jonberger

I inserted the toys in the potato cellar
because I liked hidey-holes
and wanted to ensure that my property was long maintained
but when I went back down
to retrieve my deposits
I found no toys.

Had the potatoes eaten my toys?
Had a potato thief come
to take charge of my goods
since I’d seen fit to part with them?
Where was my stuff?

In the final,
it hardly mattered where my toys were,
for I was quite clear where they were not:
with me
in my possession
accompanying my life.

I lost my toys in the cellar
and thenceforth felt a chill.

Good things don’t only happen to good people
and bad does not necessarily follow bad.
Bad things happen to bad people, of course,
but bad things happen to all people.
Bad things happen.
Things happen.
It’s the way of the universe
and that’s a good thing
and also a bad thing.

It’s a thing.

It’s gotta be dog piss, right?
That growing stream
flowing into the gutter
with its unique amber tint,
that’s coming from a dog.
Gotta be.

That can’t be a human
at the building’s wall
pissing up a storm.
No one would be so crass
so senseless as to
just pull it out
in front of a police department.
It’s gotta be dog behavior,
surely.

I mean, it needs to be someone
unconcerned with social form,
with the behavior of the civilized.
It simply cannot be some
person
and I simply refuse
to be the one
to look at the pisser
to prove I’m right.

On the seventh of April
began Pedro the Second’s rule of the Empire of Brazil
as the five-year-old’s father left the nation
to conquer Portugal again.

Five-year-olds not being well-known
for their leadership abilities,
the Empire floundered for years
with civil wars rending the land
but when the second Pedro came of age,
he ruled justly and well,
expanding the land into an international presence.
After fifty eight years,
he was overthrown by the military
and sent into terminal exile.

In this way do all good things end:
with a junta in the eighties.
But tyranny cannot make us forget
the long-ago Empire of Brazil.

There wasn’t much to talk about.
We shot the shit for a good ten minutes
but we ran out of the good old days
and the people we had in common
and the few situations we shared back then
and a pall fll over the conversation.

We just didn’t have much to say.
I brought up his family.
He brought up my mom.
I asked about the house
and he wondered how I paid the bills.
The discussion was slight.

He offered food as a topic
and I countered with geography.
The chat did not flow.
We talked about our creative processes
how neither of us had one anymore.
I guess we could have riffed on that
if we were more imaginative.
It didn’t go anywhere.

We really tried.
We each sought a connection
I could tell
but there wasn’t enough there.
Eventually, we parted ways.

It was the worst
and best
of days.

In my brain, the cake was unlimited,
but that was not reality.
It is probably just as well
that the cake was limited,
for how long could I have had my cake
and eaten it, too,
and still maintained the girlish figure
for which I’m known?
Still, I thought I had forever cake
when I did not.
Why is that?

Perhaps it was wish fulfillment,
where I believed the incredible:
that every piece of cake before me
was evidence that there would be more cake
and more
and more and more and more
until I was a shape seen ’round the world:
a man who would be cake.

Possibly, it was all a dream
where I went to the buffet
and, having paid the price of admission,
had access to unlimited ambrosia-items.
Maybe my brain insisted that this was a just result
of market exchange.

I was so sure I could contain multitudes of sweetmeats
but it was truly not so.
The cake had a conclusion.
It had parameters.
I could not dine forever.
I suppose I shall have to live with that.

It’s foolish to think you ever would
but I think of you often
even after all this time.
Every so often,
I try to find you
and always fail
but every day, elsewise,
I have you with me
even if it’s not at all true for you.

You’ve been drinking water.
A lot of water.
Enough water to drown a cow,
you’ve been drinking.

You hope you will see the results you’re looking for:
the hunger abatement
the cleared complexion
the lack of blackouts from dehydration,
but you’re drinking in faith at the moment.
You believe this will help you
immensely.

It better, since you’ve been pissing.
A great deal of piss.
Enough piss to create a urine cow
which no one should ever have to see.
You’ve been dashing to the bathroom so much,
you’re daily clocking your required steps.
It’s immense, really.

It’s all for the good, though.
You’ll reach the desired conclusions.
Your health will improve
your bruises from falls will heal
and your skin will be like milk.
Not that you’re drinking milk.
Just that blessed H2O.
You’ve been drinking water.

There are two kinds of people in this world:
the categorists and the rest.
Of the category-makers, there are two kinds of people:
the insane and the rest.
Of the insane category-keepers, there are two kinds of people: the anal and the rest.
Of the insanely anal organizers, there are two kinds of people: the ones who get things done and the ones that don’t.
Of the mad, effective, persnickety folk who identify things, there are two kinds of people:
the blondes and the redheads.
Of the blonde, crazy, efficiently detail-oriented types that put everything into buckets, there are two kinds of people:
brunettes and men.
Of the male, golden-haired, well-put-together, Type A freaks who insist on categories for everything, there are two kinds of people:
us and them.

Me? I’m not any of ’em.

Tense Anniversary
On the tenth anniversary of your death
I woke up unrefreshed
and got to work late.
I read a little from the latest Billy Collins
but wrote no responses.

I took some calls from random customers
and had a fish and cheese sandwich.
I rode home at five
and found a busted spike on my bike.
There were some comics that needed reading
but my concentration was off
so I missed an important reveal in Spider-Man
that came back to haunt me later.

I went to bed early
to catch up on sleep
but turned and tossed,
so eventually ended up with video games.

I do still miss you,
but if I were to say that not a day goes by
I’d be lying.