jonberger

I danced here
once
so long ago
that the fact it was an 80s dance party
might not have been ironic.

I danced here with people
that don’t today live in this state
with folks no longer in my life.
I danced here
using means of transportation
I have mostly eschewed.
I danced here before I knew
how to pronounce “eschew” property,
probably.
Askew? Ee-shew? Ess-chew?
Huh.

The ceilings were high then.
The lights were fluorescent then.
The crowds were different then,
for that was night
and this is day
and the same people
do not perform the same activities
in those periods
and anyway
that was a different decade
and possibly a different century
(and, due to the vagaries of my birth
{and Jesus’}, thus,
a different millennium).

Times have changed,
is what I’m saying.

I danced here once.
It doesn’t really seem
that long ago.

There’s a single Basquiat on display
in an exhibit called One Basquiat.
I don’t like it.
It looks stupid.
Staring at what could be a self-portrait
(I think I can make out dreds
in its non-representational design)
is a glorious beret-wearing hipster girl
whose hips I watch
as she crosses the room.

She easily pulls my attention away from Untitled
(great naming, Jean-Michel. Jesus!)
and I follow her,
licking lips,
as she reads, enraptured,
of the work whose air we share.
She is the art in the room,
not this graffitied loaner from Yusaku Maezawa.

I begin to collect the thoughts
that will compose into a poem
when she looks at me
with the equivalent disgust I have
for One Basquiat.
She is not impressed with me.
I scurry off
so she can read in peace.

Clearly, we cannot all share opinions
on what is truly beautiful in the world.
While she and I may, in fact,
both revel in her glory,
we apparently do not agree on Basquiat
or me.

An exhibit at the museum today
is leaving
after tomorrow.
It is Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party,
and it’s got pussies everywhere.
It’s pretty pornographic.

The exhibit has been
here at the museum for months.
I just lucked into it.
I just saw more pussies
than I will ever see in my life
figuratively.

They’re figurative pussies
on literal plates
and they represent feminism
and a shitload of people helped
and I got to see it
but I don’t really understand it
partially because I’ve been looking at art for hours
and partially because I haven’t eaten in longer
but mostly because I don’t understand women very well
and, anyways,
the exhibit’s leaving tomorrow
so unless you get here
by March 4, 2018,
I guess you missed it,
but The Dinner Party
is totally for pussies.

This is a topical poem
regarding a recent important current event.

The sky is blue.
The air is crisp.
The weather has turned
and a quiet has fallen over the city.
The last
is a good thing.
These are all good things.

Peace reigns
in moment
and we can
for now
relax.

If you say
that this is the day
we all burn,
skin melting into sinew
into bone
into soul.
If you tell me that the end is here
because of the decisions of the beloved leadership
and their wisest choices
for the welfare of their people,
then I suppose
I could accept it.

The peace of today
may make it
worthwhile.

I could have been nicer to you,
offered you more of my snow cones,
thrown the ball with you more often,
made fun of you a little less.
I could have been kinder.
I could have been friendlier.

I could have been more genuine
in my interactions,
providing you my real feelings
instead of that insincere snark
I am so well-known for
(as an aside,
I just discovered
that snark derives from SNide remARK,
and dates back to – never mind).
I could have gone on half as many tangents.

In retrospect,
I can see dozens of ways
in which I could have treated you better
and given you,
with what I had,
a slightly better world,
so that you could have experienced
a much more pleasant life.

I’m sorry I did none of that.
I’m sorry I didn’t do my part.
I’m sorry I wasn’t nicer.
I’ll try better next time.

Thank you for calling.
It has been a while
since we’ve spoken.
It is good to hear your voice.

I hope you are well.

I hope your family is well.

I hope your dog is well
and not dead
like the last time I asked after it.
Her.
Sorry: her.

I am glad your new dog is not dead
and that this time you picked a name
much more interesting than Daisy.

My job is good
and I expect yours is the same.
My health is bad
but I do not wish to speak of it.
I hope yours is better
and your family’s
and your dog’s.

I wish I had more to say
but I have grown out of practice
with these social situations.
I have not been on the phone
for a while.
I have not touched base in longer.

These are not skills
that I intended to lose
any more than I meant
to misplace my Bolton’s charge card
which let me delay interest payments
for up to eighteen months.
Life just gets in the way
and I am not so good
at keeping track.

Oh,
there’s a new Bolton’s
in your neighborhood?
Fantastic!
What do they sell?

It comes down to this:
this one moment.
This one swing.

A hit
and the game is won.
A miss
and the game is something less than won.
The other thing.
Let’s not consider it.

Everything must go towards the hit.
Failure
would mean, well,
failure.
Humiliation.
Retirement.
Moving in with in-laws.
Working for the bus company.
Put it out of your mind.

A miss is not to be considered.
There’s one chance left
to get it right.
The ball is heading your way.
It all comes down to this
and

Hello, voices, back again.
I wish your visits here would end.
You’ve been troubling for far too long
with wisps of words and little bits of song
at all hours insisting on entering my brain
– to drive insane!
Can’t, you sounds, be silenced?

Every morning do I hope
I’ll be without you. Each day: nope.
By midday there’re always several times
I hear snatches of speech or partial rhymes.
In my head are your noises I can’t wipe
try as I might.
I’m left with sounds unsilenced.

And in the nighttime it gets worse
as if two orchestras rehearse
in the recesses within my skull.
I hear commotion with volume on full.
With notes fluctuating from trebly to too deep,
I get no sleep
and beg my sounds be silent.

Since hallucinations stop me dosing,
at light my eyes are rarely closing.
I attempt a little adding sheep
a calculated try to get some sleep.
In somnia, I magine sheep profits graffitied inside my head. I’m better off dead
unless these sounds are silenced.

Please god, won’t these sounds be silenced.
I’d pay to be around some silence.

“What’s going on?”
You tell me what going on.

I think you know what’s on my mind.
I wish you knew what’s on my mind.
I think you’ve got a sense
what I have in mind
in me
on top of me.

You know I like you.
It’d be hard not to.
I’m pretty blatant
and unsubtle.
You’d have to kinda stupid to miss it
and you’re nothing like stupid.

I like you like crazy.
I like you, like, strangely.
I like you more than I should,
considering how well I know you
– which is very little.
I just know I want to know more of you:
more history
more hours
more yardage.

What’s going on?
I like you a lot
and we both know it
but nobody’s saying anything
and I really think someone should.
Anyone.
Any one of us.
Any time now.

Any time…

She’d warned me.
She said I should call
before stopping by,
that she might be moved any day now.
I figured I’d give it a shot, though,
and popped by Dottie’s room
which was now occupied by a new patient.

Turns out she had been moved,
though her family, apparently,
neglected to inform me.
We weren’t blood;
I guess it wasn’t that important
to keep me in the loop.

The cute nurses offered consolation
for my loss
but I shrugged them off.
It’s not such a big deal.
We were only neighbors.

It’ll be quieter in the building
without her
I guess.

Probably
I should have called first.