Poetry By Johnny Calhoun

Dream Streaked Days and Tomorrow’s Melodies
by Johnny Calhoun

There are the simple words of an easy man
I am a man lost in a distant land
These words were created with gentle hands
These powerful hands are made of shifting sand

Languidly I wait for days yet to come
These are days holding things I’ve not yet done
There are so many things I have still to see
And there is so much love I’ve not yet won

All of these jumbled words that I now speak
They are composed of my wishes and wants too
In disbelief I stare as my eyes fill
With all the many things I have yet to do

With my unsteady hands I clumsily search
For beautiful hands I have not yet held
Brokenhearted I have searched high and low
For unimaginable lands I have not dwelled

I am holding tightly to these few things
These are all of my wishes, wants and worries too
I am inundated with such desire
As I feel these ambitions tearing through

These are all the things I would like to see
My son strong, tall and standing as a man
And to have my ears ringing with the squeak
Beneath my tired aching feet of cool fine sand

Now I will leave you to lay in these dreams
Of daybreaks yet to come and deeds undone
These dreams they are like heartstrings that sing for

Looks unseen and hearts that’re no longer one


Jail Bird

By Johnny Calhoun

I remember wringing my hands

While saying that I was through

I felt these impotent actions

Were the only things left to do

I remember my nervous hands

And how they did shake and tremble

And how falsely my buoyant heart

Felt utterly spry and nimble

My weary legs were still working

As the moment carried me away

If only I could’ve used my arms

And somehow found the strength to stay

Billowing down has no control

As it tumbles in the soft breeze

I also have been blown off course

With such an astonishing ease

Life, it is the savage trade wind

Which I’m irrevocably caught

A wind in which I have struggled

To and from seemingly for nought

I do not stand on solid ground

But I am caught in a current

My existence has been washed away

As I am caught in this torrent

I feel that I have been set aside

As I am lost in empty space

And now I’m securely locked away

Here in this sad forgotten place

My memory’s so worm-eaten

By all the gazes I’ve forgotten

If only my cells bars and walls

Were as decrepit and rotten

These walls construction is solid

And impenetrable as night

I am here alone caught in my coop

And I have no wings to use for flight

By Johnny Calhoun

I have had birds of beauty

Embraces which I help in vain

No matter the birds beauty

Their flight was feathered in pain

I have walked up a long road

And stumbled back down the hill

I ate all I was given

But my hunger would not fill

Whether we laugh in the dark

Or choose to cry in the sun

All the laughing and crying

It’s only for tears and fun

When we finally reach the end

There’s no privilege or pay

Awaiting us will be no rest

Or bed for our heads to lay

The whole time we were running

We had failed to realize

The trophy for which we searched

Was passing before our eyes