jonberger

Pretty Woman, the Musical,
which came from Pretty Woman, the RomCom,
was begat by “$3,000,” the screenplay,
which was neither a musical
nor a RomCom
but a down and dirty diatribe
against the prostitution industry
and the city of sin,
or the city of skin,
Los Angeles.

“$3,000” the script
was a very different beast
from Pretty Woman
the adorable fairytale
where the hooker with a heart of gold
finds her Prince Charming
and all ends right with the world
(or so I’m told;
I’ve only read that text
up to page eight).
The director, like Pygmalion,
found a sculpture in the marble of the script
and fashioned the creation he fancied.

It was very little like
what the writer had hoped to make breathe.
The director actually tricked everyone
into making a love story
out of the brutal tale
he’s been told to tell.

The words the writer sold
the thing he had created
had designed and built
line by researched line
had been taken from him
and made into something he had never imagined.
His “$3,000” became worth millions
but it wasn’t his idea anymore.
It was the director’s
and it’s the directors vision that lives on
in the musical
and maybe the eventual space derby.

This is what happens
when you take the money on the dresser
in the city of skin.

Rather than the plan
of beating the dawn
and dashing to the river
moving a friend
racing back north
and accomplishing countless tasks
before the light,
I broke at noon
with masturbation, comics,
crackers and cheese,
plans be damned.

Is this, then,
the New Year,
with all its potential and opportunity
crushed by a late night
and a rainy morn?

Am I defeated
by the first conflict,
at the first sight of blood?
Is that what I’m made of
under these new conditions?
Is this all of my resolve today?

Shit, maybe.
Fuck.

New York whispers.
New York shouts.
New York hisses.
New York complains
and compares
and contradicts
all in one instant
all in one breath.

New York mutters and shudders
and makes legs flutter
when first entering, often.
New York is many things
to many people
and makes obvious statements
easy to make, apparently.

New York is big.
Bigger than description.
Bigger than poetry.
Bigger than me.
Bigger than the rest of this sente

Why is it only after you said
you would never marry me
I begged you to marry me
and when you forbade me
to lust after your sister
I seduced your sister
– tried to seduce your sister
– made a fumbly bumbly
humbling dumb pass at your sister
who still won’t talk to me
and it’s been three years now
you’d really think she’d have gotten over it already,
for god’s sake –
moving on…

What is it in the human condition
or, all right, my particular kinda human condition,
that only when the negative has been placed
only when rejection is assured
will I feel the slightest bit of comfort
in making the first sort
of forward move?

What kind of crippling incident must have occurred
to transform me
into this misshapen unthing
that behaves unlike the others
of his ilk
if his ilk exists at all?

Hell, why am I even asking you
when you stopped speaking to me
soon after your sister dropped me
so this is just another one of those exercises in futility
that I’d be famous for
if anyone was left
to pay me any attention at all?

Well?
Answer me!

Hey, I hate to keep doing this
and I know your getting tired, probably,
but that thing
you just said about time and opportunities
and windows and widows…
was that, by any chance,
perhaps about you and me?

I’ve been trying lately
not to be too self-involved
which is really not my speciality
so if the road signs I’ve read
are not the ones that you’ve painted
please accept all apologies tendered forthwith
but I’m sensing subtext
and I’m wondering if
I’m expected to understand something
that I’m clearly not quite getting.

Are you trying to tell me something
Mrs. Robinson?
Say, what’s in that drink?

I’m just trying to get clearer
in that which is mysterious
and around you
everything has always been
ever so mysterious.

Damn,
I would love to decode you.

If you could let me know
what I might have mistaken
if anything at all
in your earlier utterances
I think our evening might go easier.

So: just what
were you getting at?

Out the gate
and already you’re behind.
That’s how it’s gonna be, then?
That’s how you’re taking it?
This is what you’ll make
of the opportunities
put before you
this time
this year?

Too slow
too late
a day short
and a dollar behind.

This is how it always is:
catch up
from the starting pistol.
It is the only way
to build a proper head of steam.
It is the only way
to ensure a strong finish.

I haven’t been much for resolutions, because I don’t much like oaths, because I kind of like to keep my word. It keeps coming back, I think, to one of those Daddy-traumas I haven’t gotten over (I talk about this a lot, but quickly: in third/fourth grade, I tell my pop that I’m gonna be a writer, and he looks at me sadly and says, “a writer writes.” Single-Digit Jon learns the lesson that oaths without actions behind them are empty – and thus, perhaps, he is empty, too [aw…]).
But in a year like this, it seems like a good time to check in on accomplishments, because I think it’s been pretty keen. Outside of the stage persona, I’m not one to toot my own horn, but this year hasn’t been bad:
Wrote more poetry, probably, than any other single year (still didn’t beat my single month output of April, 2009, but that’ll be tough to top).

• Lost close to fifty pounds.
• Solo trip to Belize.
• Voyage to motherfucking Rome!
• New career direction (…maybe…?).
• Cleaning room (bigger deal than you’d think – really).
• Just learned basic audio stuff – and started hosting an open mic again!
• Experimenting with art.

I’m trying things I haven’t done in a while. I’m growing up in ways that’s pretty shameful for someone my age. I’m becoming a big boy!
It’s not bad. I think I might actually be uncovering the power of optimism.
It’s been, I think a good year. Maybe next year’ll be better. It’s clear there’re challenges to come, and I hope I’m up for ’em, but so long as I continue to contract words unnecessarily, I’m sure I’ll be all right.

Maybe that’s the only resolution I need…

She agreed to dance with me
but I had nothing to say to her
and the sweat pouring off of me
was prodigious
so after the number was through
she walked off
without a word
and maybe
more than a pint of distaste.

You can be good at one thing
without it carrying over
at all
into other planes of possibility.
This is an important lesson
in dance
and maybe other things, too.

Only you can decide
what sort of creature
you are going to be:
what sort of pincers your will grow
what venom will begin to drip.

You get to decide
if you slither or fly
or simply step into new environments
with a wink and a smile
like a magic trick
from a sorcerous sort
for your choices make you able
to opt into the world
as if through spell.

It can be that easy
if not that quick.
So come to your conclusions:
can you be kind
or colossally cold?
Who will you become
at the end of the day?
What do you resolve?

She knew.
Whatever wasn’t said
was heard,
was understood in the end
as these things sometimes are.
She got it.
She knew.

You used your words
when you could
but she saw things
in actions
when words were not enough.
She found out
what you were getting at
when you found yourself
inarticulate.
You were not.
She knew.

She knew the unspoken.
She knew the undone.
She knew…
She just knew.
She got it.
She knew.