jonberger

So this is New Year’s Eve
and what have you done?
What have you accomplished in the last three hundred and sixty five
other than staying alive?
What achievements have you knocked out
that you aren’t just going to have to put
back on your Resolutions List
this next time around?

I’ve got Get Healthier
Be Smarter
and Do Less Crimes
already down on my list.
Not quite sure what else to add.
Maybe Do Less RIsky, Low Reward Crimes.
That seems to be the sweet spot.

But looking back
what’s been figured out?
Did you fix any of those old tense friendships?
Requite any of those loves?
Did you write any of those novels?
Get any of those raises?
Gain your grandmother’s respect?
How many third-worlders did you adopt this year?
What did you do?

Yeah, I’ve been wondering, too
and I’ve got a few hours left
to get all the answers.

I don’t promote artistic events anymore
because I don’t, for the most part,
host artistic events anymore
because no one went to my artistic events
– but this may be because of the anemic energy
I invested in my promoting artistic events.

I would create event pages
in my favorite forms of social media
which were ancient forms of social media
like Friendster and Fraudcicle
which I always insisted on calling Fraud-cycle
and everyone insists on never having heard of.
I would send out an invite, describing what was going on
and put in a post about it, maybe once,
add a picture
maybe send out a message.

Once or twice I would send an email.
I used to hand out flyers with little poems of mine on the back
(people used to like those)
but that tended to promote the website
more than the specific show
even though the show’s information
was planted right there on the piece of paper.
When I lost a physical office,
it became more cost-prohibitive to print them out.

I knew people who would call folks to invite them to shows
or glad-hand about it,
going to open mics and pressing the flesh.
I could never look people in the eye
with enough sincerity
to pull that off.

People just wouldn’t come out.
Maybe I performed too often.

Perhaps the art wasn’t good.
Most likely my promotion strategy was weak.
It couldn’t really be about the quality of what I offered…right?

I should learn about poetry.
I know nothing about it
except how to rhyme
there and their
and where and were-
(as in were-wolf, doncha know)
and how you don’t always have to rhyme
if you’re writing free verse.

I also know how to write a haiku
and a limerick
but I don’t work fucking blue.
I’ve heard that there’s meter; that’s popular, too.

That’s about the extent of my knowledge of form.

And poets? I know just a few.
Mostly people I’ve met.
You may know them, too.
There’s Ollie and Heather and Dan and John
and John. There’s Stevie, I guess.
Wayne and Phil and Linda and Erik and Rick.

There’s some people I don’t know too,
I’ll bet.
I wonder who they are?

In the story I meant to tell you
there were many details
I intended to leave out
for fear of harming sensitive ears.
I intended to censor myself
in the tale I neglected to tell
it seems.

I wanted to avoid the uglier parts,
where I look bad
and the seedier parts of the city
are seen in dire detail.
I hoped to skip all that
– and I did
(and much more, to boot)!

In missing the whole thing
I succeeded far beyond my expectations
in rewriting the events
and I hope that in explaining
what I’ve done
I can take some control back
regarding the story.

I’d ask you if it worked
but you wouldn’t really know
would you?

I stopped writing for a while

because I thought I was doing something better
in a different form of writing
(so I guess I was still writing
but not writing poetry
{if you can call this poetry, really
[which I sometimes do],
but you don’t have to}
which, anyway, wasn’t so different
from the other stuff I was writing).

I replaced producing poetry
with writing lyrics
but then slowly found song composition
too difficult to continue
and then couldn’t pick up the pen anymore
for structuring simple free verse.
I couldn’t get back to where I once belonged,
back to the garden.
It was the end of the innocence
and pop went the weasel.

I couldn’t write no more.
I found there was no one to write to.

In prior times
I thought I was writing for an imaginary audience
but I realized I wrote
to the other end of the megaphone,
to whomever listened at an open mic
or a Zoom conference
or a circle jerk party where we all shared songs & stories.

It wasn’t ’til I found my latest circle jerk
that I found the will to write again.
Thank gods I have a new place to spew.
I am once again much more composed.

