Goldsmiths - University of London

Matthew Joseph Johnson

[ Biography ]

When I am a Man

When I'm a man I want to be a soldier.
I'd like to line up to be measured
and examined by buttoned-down doctors.
I'd like all of my hair shaved off.

I'd like it if I could race my mates
by running far with a heavy pack,
and hold my breath for too long
in a tunnel flooded with rank water.

I'd like to have no private space;
to lie in rows with twenty-nine other men
and sleep only when exhausted,
mindful of snores and soap in socks.

When I'm a man I want to go to war.
I want to stand in ranks with men
whose clothes match mine,
our faces painted to match too.

I'd like it if my big, shiny boots
marched proudly around the world
to wherever they were needed,
to kick down doors and kick ass.

Those liberated could watch our troop
walk long roads flanked by burnt cars;
a victory parade for the boys,
a thumbs up on every burnt hand.

When I am a man I'd like to ride in a convoy
of camouflaged trucks, dogtags tinkling,
the smell of burnt hair in my nostrils
as I polish my boots, and explode.

There was a tuna fish...

silver-scaled, a small part of his shoal,
aligned with the blinking eye's every
minute movement, iridescent kite tail
flashing and flirting with the surface.
Here is tension, safety in numbers,
one pixel in a reproduction of strength.
A scale shed quietly in warmer waters,
he hangs back to swim without comparing.

Cutting up towards mottled, gridded light
he is caught in a trawling net, now pushed
against strangers, now dragged out of sync,
moving as one mass. A lump in the throat
of the blinking, shifting Atlantic Ocean,
spat into a tin can, stacked with hundreds.

Aerodynamics no. 2

I'm not a bully wind, I'd rather
run buffeted through tight streets,
scratched by trees in parks.
Chimneys don't whistle for me.
Laundry on lines flaps and jeers.
Drains grate me into sewers.
Tall buildings funnel me,
spin me desperately at dead ends.

Leaving the city I stoop low
to stroke grass, spread to fill valleys,
tumble over hills, before swooping up
to tease clouds into Rorschach blots.
I merry-go-round windmills,
carry dandelion clocks away into wishes.
I am the wind that hurries over
the top of wings to keep birds in flight.

[ Biography ]