A Web del Sol Featured Writer
Peter Johnson
At night, the stars on my son’s ceiling anchor the room. “Stars.” “Room.” I hold his limp hand and whisper, “floating,” “prison.” With my thumb, I draw soft lines on my wife’s face, rest my head on her lap. In the kitchen, the cat’s playing with his food, ice cubes hardening at the mere thought of “drink.”
Peter Johnson was born and reared in Buffalo, NY. He teaches
creative writing and children's literature at Providence College and is
editor of The Prose Poem: An International Journal.
His prose poems and fiction have appeared in Field, Denver Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Indiana
Review, Quarterly West, North Dakota Quarterly, The Party Train: A
Collection of North American Prose Poetry, Beloit Fiction Journal, and other
magazines. His books include: Pretty Happy!, a book of prose poems
(White Pine Press, 1997, 10 Village Square, Fredonia, NY 14063); I’m a Man,
a chapbook of short stories (Rain Crow Publishing, 1998, 2127 W. Pierce Ave. Apt.2B, Chicago, IL 60622-1824 http://rain-crow-publishing.com);
and in December of 1998 a thirty-poem chapbook of prose poems, Love Poems for the Millennium,
will be published by Quale Press (P.O. Box 363, 132 Main St., The Brassworks Bldg.,
Haydenville, Ma 01039-0363).
Peter Johnson, from Moses
I believe in the God of the Hebrews and also Moses, but know them only through movies. “Moses, Moses,” on Pharaoh’s dying lips. I think of Moses, impressed by his durability. The first sight of unending sand would have driven me down. I’d have been all over Jethro’s daughters like a hot Israel robe.... An old theater, large, golden snakes writhing on the circular ceiling, imitation gargoyles on brass balcony railings, seats so soft they could swallow you up. On screen, Moses and his long, grey hair, Moses parting the Red Sea, Moses on our lips at Nick’s where you could buy four red-hots for a dollar. At the bus stop not even Moses able to keep four kids from pummeling an old lady with her own purse. A black, leather purse, with two fake diamonds flashing under the streetlights with each whack.
Acknowledgments are included here.
The Love Poems
Moses
Nettles
Penates
Guy Talk
Flamenco
Testimony
The Millenium
Sibling Rivalry
Universal Medicine
Extended Family Romance
Enigma of the Stigma, or Vice Versa
He Said, She Said
Einstein's Brain
Illud Tempus
Bedtime Story
The Librarian
Pretty Happy
Shadowboxing
The Angry Man
Pirates
Wake
Email Peter Johnson