I think I won this time.
I think – for once – I beat them.
I gave the better gifts.
I outspent the enemy
and made them look like shit.
I was the victor
and the others were oppressed
by my generosity and goodwill.
Choke on that, motherfuckers!

My kindness and caring culled them all.
My cunning and consideration got their goats
– each and every one of ‘em.
I knocked them down, the suckers.
Oh, how the mighty fell,
feeling so superior
with their pretty pretty pretty presents
and those prized packages.
Where are they now, I ask?
All of them, beneath my heel,
thanking me, for my thoughtfulness.
Hell, yeah.

That’ll do, pig.
That’ll do.

Next year, I don’t know how I’ll up the ante
in ostentation and aggression
but they won’t know what’ll hit ‘em.
They will not imagine
the shock and awe that is to come.
Just you wait
until they get again
a load from me.

Every time I see you calling
I send to voicemail, fast as sin.
It’s important when you’re calling
that you see that I’m not in.

I feel fine, like I know I should
and the fact that you’re away makes me feel real good.
The condition is rare, but now you’re out of my hair,
I’m sure you won’t be back – hell! You wouldn’t dare!
Your absence currently has simply set me free;
and let me be the person that I hope to be.
Now that we’ve both had our say and we’ve gone each our own way,
why don’t we simply live out our independent days?

Every time I see you calling
I just send it straight to voicemail.
Like a microcosm of our relationship,
I know I must help your call fail.

Every time I think of you,
I get a shot right through, and find some debt is due.
Like I have broken some code, and now how someone is owed.
Bees have since been birded and some seeds are now sowed.
There’s no way in trying to tell you
we can go back to doing what we used to do
since the days of old fun were done before they’d begun
I know I’d never convince you of that one…

Every time I find you calling
I send it straight to the machine.
I know if we were to speak again
it would be anything but clean.
Every time I see you calling
I send to voicemail, fast as sin.
It’s important when you’re calling
that you see that I’m not in.
Every time I see you calling
I just send it straight to voicemail.
Like a microcosm of our relationship,
I know I must help your call fail.

If you look at the last thing you accomplished
and it doesn’t fill you with pride
and you look at the thing you accomplished
before that
and it doesn’t fill you with pride
and you look at the thing before that
and it doesn’t fill you with pride
and you continue the process
and maybe you realize you don’t accomplish things
but maybe you activate people
but that hasn’t filled you with pride
so no luck there
and you wonder if maybe
you haven’t done anything good
in any way
in any amount of time,
then you can just think
of another thing to do
or another project to fulfill
or another person to collaborate with
or something else again.

There’s always more.

There is always more.

They don’t make ’em like they used to
probably because then
they weren’t the same people who make ’em now.
Back a few years ago
here in the City
before Mexican was made by Mexicans
I went to these hole-in-the-wall places on Eight Avenue,
Ninth Avenue, Tenth
looking for cheap quesadillas,
just after I discovered them.

This was the start of my experience
with Mexican in the City
before Mexican was made by Mexicans
and I didn’t know what I was doing
but I knew what I liked
and what I liked was the same
from all these tiny takeout holes-in-the-wall:
circular ten-inch tortillas
binding together chicken and cheese
with salsa dribbled on quarters
of the circle I received.
Sour cream was available
but ignored.

These were good foods
served fast and cheap
by the Chinese shopkeepers
who owned and managed
all of these barrio holes-in-the-wall locations.
I would go as long as the salsa tubs held out.

I don’t remember when these takeout taco spots disappeared
back in the day
and the Mexican scene became more authentic.
I never got a taco from any one of them then
or ever after.

Using hindsight
I would say kidnapping the boy
to win the lady’s favor
was not my wisest move.

I simply thought
that brainwashing the kid
would give me better opportunities
with the mother
– which is good in theory,
but yields worse results
if the fingerprints of the plan
remain plainly visible.

I hoped perhaps
enough sleep deprivation
and forced ice cream enjoyment
would incite the kind of networking
that would breed further ties,
that would bring us all together
indeterminately.

Instead, all it did
was bring me in on charges
I don’t wish to repeat
for extended periods of time.

In retrospect
this was a plan
that required much
much more forethought.