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Best Poems Written by Rose Johnson

Below are the all-time best Rose Johnson poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

And All That Jazz

From East to west enslaved in chains
To work the fields, make tracks for trains
They sang their song antiphonally
To dull their day, hide misery
Those blues notes hit in wailing tone
And words about the heavenly home

Their doleful sounds had paved the way
To blues and jazz in later day
Rhythms and chords became complex
Joplin’s ragtime was a great success
For well practiced piano on old upright
Those old time rags are still a delight

New Orleans was where it began
In ghettos for blacks with time on their hands
From morning to night they developed their skills
On trumpets, sax, it staved off their ills
Mastering their instruments with deft virtuosity
Jazzy riffs marked by smart improvisatory

The Mississipi paddle boats chugged their way
Aboard, the sounds of jazz in full sway
Entertaining, with a sense of pride
Scat singing, cross rhythms, boogie and stride
And took their art to far off places
Strutting their stuff, no airs and graces

White bands were now beginning to swing
Inclusion slowly becoming the thing
With time to go, but heading that way
In church, brilliant gospel helped them to pray
Spirituals continued to highlight their plight
Fair treatment becoming within their sight

Jazz continues to wow one and all
In different forms to really enthrall
Miles Davis and Matt Dennis both just the same
With jazz in mind, they played the same game
Blues and jazz have impacted new sounds
As popular as ever its music abounds

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

Technology

Untangled at last, amid wire entwine, the lost connector newly found

It will not work without it so no picture and no sound

Next step to find the slot to put it in, not easy when there's a legion

There's one here and another in that region

Which one is it and in sets the panic

Frantically trying each aperture like some old manic

Still no pic, is that crackling I can hear

A faint smell of burning from somewhere near

Quick pull that wire out before something blows up

Too late! It's already begun to erupt

Like some latent volcanic mound

I knew this machine was destined to confound

Wrong choice of connector so it would seem

But the burning and crackling have run out of steam

Does anything at all work around here

Technology has given me no pic, no cheer

Broken, it's carefully placed with the others

Awaiting return and all that bother

I swear I will never again buy newfangled

That blasted machine I would gladly have strangled

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

Hypochondrial Illusion

Hypochondrial Delusion

A mind corrupted canker
Of cystic self failure
Even gastric anorexia
And fluttery throb to alight the fear
An adrenaline generated tachycardia
That matches respiration
And causes hyperventilation
With invasive pacy rhythm
And palpitating violation
To anxious infarction
 In schizoid arrest

A hepatic paranoia 
of dermal yellow 
And lily liver assault
That feeds a life non start 
Of malignant low self esteem
A delusional malaise
Of apoplectic panic
And stressful apoplexy 

A localized dorsal twinge
To further worry
Lumbar or thoracic or
Renal calculi or a case of
Bulimic nausea and peptic ulcer
To stoke the festering psyche
Of somatic obsession

Embolic anguish that leads to
A hypertensive strain
With muscular tremor and distorted vision
And a full blown occulogyric crisis
Ensued by catatonia 
Comatosed by 
Psychotic breakdown and
Inactive body systems 
A perusal of the medical book
Confirms the diagnosis of
Life threatening
Hypochondria

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

White Van Man

White Van Man

White van driver, he couldn’t give a damn
Oh how I wish that he would scram
From lofty heights he owns the road
He’s deft at signs sure to forebode
With cell in hand intent on chat
He swears at the driver wearing a hat
Coursing a path that’s bumper to bumper
Behind the woman, oh how he could thump her
His high sided vehicle sways this way and that
He’ll be there soon with foot down flat
He’s king of the motorway’s third lane
He’d love to shunt and scare, be a right bane
But to him his driving feels quite lame
He’s white van driver who feels no shame
A hotheaded madcap who loves to race
Carrying a smugness all over his face
When home he parks to own the street
Along with others, its quite a fleet
In the morn, he rises with the lark
Returning faithfully after its dark
He’s white van driver, he does what he likes
He tells his neighbours to get on their bikes
His majestic status is sure to be noted
Carrying an image to which he’s devoted
So white van man, you don’t give a damn
But I tell you squarely that you’re a right sham

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

Atop Old Penistone

Atop old Penistone 

From bumpy stony track to peak the summit
No ledges, drops from which to plummet
A quarried mound that boasts sweet heather 
Loyal and strong despite the weather

The climb to top, a meagre stroll
But views abound, sights to extol
Bilberries aplenty on summer day
Rich pickings from a lush array

On one gray stone, a single rose is laid
where envied views boast hills of jade
In memory of a beloved view
Recalled by one faithful and true

Down slopy rubble on rugged track
A tarn exists amid the crags
A mirrored well by fallen sky
For calm reflection to stay awhile 

And on to sepulchered random rock
Sculptured by time, turn back the clock
Grand memories of those since gone
Each tilted stone bears one loved name

Proud Penistone portal to the way
Not much to see, I hear you say
But look awhile on peaty ground 
Penistone hill, not just a mound













A vantage point of contoured green 
 
In memory of a beloved view

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

The Ruins

I came along with high expectation
And hopes of grandeur, instead defacement
A ruined mass of fallen structure
Displaced gray stones in random stature

A mist alighted like a screen
A passing shroud that blurred the scene
And when it lifted a man I saw
Standing by what seemed a door

With hand he beckoned fervently
Responding, I sensed his urgency
I entered the ruins like a ghost
And followed with awe my new found host

He cast my mind back to an age
of decadence, richness, hard to gauge
My eyes receptive, I was beginning to see
Its many rooms now clear to me

I stepped into a hall with floors of marble
And sweeping staircase, a sight to marvel
A gallery of oils adorned the wall
The face of my guide appeared in them all

