jonberger

In Junior High School, in the hallway, I found Marc alone
and I asked him why he’d been teasing me so much.
"Because I know you can take it," he said.
"Oh."
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
If it was a sign of my strength
that he was giving me shit,
how would it look if I broke?
Better to just grin and bear it.

This is how many young men deal with the ribbing of their peers:
just accept it, and give back when they can.
A more sensitive sort might admit
when he was hurt,
and try to address the issue.
That is not how we usually deal.

I shouldered the burden that Marc thrust upon me.
He had a good game.
I could take it,
but Marc was a dick.

Sometimes, you just need an upgrade.
I’ve been shaving my head more lately
so my dome gleams more frequently.

I don’t mind looking slovenly,
but I notice that this process shaves years
off my appearance.
The receding hairline disappears
when the hair growth is gone.
Also, most of the gray is in the extra hair.

This is all old news, though.
What I really want to talk about is Paste-Pot Pete,
the Marvel comics character
who used to fight the Human Torch.
A C-Grade loser: you could tell by the name.
But he changed his name to the Trapster
and he joined a team called the Frightful Four,
and he suddenly seemed like more of a menace.

He became more of a B-grade loser,
but still: an upgrade!
Simple changes can fix things up.

Consider that, next time,
maybe, when thinking about toothpaste
or something.

Oh. Imagine that.

For just a moment, I thought everything was all right.
It looked like things were working out
and the balance of our lives was evening out somehow.
Now, it seems, that was simply
an error in judgement
and we’re back to previous assessments
of our place in the order of things.

Very good.
Carry on.
Nothing more to see here.
Just a momentary lapse of understanding.
All is well – or rather –
just the opposite.

Sometimes, you write a poem about wishes, dishes and fishes,
and you spend a long time on the rhythm and meter
and then you expend a magical wish
on just erasing all the time you wasted on that poem
just to keep yourself clean.

Only you didn’t clean yourself of the memory
of that wasted time
and you don’t want to waste another wish
on that fucking waste of a poem
– you’ve already invested too much
on that godforsaken thing already.

So to get some value out of the
sunken cost
– if not in time, then in braincells –
you figure you have to at least get a poem out of the thing
so you compose an explanation,
and, well,
there you have it.

If you have any questions,
I’ll be in the back.

This bullshit
makes me sick:
vomiting.

Healthier,
morning rise
perks me up.

Today is
better than
yesterday.

This goes out to the boy:
First born: I don’t know what you’ve done,
but if you return with the car,
the stash, and the you know what,
we can accept everything,
no questions asked.

This offer is on the table for two hours.
Don’t mistake this for forgiveness, boy.
That will never happen.

I expect a response.

Your Father

There is always something new to do.There is always something new about you.
There are always ways to find something new.
You will find this thing to always be true.

You will find you can always find truth
even if you can’t alway get proof.
Sometimes the rhymes aren’t quite smooth
but they usually hide under the same roof.

There is always someone you once knew
who was not entirely true to you
but if you put your foot in a new shoe
you might come up with a new view.

He found that space was the final frontierand now that he had space,
he had front tears,
back tears, and tears on all sides.
He had tears of a clown, all around,
upside down, wearing a frown,
under a mound of dirty laundry…
this quandary, he knew,
was of his own doing.
It was something he’d be chewing on
for a long, long time to come
now that he was out of her space.

"If you do love me
as I wish you to, then will
you choose to follow me down?"

"Baby, your question’s
built upon a false premise;
so I ain’t goin’ nowhere."

We talked about her legacy,
which got to be a bummer
when you considered that legacies
are usually built on endings.
“You’ll live for a long long time,” I began to say,
but she shook her head before I invested too far into the lie.

“This is where you’ll put the notice up,” she said,
“and this is where I keep my passwords.”
I nodded, taking notes, focusing on the job at hand.
“We’re making good time,” she added, as she closed up the laptop. “Lunch?”
“Mm-hmph.”

“You ever think about what’s next?” I asked,
munching on frozen fruit.
“I’m too busy making music
– that you’re going to sell afterwards.”
“Of course.”
“There’s too much to concern myself with now,” she replied,
“I’ve got more than enough time to think about what’s next, next.”
I didn’t have much to say.
I’m always thinking about what’s next.
It occupies a lot of my time.
Probably too much.