jonberger

Whatever it could have been
whatever it should have been
it finally proved to be a good day.

Potential realized
this time.

My mother explains the final days
of the big blue blanket I always carried
in the glory days of my very youngest youth.
“It started as a fluffy bouncy blue blanket,” she says,
“And then became a ratty blue tattered blanket,
“and then a holey brown and blue broken blanket
“and then little bit of a knot
“and finally a tiny bundle of rag.”

“And even that,” I ask,
after all these years,
still left with enough fire and venom to fill a sentence,
“was too much for you to allow me to keep?
“I could not hold onto the bundle of rag
just a bit longer?”

“If you look at your home today,”
my mother responds,
“you would see that the bundle of rag would be with you still
“if I let it.”

Of course she is right.
Still, I grumble.

“How did you dispose of it?”
“I told you how it had to be cleaned,”
she sighs, “and it was never seen again.”

“If I ever have children,” I declare,
“They will receive the utmost honesty
from me.”
“Will you ever have children?” I am asked.
“Probably not.” I whisper.
“It may be just as well.
“There are days when they need comfort – more, perhaps, than the truth.”

I wonder if that is truth
or comfort
and decide that I do not want it explained to me.

As the Season progresses
to its natural endgame
and you check my letter
for its necessary requests,
please be aware
that I require very little of you this year,
kind sir and generous giver
to an inestimable number
of undeserving youths.

Still, if you find the time
and have the willingness,
I’d be ever-so-appreciative
if you found it in your heart
to go out and provide me
with the following gift,
should you have opportunity
and the generosity of spirit.

If you do, then would you get me a golder toilet
– a toilet made of gold
only moreso?

That is all I think I need:
a water receptacle
of the shiniest precious metal
to be beloved by me
and kept forever treasured
until another’s goldest toilet
is found and appreciated more.

Could you and your crew please bring it,
and soon?
Thank you ever so, Sir Nicholas.
I’ll be your servant until your respond,
etc. and on, et al.

If I have one regret today
it’s not hoarding more
of the generic gifts I got
for other people
for myself at the end of the day.
It was really poor planning.

If I have two regrets today
it’s not producing more generic gifts
for a larger pool of the gifted
so I could partake further in the joy of giving
and lift some at the end of the day
to also partake somewhat in the joy of taking.
That would have been better planning indeed.

If I have three regrets tonight,
I would probably have to say
that I wish I could have spoken truth to you
and you would have known how I really felt
and I could have understood likewise
and wisdom would have become ours
and thus peace
and thus contentment
– and also that my thievery wasn’t up to snuff.

It is momentous, in its small way,
as we lose Sunday service
at the New York City libraries
due to budget cuts.

This is not just in the New York City libraries
that are part of the New York City library system
(including Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island)
but also the independent library systems of
Queens and Brooklyn – which also had Sunday service
at some of their branches as well.

This is an absence felt everywhere around the city
where we will not be able to have a place to sit
to ponder
to be for one of the seven days
each week.

Someone said something like
“Nowhere else in our society
is there a place
where nothing is expected of you
without cost,”
though I would think the parks
are similarly excused.

The parks are still there,
I suppose
but we are losing something special now,
on Sundays
and the world is getting colder.

There is a big rock. If you look ahead
you can see it.
If you walk forward
into the distance
long enough
you will get to it.

It will take a while, surely
and you will expend a great deal of energy
and sweat and fuel to get there.
It should also cost you will
and faith and time
and one more thing:
a spark.

Get going
so you can start
to rock.

The pizza place on the corner
has recently notified me
that they will provide me
an especially free slice of Sicilian pizza
for my birthday if I have a pizza party
at their place this year.

Their place,
I should note,
fits about fourteen,
which is more people than I currently know
(more people than would be
willing to visit me, certainly,
in honor of a birthday party)
or I would be able to collect in time
for a current event.

So thank you,
Kurt’s off of Barry Street,
for your generous offer,
but I may have to pass right about now.
Maybe next year.

It only occurs to me now
that she came to my show.
A show that I was really excited
for her to see.
Where she could see me
in my element;
me being free
me acting foolishly
me grinning happily
me dancing haplessly
me me me me me!

She saw it.

On the other hand
it only occurs to me now
when she came to my show
a show I was really excited
for her to see,
she saw me:
me unguarded
me untamed
me being crass,
being an ass
being first to be fast
to be last to be late
to be dated and dastardly,
bated and bastardly.
It was a bad scene
in which to be me
and she saw it all.

Of course, it only occurred to me now.

I wonder what occurred to her then?

The mouse that has for weeks
been fucking with your shit
is now at the bottom of your trash bin.

He’s stuck there.
You’ve got him right where you want him.
What to do?

You first think of torture.
He’s been nibbling at your chips, your oatmeal,
all the things that you leave out,
you can’t leave out no more
and that’s thanks to this guy.
You wanna punish him for changing the rules
and making you feel unsafe in your home.

But then you think that maybe you should be cleaner,
and this was probably a wake-up call,
and mutilating mouses isn’t really your way
and maybe just spraying him with insecticide
will do the trick.

Of course, it’s not rodenticide,
so you wonder if you have the right amount
to do the job, and maybe spraying so much
into the bin would make you cough up a lung
so maybe it would be easier to just carry the bin
away from the house and let him out.

But what if he comes back,
and thinks this is all a game?
There have to be real repercussions,
or else what are we doing here?
You run a Law and Order kitchen, don’t you?

Maybe you should shake the can
before tossing Mister Mouse away
somewhere far off
but what if he’s left with brain damage?
How would you know that for sure?

Decisions, decisions…
You look again
and the mouse has just about
eaten his way through the plastic
at the bottom of the bin.
If you’re not careful, he’ll –
yeah, he escaped.

Well, you’ve got all the options to consider next time,
if you ever catch him again.
Unless it’s a her.
What are your thoughts
on female prisoners?

I’m struggling a bit to remember what I said
back when I went to the psychiatrist
all those years ago
trying to trick him into giving me meds.

Whatever I said
it seemed to work
because he said
“Yeah, you definitely need to be medicated.”
and I suddenly didn’t feel
like I had tricked him at all.

Because of that
I didn’t take him up
on the script he gave me
and I just let it expire
as my brain kind of expired as well.
It was not a great time for me.

I probably gave him some lines like
I wasn’t sleeping well
and I was isolated
and keeping bad hours
and thinking about self-harm.
I’d worked in mental health
so I knew some of the phrases to pull
and also every word I said was true.

I figured coercion would do the trick
bu I ended up being too convincing in the end
and that just kind of bothered me.

I never went back to that doctor
but I’ve been to quite a few since.
Haven’t really talked about the twists and turns
with that first doc.
Maybe I should bring that up some time.
Could be interesting.