Halvard Johnson can be reached at hjohnson@umbc2.umbc.edu or
hjohn1936@aol.com. The author of four collections from New Rivers Press, he's looking for a publisher for his new _Americans Playing Slow-Pitch Softball at an Airbase near Kunsan, South Korea_

The Grassy Knoll


In my
dreams I am standing
behind a white
picket fence
on a grassy knoll
drawing a bead on
a president
in an open car.
I get off two
quick shots,
see a head
explode
in a haze
of red and
gray, see
the woman turn
to scramble
after bits of
brain
and skull,
see, over
my shoulder,
heads turning
toward me, toward
where I am hidden,
see uniformed men
running toward me.
But then all the pictures
run backwards toward
where the car comes
around the corner
straight towards me
where I stand on
the grassy knoll
sighting along
the barrel of my
rifle, seeing
the head again, the
smiling face, the shock
of hair, feeling the warm
steel of the trigger,
hearing the cheers
of the crowd, the
voice in my head
shouting, "Shoot!"



Warm Symphonies


1.

Three pieces of the meadow were amenable to quick solutions, the distant grove of trees notwithstanding. I was in distinct foliage, working through the labyrinth of my desires. A fenceline on the rising slope spoke volumes of our private spaces, where rain came through the slatted roof, our bodies curled in their cocoons.


2.

Anesthesia wheels in on its colored throne. Self-replication signifies nothing less than your mother's moustache safe on its shelf beneath the counter, salesgirls breaking into song. Stop slapping Richard. But if your shoes don't fit, just trade them in on larger, smaller, wider, narrower ones, whatever. If the rope hangs down from the wall


3.

take a swing on it. A sensitive person wouldn't make such remarks. Gray in the water, her body rose and fell in the tangling weeds. Every accident is a learning experience, some say. Testimony can now be taken via telephone, no need for direct confrontation. All you have to do is hand them a rose and tell them you're not a moonie.







A Sensitive Girl


Did I? I thought I did not, but maybe I was wrong.
She turned up one day on my doorstop, and that was in Cuba.

In those days, beyond the pillars, they were marching
portraits of Fidel out into the street. They were leaned

against a wall and then shot. She came with a petition
she wanted me to sign, but I was in no position to do that.

I had family to think of. She had something to say
about the stained glass, about religious iconography in general.

I don't know. I thought I handled this right. Anybody
would have done what I did. Where is she now? Did you say?




World Without End


The plunged villager, looking upwards from his awareness,
tugged for all he was worth at the end of his tether.

Slithery things abounded in the wet pools of his last
amazed perplexion. "Here," he said, offering up what he could.

"Take it all, you bastard. What choice do I have?"
The answer, whatever he'd expected, was not forthcoming.

His temples were pounding, and he screamed until his throat was raw
as rain. Light worked its way along his corpusules. Amen, amen.




La Violencia


It's when you think
of the bullet
speeding toward
you, spinning so fast
that you cannot
even see it
turn, sliding along
the air of early
evening, touching ever
so lightly, at first,
that fine, soft skin
your mother used
to love to touch
so gently
as you slept,
probing the ep-
idermis, then dermis, sev-
ering follicles, nerves,
glands, pushing aside con-
nective and adipose tissue,
breeching the vein and the bone, ren-
ding and smashing and splintering, freeing
the wild, swinging blood, plun-
dering on through the
organs, vital or not, stretching
at last toward the very
heart of you--
that's when it really gets you.

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