Poem of the Week: ‘Deprived’ by Molly Johnston

3rd Place
‘No One Cares’ by Michael Lee Johnson

No one cares
I sit in my 2001 Chevy S10 truck drunk on smoked salmon vodka,
writing this poem on Subway sandwich napkins.
No one cares my life insurance policy is a carburetor
full of fumes, worn filters, filled casket.
No one cares Nikki my cat; 19-year-old veteran, no bills, no veterinarian visits.
Jesus is a stray cat and a life of His own.
No one cares no one has adequate health care deductibles clauses, debt.
No one cares Mr. Skunk travels nightly with his tail up passing
steam by my balcony window 3 A.M. farting gas both sides of his glands, anus.
No one cares I still have Microcassette recorders, old, obsolete,
mini cassettes not found any more Wal-Mart, Target stores.
No one cares poetry-writing compounds saints, sinners, nightmares,
thoughts, twists insanity inward a lonely bitch curls.
No one cares lines of life too long, house of David.
History is vampire drunk on innocent blood, cheap Skol’s
shacks overload detail, house of horrors-
antique images, draft dodgers, war hero memories passed out.
I clutch high school 1965 Memory Book $25 paid
between years past, many hearts gone-
I face thrombosis bulging encore in my right leg.
I failed English. I slept through business class next to Tommy James
rock star, neither us attended drama classes.
No one cares I nearly flunked high school,
rode around 35 mph in John Hibbard’s candy apple red Mercury Cougar.
Even in high school, there were stoplights, cheap gas.
No one cares John’s parents, both, hated me.
I see shadows, days as old memories, unjust wars, antique Studebaker Larks.
Life is a worn out tread tire, rusted rims, steel now in junkyards.
Niles High School, August 15 2015, 50th reunion sees you all there-memories, faces most forgotten.
Revising this poem now back, confused with the tenses, no one cares,
I site in my 2001 Chevy S10 truck
drunk again smoked salmon vodka.
I have always hated the rules.
Little penis travels in the dark.

BIO: Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era: now known as the Illinois poet, from Itasca, IL. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who experiments with poetography (blending poetry with photography), and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 875 small press magazines in 27 countries, he edits 10 poetry sites. Michael is the author of The Lost American: “From Exile to Freedom”, several chapbooks of poetry, including “From Which Place the Morning Rises” and “Challenge of Night and Day”, and “Chicago Poems”. He also has over 76 poetry videos on YouTube.

2nd Place
‘Either/Or’ by Liba Ravindran

Crème eggs provide unhealthy distaste for revenge

A revenge of betrayal, fate and isolation

Sit listening to the skipping record crackling smoke

Quiet corner draws the curtains the quarter silence

Striped underwear sheds light on night queen’s disposition

Reject outward self in pursuit of inner peace

Calm before the storm shifts similes as moonbeams

Pick apart your friends with real skill

To know means to destroy all relations to infinity

Flippant climax revokes trivial pubescent dreams

That canvas my love bright as marigold gloves

In a basket of light listened to understandably explicit

Murmuring words because there’s nothing left to say

We belong together like a cliché saccharine song

Stalking originality as a virgin dressed in black

Clinching love whilst mending broken seams

I readdress a chemical imbalance staring into a dream.

BIO: My name is Liba and I am 24 years old. I currently work as a teaching assistant and tutor. Writing creatively is an integral part of my life, as is dreaming, forging love and star gazing. The themes I explore tend to be philosophical at heart and psychological in nature.

1st Place
‘Deprived’ by Molly

Little red skeletal hands
Stretching out for safety,
They thrash in the milky sea,
Elongating for the security
Of my swarthy hued pupil.

They combine and become
A misty army of tiny little claws,
Punishing me for the glassy gazes
I gave to my computer screen
When I should have been sleeping.

Clouded and content with their doings,
I see them retreating slowly,
Crimson becoming rosy
And hands shrinking to shoulders.
Alas, I don’t learn and they will return.

BIO: I’m a 18 year old girl from England who loves nothing more than cats and creative writing.