Photography © Ira Joel Haber

 

Wonderland

This theft of time is ‘70s vintage
And mercy means so much when you find it
If a piece brought you peace who’s to deny or begrudge?
Connect it with a feeling, shake it up and pour it out

Like holy water.

You treated love like it was call-a0nd-response
The only gospel you knew. No ritual, nothing conjured
Could ever break or nullify this.
Didn’t you listen when Nina said:
I put a spell on you

It’s facts. Unintentional, but facts.

Thoughts hushful, strewn with roses from a
Familiar garden. Am I the wound that never
Healed, your thoughts suspended in amber
when you thought of me?

This theft of time is ‘70s vintage
Sacrificial lambs and blind memory
I know you see me; I’m in your mind’s eye
And I couldn’t help but nod and sigh
When Screaming Jay said:
I put a spell on you

(You affected me too.

Set adrift, torn asunder. It just makes you wonder
What it would have been like if we had stayed together.
As a worshipper in your church of the wild
I have so much for which to atone.

 

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, CA-based writer who views poetry as one of the primary forms of creative self-healing. The works that speak to her are the ones that are steeped in truth and heartfelt revelations. And she agrees with Lucille Clifton who said: “Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.”

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had nine one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 300 online and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Creative Artists Public Service Grant (CAPS) two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. in 2017 & 2018 he received the Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA artist-in-residence grant.