He smiled at me as I gasped in wonder
At the treasure to view on which to ponder
Porcelain, tapestry, it had the lot
Even a dance floor for pavane and gavotte

Four poster beds with embroidered drapes
The smell of must was hard to take
From mullioned window I glimpsed the lake
With swans and ducks I make no mistake

Manicured lawns and statuettes
Embraced the lawns like silhouettes
Reflecting the atmosphere at this time
A faraway bell had started to chime

What happened here I asked the man
Squandered by me and the rest of the clan
We waged a bet and sadly lost
It all went, at such great cost

The toll of the bell was getting louder
He turned to go, he was losing his power
Fast fading before my very eyes
Now in the ruins and the demise

I browse the toppled masonry
I sense his smile, his presence, his waving hand
Once garden, in place the moss and ivy grow
With sad reflection I turn to go

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

The Maid of New Orleans

The Maid of New Orleans


A teenage cow girl who couldn’t write
Was told by God to front the fight
the hundred Year War against the French
And cut her hair in trendy wedge
Six centuries later it became the rage

She donned male clothes to further enrage
Raising a flag along with the others
To battle by a regiment of brothers
Without a weapon, she could not kill
But controlled her men with fiery will

She took an arrow to her shoulder
Her actions by now becoming bolder
To liberate the French from English reign
And continue with her tough campaign
In Orleans with some success
But Paris was a failed attempt
When a crossbow bolt hit her thigh
She maintained her strength and did not die

The English caught her in old Rouen
And gleefully put her in their prison
With seventy charges, then down to twelve
For hearing voices, wearing masculine clothes 
To face a life long incarceration
She assumed male garb in desperation
To avoid rape and intimidation
The Godly voices, she confessed
Tied to a stake, she acquiesced
With celestial eyes but consumed by flames
Thus canonized to saintly fame












T
























2   600 years ago

3   Schizophrenic? Voices in the head, seizures.

4  Led French army to some victories in the Hundred Years War (Charles V11) against the English

5  Seen as a mascot in battle she brandished a flag instead of a weapon

6  Took an arrow in her shoulder during the New Orleans campaign and a crossbow bolt in the thigh

  during a failed attempt to liberate Paris

7  Volatile temper. She kept the troops in check. Ridiculed by her male counterparts and taunted about

  her French dialect, she always quipped back in humiliating tone

8  Fell into English hands in 1430 in Rouen (English Stronghold) and tried by an ecclesiastical court. 

   70 charges were made against her. Whittled down to 12. Wearing of male clothes and hearing God’s 

  voice when she was threatened by possible rape and intimidation while in prison

9  Burned at the stake in 1431

10  Emulated by imposters even after death

11 Pioneered the popularity of the bob hairstyle. She was told by voices to cut her hair in manly style.

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

The Night Glenfell

The Night Glenfell

         A summer solstice candle breezing midst the twilight air  
                                                          Where aloft the dizzying height of storey twenty four
                                                         That gazed with envy upon firm Lancaster Green below

(brutalist style,) A concrete pitted monument that yearned for the great celeste
                          Brutalist pinnacled cage that cements the scape
                          Where concrete structures eradicate the green 
                          And take their place betwixt an urban utopia
                          It couldn’t happen again, not after Lakanal
                          Same thing! An electrical fault on some cheap device
                          And wrong protocol that caused sad loss of life
                          So Grenfell Tower had earned its landlords easy money
                          Their affluence procured from the deprived
                           

                          
(  one exit
Overlooked rich Kensington and Chelsea. Deprived Grenfell.  Extremes of poverty and affluence.

Lakanal House fire 2009 loss of life. The deceased given the wrong protocol. No lessons learnt.)

The flames played havoc, a creeping plumage that consumed new cladding
Where silent souls submitted to the wealth of intense heat
Free light for rich Chelsea and Kensington to peruse
Across the great divide of worth
To witness this sacrificial rite of greed
One exit to free them from their plight
Secured within this night-time prison 
Where embers from the debris punctured the sky
And fell like tears upon the deep below
As the blaze took hold with vengeance square
Who knows the fear behind those walls
Of those who faced a fate within this burning pyre
Stuck in the lofty heights of concrete block
Where dwelling upon dwelling saves space
And claustrophobia abounds

Charred shrine upon the sky-line gray
Sad recall for those who remain
There but for providence go….
The night that Glenfell

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

Full of Beans

Cocoa from this bean derived 

Essential to this product

Scarce thought for the deprived

With creamy blend of milk and butter

Our tendency to indulge

A fair wage and exchange- it's juster

Alas sugar laden, it feeds the bulge

And addiction

In assorted shapes and packs

To enhance temptation

While the bean pickers live in shacks

Obesity the scourge of the West

Small amounts only is the lament

Hard work and long hours spent

Sparse time for rest

An essential gift for the yearly fest

And post elective fast

Fair trade for all we must propound

You see its full of beans 

So make it last

Details | Rose Johnson Poem

Toothache

`Toothache

The festering morsel 
Festooned in buccal cavity 
Triumphant against the crown
A queen in pearly finery
Whose decaying beauty 
Succumbs to the invader
In eroded submission

With slow intrusive action
Eating at her very core 
Its acidic weapon easing on
Enough to cause a frown
Now the pearly queen is ruptured
Her hardtop broken
And weakness exposed

It has the advantage
Its neural quest within sight
And easier progress through softer matter
Begins to prompt a twinge
There’s no stopping now
The quest is nearly over
The goal in sight

The fallen queen bemoans her fate
Her ruined stronghold impaired
And neural center exposed
She wails as though in childbirth
The paroxysms of defeat 
Its relentless assault 
Has no reprieve