tiny
house parked
in the mud, west. Too
many visitors.
After-
noon greyscale
creeps like fingers
in congress
with music-
less piano. Keys
bleed as I worry
by.
I’ve lived
long in the brain
of the med-
waste.
say say say
the way
the weight
gives wave
a feeling
of failing
fanning the fame
they hold
me, whole
like home
someone reads
and it's real
like red
my fingers
on the flanger
while we figure
out
our
hours
for thoughttw/cw: disordered eating
cram-cheeked at the ice-
box getting warmed every night
by the light of the refrigerator.
the cabinet creaks someone
awake and aware but nothing’s
said. stomach has its wars. brain knows
sleep knows better. this battle
bulges the belt-line. jaw aches
in taste while hot tears
won’t cry. no sorry when the lesson
unlearns how to swallow. slow-
spoken at the table as grace
on the in-breath as bellies
mimic fullness.
BIO: K Weber is an Ohio poet. She has self-published 6 free online poetry book projects in PDF and audio formats for over a decade. Her forthcoming digital collection: A SUM OF OUR POETIC PARTS: VOLUME 1 will be released in 2022 and features more of her poems that incorporate words donated by others! All of her projects, her writing and photography credits, and more at her website: http://kweberandherwords.wordpress.com
We speak as if death, as a reflection of shade As we navigate in the circles of sunlight As miracles of breath Miracles of Mother Nature The trees of a Monet painting Have become real We become bearers of our sins To discuss, to confess Confessions to the caverns of bark Eaten away at, We lay in the comfort of cold ground and confess To the lace ripped from the corner of an orange moon The days of strange By the riverfronts Watching little devils form in the ripples of water We met each other As soldiers of war Soldiers of mental scarring We met each other From dust to blood Battle-wound confessions Blood of the dawn Paints the tears to my skin One with my pores
Can you feel the burning? All the reflexes in a burning
Tremor Confessions When we whisper lies to celebrate infamous moments Celebration of ego In radical boredom The moments we walked on the bridges of bone To climb the highest mountain to touch the hands of God Superiority complex, confess That you are lost in a possession of spirit The caverns of bark, to climb through And let the animals, tunnel through Nibbling at the periderm Confess more Were you satisfied with the awakening of madness? As it spread, fires across lakes of thought Confess to the artist that sketches into your brain Confess to the colors that swirl in your mind Greens, browns, grays What shall the Rhytidome be? When confessing to the caverns of bark In a blending of Monet’s Trees