Michael Lee Johnson writes

Hazy Arizona Sky (V4)

Midnight,

Sonoran Desert,

sleep, baby talk, dust covering my eyelids.

No need for covers, blankets,

sunscreen, sand is my pillow.

Adaptations

morning fireball

hurls into Arizona sky,

survival shifts gears,

momentum becomes a racecar driver

baking down on cracked,

crusted earth-

makes Prickly Pear cactus

open to visitors just a mirage,

cactus naked spit and slice

rubbery skull, glut open

dreams, flood dry.

Western cowboy wishes, whistles, and movies

valley one cup of cool, clear, fool's desert gold

dust refreshing poison of the valley.

Bring desert sunflowers, sand dunes, bandanas,

leave your cell phone at home.

A sleeping woman in the background of a landscape --Salvador Dalí

Michael Lee Johnson writes

Alberta Bound (V2)

I own a gate to this prairie

that ends facing the Rocky Mountains.

They call it Alberta -

trail of endless blue sky

asylum of endless winters,

hermitage of indolent retracted sun.

Deep freeze drips haphazardly into spring.

Drumheller, dinosaur badlands, dried bones,

ancient hoodoos sculpt high, prairie toadstools.

Alberta highway 2 opens the gateway of endless miles.

Travel weary I stop by roadsides, ears open to whispering pines.

In harmony North to South

Gordon Lightfoot pitches out

a tone -

"Alberta Bound."

With independence in my veins,

I am long way from my home.

Alberta Winds -- Richard Alm