Memories of Winnipeg And Crazy Eight Bar

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

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I am drunk, isolated,
and horny,
I stumble into "The Crazy Eight
Bar" and it was not my lucky charmed night.
Flirting with Indian women, delusional
with my white ass superiority,
I am doing card tricks,
end up getting my guts
rib cage kicked out.
Métis Indians circle me in a corner
no facial war paint on
no Indian war bonnets on.
I am down eating floor dust of native history,
and the steel needle toe boots
keep coming up fast, heavy into my ribcage.
One-half lung is out, the other half collapsed.
I am seeing vision of Jesus Christ.
I am crawling to my car half-dead, barely breathing.
Collapsed lungs, head lying on that steering wheel
somehow, find the nearest hospital.
I spit blood. I puke Apple Jack wine on surgeons.
My tan suit jacket is ruined; I piss my white pants.
Life is shaded like purple summer daisies.
So I learned, when a stranger is in strange town
find a place where your color fits your face,
never cheat at cards.


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MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era: now known as the Itasca, IL poet. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who experiments with poetography (blending poetry with photography), and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 750 small press magazines in 26 countries, he edits 7 poetry sites. Michael is the author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom (136 pages book), several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems. He also has over 69 poetry videos on YouTube.