Connie Johnson - Issue 35

Connie Johnson is a California-based writer with four Pushcart Prize nominations for poetry. Her publishing credits include The Iconoclast, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, San Pedro River Review, Cholla Needles, The Muleskinner Journal, Sophon Lit, Voicemail Poems, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, Mudfish, Shot Glass Journal, Gargoyle, Oddball Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, Exit 13, Sport Literate, and Sheila-Na-Gig.  She has authored two poetry collections:  Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press) and I Have Almost Everything (boats against the current); In a Place of Dreams and Still Wild, her digital chapbooks (which contain audio readings/personal narrative), were published by Jerry Jazz Musician.

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Here Where There is Atmosphere

the difference a day makes

you always gave me rhythm

shaking me down to the chasm between 

us.  we are unhealed wounds suspended

in amber / regret in the face of 

incandescent dreams.

i’m emotionally tipsy

& always will be / you point to 76 reasons 

to suspend all belief.   my holy book is in

your hands, w/ ripped out pages for your 

tribe to digest. 

                        “… & i’m still 

            copacetically yours”

where there’s smoke

i have been unfailingly optimistic

but even i have my limits / any big easy 

jazz i explored with you 

has left me stranded. 

i’ve had my senses 

cruelly seduced / set ablaze! 

with New Orleans

amidst the ashes. 

the day you became my bebop ghost

my swing low sweet chariot / is the day 

that i gained a new level of under-

standing: 

“…blow me out tender 

as i burn my initials into your soul” 

those are the words 

that were uttered as you handed me a map 

that i promptly  lost. / you handed me an 

unsmoked Camel (& that’s a dirty habit 

i had already abandoned. 

i strive for purity these days.

my soul is already on the line.