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Best Poems Written by Chris Johnston

Below are the all-time best Chris Johnston poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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You and I

You and I 
our words drowned
in the electron breeze
an assonant wave….

THEN a piercing chem-trail-wail
cutting through the bedlam

eloquent drum steps
silver trumpet cadence
marionette nerves strummed

THEN OUT OF THE BLUE, the golden star-shot glare of the saxophone 
Now taking giddy flight.

Your eyes--- in the nectar pandemonium

Your smile---- two strokes of genius in a kaleidoscope of rain
---myriad silver clarion confetti

take us
You and I
at lazt
jazz flazz
cosmic colours
jazz flazz

You and I

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Ashes and Diamonds: Translation

Pell-mell from you as from a blazing torch
Molten shards,
Aflame you know not if the fire heralds freedom.
Or will consume all you cherish

Will only ashes be left,
Hurled into the abyss from the tempest?
Or do the ashes hold the glory
Of a celestial diamond
The Dawn of everlasting triumph.

Cyprian Norwid
Translated by: Christopher Johnston

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Dawn Prayer --- Translation

Modlitwa o wschodzie slonca

Kazdy Twój wyrok przyjme twardy
Przed moca Twoja sie ukorze
Ale chron mnie, Panie, od pogardy
Od nienawisci strzez mnie, Boze

Wszak Tys jest niezmierzone dobro
Którego nie wyraza slowa
Wiec mnie od nienawisci obron
I od pogardy mnie zachowaj

Co postanowisz, niech sie zisci
Niechaj sie wola Twoja stanie
Ale zbaw mnie od nienawisci
Ocal mnie od pogardy Panie...

--Jacek Kaczmarski


Dawn Prayer 

To Your harshest judgments I resign myself
I am humbled by Your power 
But protect me Lord from hatred
And shield me from contempt 

Because You are boundless providence
The ineffable One
So give me refuge from hatred
And give me sanctuary from contempt

May Your wishes be carried out 
Let Your will be done
But shield me from hatred
Deliver me from contempt, my Lord .

--translated by Christopher Johnston

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Origins

ORIGINS

I
It began in the dank basement of the Thallasic column
steeped in abyssal brine of a thousand supernovae
so much alchemic sludge churned up, expelled by the co-tidal vice into the epeiric sea
 
A million points of organic flotsam and jetsam; Indra’s vast net billowing, swollen and bloated by myriad regurgitating fountains, shattered vents, open ocean scars 
from which inky bathyl streamers wave to and fro
a trillion interactions, a revolution every second

The colossus flexes, stirs.
 
 
II
The inland sea carved a path awash with silt and sand-grain memories of a thousand shores
the alluvium mire replete with vagabond deposits
buoyant and bobbing
ethereal strands of angel hair wafting through the abyss
nerves and sinews and veins
myriad natant snowflakes tripping atop organic ooze
vast web spanning to the lapping fetch on clay-layered littoral ledges.
 
 
III
The swirling brew, rain-pummeled and vent-swollen 
dividing, sub-dividing, swept by bitter sea brine 
its mind’s eye under a thick film squints open.

---Life was not wrought in the witch’s cauldron---
---The Cauldron itself came to life---
 
The Universe awoke from its eternal slumber, and Thalassa stirred
rocked and bathed in a vast  organic web, star lit and floating in a Nebula of Dreams
 

IV
Information-gathering units
each body a corpus of datum
splitting, spinning, joining, fusing 
probing, flattening, bloating, separating
spawning countless non-appendage heralds
crawling, flying, walking, swimming, floating
 
WE ARE THE MANY IN THE ONE
WE ARE THE ONE OF THE MANY
 
WE ARE THALASSA

Details | Chris Johnston Poem

The Buddha

In the verdant sarcophagus of night
his pale, lifeless eyes unfocused
in a clearing irradiated by a cold beam

---the sitting Buddha

where he sits the forest dies
the grass withers

His pale light blinds me
So I write in inky darkness

But i cannot fathom him
or embrace with my eyes
his silhouette

In the crucible of morning
the sun rises like a flock of golden doves
but i cannot embrace the racing arc of dawn

Though through the viridian canopy
---shimmering coins

Details | Chris Johnston Poem

Too Soon

I am the star shot flare
born in heat and shrapnel
a screaming tunnel where 
landscapes blur and vector 
into breathless lines.

an arc of howling friction
riding the effervescent foam
of a burning star.

