jonberger

Is this it?
Have you finally reached the point
where you lack a response?
No pointed poison dripping from your lips?
No pointless attacks?
Not one ponderous pontification
or any other particular to pursue?

Have you reached the potluck
at the end of the rainbow
where everybody brings their fair share
but you’d previously contributed all of yours
long ago
so you’ve got nothing more to add?

Is it possible that at last
we have reached the time
where seasons end
and suns die
and god’s wither and pigs fly
and you have lost the will
to have the fucking last word?

Have we arrived at a place
where you’re done talking
and we can move along
in blessed silence
for at least a little while?
Has peace settled upon the land
now that, at long last,
you have nothing to say?

Or did I give you enough time
to think of something more
once again?
Curses.

With you so recently
declaring me an independent entity,
I have had time to think
and rethink everything
that might have brought you
to that particular decision.

I have as of yet
come to no conclusions
and suppose
it doesn’t matter
how we’ve arrived here
for you’re emphatic
about the order
in this brave new world
that you’ve written into being.
Surely no amendment of my suggestion
will pass muster.

I wish I could fight your will
convince you of the justness of my cause
but you’ve already reviewed me so harshly.
I can’t imagine any way to appeal
to your kinder impulses.
It’s obvious how you yearn
to be free of me.

And so it is so.
We are a house divided
and I’m left at liberty.
You have earned
what you fought so hard for.

Enjoy it.
This freedom
may not last
so long as you think.

It’s not as bad as you think because
it’s never as bad as you think because
you’re over-worried about community standards because
you exaggerate the significance of others’ opinions because
you assume they’re considering you more than they are because
you assume they’re considering you at all.

Human persons are a sub species and cowardly lot.
They’re in their own particular circle of hell
with their own myopic view of it
and are unlikely to witness the suffering of the neighbors
in the torture chamber next to them.
That’s how human persons are:
it’s their curse
but your blessing
in this particular situation
because as bad as think as it was
– and it was bad (Real bad.
Why would you make a blanket attack
on pregnant grandmothers like that?)
it wasn’t that bad, because
the only people who were paying attention
to you in any way
were you and,
in a moment of distraction,
one of the caterers.

I wasn’t even in the room
when you did
whatever you apparently did.
So it wasn’t that bad, I promise.
Or, you know, I assume.

I didn’t know you fucked her.
I thought you guys just talked a little
maybe did some hand stuff.
I thought she gave you some attention
and you talked to her
but you were only collecting information
for my cause
since you knew of my feelings for her
and your devotion to me
was so very strong.

I thought you would support me
and back me up
and defend me,
speaking well of me,
and if she put a hand on your thigh
you might sigh, sure,
but you would take that hand away
and you would not lay with her
and you would say nay
or something like it.

I suspected you would show restraint.
I hoped she would change her mind.
I guessed you guys got along.

I knew you guys talked.
I knew something happened with you two.
I knew something happened between you.
I knew something happened
– I did.
I just didn’t know you fucked.
I thought…
but I didn’t know.

In your art, you reveal yourself
but at the same time with every choice,
every word or stroke or line,
every step by Sting
each movement by Mahler,
any selection you may make
also obfuscates.

It’s true: when you paint a grey day
have you wiped away all the sunshine
of your past?
Those memories are not erased.
That history resides within
and still constitutes the mystery
that makes you
even if you mention none of it.
What you avoid is you, too.

Our silences inform.
The emptiness illuminates.
The white spaces
and blank walls
and blocks of wood
awaiting the chisel
…all provide insight
into their respective artists.

Our absences
define everything.

The birds
are loud
at five AM
in this moldy bungalow
you have chosen
this vacation season
with its air so fresh
and its crickets so loud
and the animals
so delicate in the night
you cannot hear them
as they pace
ever closer,
nearer to your window
on the off chance
that a careless finger
might slip past the screen
and be available for some possible
after-midnight chomping
unless you remain vigilant
throughout the dark.

Luckily you did
until a few minutes
before the wake-up call
due to the soft coo
of the loud birds
at the late hour
of five AM
as they prepare you
for your second day
of your little getaway
that you feverishly wish
you could immediately escape.

The photos lie.
I cannot say how or why
what possible motivation
they might have to
tell their tales of a thousand deceitful words apiece
but they are surely most untrue.
The pictures are faking it.
I never looked like that.
I was never so thin.

I’d remember
if I was ever so lovely
so lithe
so luxurious in movement
and musical in memory.
If I had ever been anything like that
I should know.
I was there, after all.
I would know
who I was back then.

In those days
I was a horror.
I was a toad.
I weighed a hundred stone more
than I should have
and the way the chin-sweat would glitter
in the moonlight…
that I remember well.
Where is that in all the pictures?
How has Kodak hidden my glittery chins?

What has been shown
in those images
is no me I have ever seen.
I do not know him.
Was I familiar with this boy,
I would have also been aware of his lovers
and his friends,
those that adored him,
and everyone knows full well
what a monster I have always been,
how unknown and unloved,
so these pictures
clearly
cannot be true.

The photos lie
and I cannot countenance
their existence
for if they are allowed,
what then will become the story
of my history?

Maybe there is no happiness.
Maybe joy is for other people
in other countries
who have smaller comic book collections.
Maybe fun is all that’s on the table for tramps like us
or maybe you have to tramp through
seven contiguous states
to reach contentment
to find satisfaction
to not just pursue,
but really and truly achieve happiness.

Maybe I don’t get it
and I don’t get to get it.
Maybe the world is not about finding anything at all
but simply the matter of the quest.
Maybe I don’t understand the equation
at all
and whatever I’m supposed to be doing
here, there,
or anywhere
is lost to me.

Maybe? Absolutely.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Maybe tomorrow
I’ll take the same sort of stupid steps
I did today
like making breakfast
and shaving the dog
and dancing in my socks
because sometimes
on the rarest of occasions
that’s where happiness can be found.

Maybe there’s something to that…

One thing is for sure;
it is for certain
that I will consistently
without doubt always regret
the cake not eaten.
How can anyone ever debate
the slice unate
is the finest food ever
to ever miss their muzzle?

Every single time
what I have neglected to consume
the piece on the table,
that crumb left behind
will torture me
tempt me
keep me awake
reminding me of its glistening sauces
its sculpted frosting
its sumptuous texture
– or so I’d imagine.
How would I know the feel
of that amazing dessert
that never met my mouth?

It resides only in dreams
in imagination
in regret.

Damn it.
That carrot cake looked delectable.

Grey and Jon discuss the big issues:
“When the cybernetic bugs finally conquer our souls
and all the jobs are outsourced
to those infested military industrial automatons
and the robots are making the AntiFolk
along with everything else,
will the other robots truly be qualified
to write the criticism
in the burgeoning fanzine scene
bound to develop in the wake
of all their derivative crappy songs?”

“When the robots make the songs
and the robots produce the songs
and the robots distribute the songs
to other robots
who review them
in their shitty little cut and paste fanzines
with triple-digit circulations
to digital eyeballs
in far off markets such as Electropolis
or Mechanicsburg and Screws York
then the quality of the reviewship
need only be as good
as the readership, right?
“The cybernetic fanzine writers
will do just fine,
I am certain.”

“But what if -”

“It’s as simple as -”

“The robots -”

“The reviews -”

Jon and Grey had been replaced
by self-replicating applications
decades before.
They never realized
and knew the difference.