They have laid a new patch of dirt
on my block.
They say it is to put up a tree.
There are no trees now on my block
so this promises to be a good thing.
With one tree, this will will increase the natural scenery
available infinitely
bringing us far closer to the organic world.
So far, it remains just a patch of dirt
but its potential, dammit, its potential…
I don’t think I understood romance.
I know I didn’t understand her
when she asked to stay the night
before she’d asked me out.
I don’t think she understood romance
any better than I under her
– or myself for that matter.
I didn’t know what to do
after putting her in the loft bed
and listening to her tell me
how she hated her mother
and getting out of high school
was really going to change things.
I listened to her for a while
as her breathing altered
from when she raged
to telling quieter stories
to when she finally fell asleep.
I looked up at the bottom of my loft
where she softly snored.
I was not sure what role
I was expected to play with this girl
or what role
I was prepared to fulfill.
I didn’t know for sure whether
those two areas converged at all.
The morning
did not clarify as much as I’d hoped.
Until it’s over, I’ll remain on tiptoes.
Until it’s over, I may whisper on the phone.
Until it’s over, my trenchcoat collar stays in place.
Until it’s over, my true face won’t be shown.
Once we get the guy, I can open up the gates.
Once we get the guy, it’s back to normal.
Once we get the guy, I can leave some things to fate.
Once we get the guy, I’ll give oral.
If the news is good, my mask goes off at last.
If the news is good, we will dance.
If the news is good, you’d be in my arms already,
for if the news was good, you’d have told me in advance.
Every time I see Nancy, I cannot help but smile.
She always makes me do it; she’s trained me for a while.
She passes me a giftie each moment we meet
so when she tends to cross my mind, I think of something sweet.
A chocolate enters my mouth whenever we come close.
If we’re together longer: I get a double dose.
The little globes she give me make my tummy swell.
There’s no doubt about it: Nancy feeds me well.
I do not know her greater plan, if I’m to grow too large
to be eventually sent off onto some great barge
or worse – sailed between the ships, bouncing in the sea
too voluminous for cargo but to be moved through buoyancy.
Whatever is her greater scheme, I accept it whole.
Whether I’m the victim, or I become the goal.
I will do whatever it may be that Nancy tells
for there is no arguing that Nancy feeds me well.
She was Spring to me for a season,
or for a second of a season
or I said she was, at least.
These things seem transient,
in youth.
In the Spring of our youth.
For a moment,
she seemed so important,
an image of her seared so strongly into my skull,
it hasn’t left, scores of years later.
Her name takes me longer to recall…
I’ve got it.
It just takes a bit.
Gosh, she was pretty.
She was Spring.
“He looks like Andy Warhol,” she said.
I turned around. “Who?”
“The guy with the black glasses, black t-shirt,
standing right there,” she replied, starry-eyed.
I tripled-checked the view.
I saw an aging punk wearing a black shirt and glasses and a couple of lovely ladies,
and exactly no Factory-looking folk.
“I guess I just don’t see it,” I said.
“That’s because you’re looking at the wrong guy,” she coldly responded.
“All right,” I answered.
Soon enough, the punk walked out,
and the lady pointed at him: “you look like Andy Warhol!”
He decidedly did not.
Maybe it was a private joke between them.
About ten minutes later,
the punk shuffled the lady inside,
seeming to guide her.
Perhaps she had sight issues
That would explain so much…
Trying to coerce Alabama fish
to pro-Palestinean course of action is not easy.
Really, all I’m looking for, though,
is to get them to see both sides of the issue,
ensure that they’re not entirely Zionist in their approach.
Since these sea-creatures refuse to talk to me about the issue,
I’m not making much headway.
Probably it would be much easier if I could breathe underwater.
Or speak to sea life.
Perhaps communicating telepathically, like Aquaman,
would be a boon,
but I’m not a fictional comic book character,
so that’s out.
I’ll just have to continue to fly down to Tallahassee on weekends
and still my head in the water
to convince the Greenbreast Darter to listen to my entreaties…
You’re telling me Tallahassee isn’t even in Alabama,
where the Greenbreast lives?
Now I have to start all over again!
I want to comfort the tortured poet,
help her overcome the pain she’s developed
over the heartbreak and suffering
from all the boys she continues to meet.
I want to roll her out of the department
she seems to return to
time and again
and bring her somewhere new
where she can find a new way to be
a new way with me,
someone who could appreciate her
and not take her for granted,
not fail to adore her
for the tortured poet she is,
love her for the fearless lover,
the one with the midnight reputation,
the 1989 red folklorist.
I want to care
as no one has before.
I want to do all that
and maybe stay in a mansion or two.
I could do that, too.
Taylor, I could be a tortured poet for you.
I waited for weeks for my credit card to arrive
only to discover that my upstairs neighbors
had simply not given it to me.
I do not use credit cards often,
else it would have been a bigger deal.
Luckily, I have a place to complain about unessential issues like this.
Friends?
People have friends for communication issues?
Hardly.
I have my art!
I could have neighbors,
were they ever to communicate with me
in a timely manner.
I have the flies that enter my apartment somehow,
which will be the subject of my next minor opus:
Flies.
You may find it on a screen near you.
What’s weird about Imperium City
is that it’s a stochocracy:
rule by lottery.
The leader’s are picked by chance,
so there’s no imperial rule
in Imperium City,
like if Kansas City were in Missouri.
All right, bad example.
Like if Paris were in Texas – shit!
You get the idea. Imperium City is a weird name.
Also it doesn’t exist.
Maybe that’s the weirdest part about it.
But somebody should look into that Kansas City sometime…
jonberger 