---trembling trajectory
---breakneck rattle

too-soon-too-soon

glint of the horizon
wailing vomit streaked sky
converging into the dawn

my momentum --- a breathless gasp
my life-- a ragged blur
My Flame
Lost-In-The-Light

Details | Chris Johnston Poem

The Time To Live

Let us take the time to live
To be free, my love
With no plans and no routine
We can re-imagine our life

Come to me, I’m here
All that’s missing is you
Nothing is impossible, everything is allowed

Come over here, listen to the murmured words 
On the other side of the month of May
They make us the promise
That everything will fade one day

Come to me, I’m here
All that’s missing is you
Nothing is impossible, everything is allowed

Let us take the time to live
To be free, my love
With no plans and no routine
We can re-imagine our life 

---Georges Moustaki
Translated by C. Johnston

Details | Chris Johnston Poem

Origins II

From afar, a green sea; 
up close, a twisted snarl of brittle waves. 

textured walls reach out and oppress 
mildew whips of flora flotsam fauna jetsam in my face

echoing shadows follow in waking eddies 
shrill light on a myriad of eyelids that flutter as I pass. 

MY BROTHERS.

blind fingertips of rain stream in my eyes, as cacophonous shadows lead me through improbable passages the naked eye cannot discern; 

bathed in clarion surges of gold, a seabed of mist reflected from the deep. 

This is the cauldron...
 
my arms reach out painfully to scoop up blind tears in the green sea, but a faceless monstrosity wails in solitude, denser and denser as I go, oppressed heartbeat of light through tall trees.

Breathless, bursting, cords of light fall from the heights, he then fell and his eyes filled with sand.

MY BROTHERS --- there cannot be one when there is one because without two, there are no numbers, and the one is no one and everyone --- fraternal eternal -- and rebirth billows through the mist in a distant voice, beckoning me on.
 
The Cauldron...

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The Final Poem

I’ve dreamed of you so much,
I’ve walked so much, talked so much,
Loved your shadow so much,
That I have nothing left of you.
All I can do is be a shadow among the shadows,
To be one hundred times more shadow than a shadow,
To be the shadow that will come and go
In your sun-spangled life.
--Robert Desnos

Translated by Christopher Johnston

LE DERNIER POÈME

J’ai rêvé tellement fort de toi,
J’ai tellement marché, tellement parlé,
Tellement aimé ton ombre,
Qu’il ne me reste plus rien de toi.
Il me reste d’être l’ombre parmi les ombres,
D’être cent fois plus ombre que l’ombre,
D’être l’ombre qui viendra et reviendra
Dans ta vie ensoleillée.
--Robert Desnos

Details | Chris Johnston Poem

Vaisseau D'Or

Le vaisseau d'or
Ce fut un grand Vaisseau taillé dans l'or massif:
Ses mâts touchaient l'azur, sur des mers inconnues;
La Cyprine d'amour, cheveux épars, chairs nues
S'étalait à sa proue, au soleil excessif.

Mais il vint une nuit frapper le grand écueil
Dans l'Océan trompeur où chantait la Sirène,
Et le naufrage horrible inclina sa carène
Aux profondeurs du Gouffre, immuable cercueil.

Ce fut un Vaisseau d'Or, dont les flancs diaphanes
Révélaient des trésors que les marins profanes,
Dégoût, Haine et Névrose, entre eux ont disputés.

Que reste-t-il de lui dans la tempête brève?
Qu'est devenu mon coeur, navire déserté?
Hélas! Il a sombré dans l'abîme du Rêve!

--- Émile Nélligan

The Golden Vessel
It was an immense Craft carved out of solid gold:
Its masts touched the azure, on uncharted seas;
A Venus of disheveled hair, naked flesh
Lounging at the bow, in the blazing sun.

But one night struck the great reef
In the ephemeral ocean wherein sang the Siren,
And the ghastly shipwreck plunged its hull
Into the depths of the Abyss, an inert coffin.

It was a Golden Vessel, whose diaphanous hull
Unveiled treasures that uninitiated sailors,
Disgust, Hatred and Neurosis, bickered over.

What there remains in the sudden squall?
What has become of my heart, forlorn craft?
Alas! It has sunk into an abyss of Phantasm!

-- translated by Christopher Johnston