jonberger

The guy on before me
took all the applause with him
when he left the stage.
That must be it.
He left nothing for me
which explains the complete lack of reaction
that I really should have earned.
Something has to explain that.
I do not do this badly
normally.
Something must have gone
horribly wrong
for me to have received those sad
blank faces.

He did so well,
was so emotional…
there must have been nothing left
for the audience to give.
They looked so exhausted when I came on.
I’m not sure
but I thought I saw the souls leave
a couple of the people watching.

Maybe they’d all had rough days
or have some unspoken antipathy
towards middle-aged white males.
Maybe they weren’t educated enough
to catch my references.

Maybe I’m really bad.

No, it’s got to be
something that happened
to every single person
in the room
in front of me
who didn’t get
what I was getting at
when I read from my tome
Phone Book Recitations.

Good luck, next act.
If I couldn’t get them…
godDAMNit.

Hey, geezer:
could you get off the road?
You’re slowing us all down.
You may be retired
but the rest of us
actually have places to go, you know?

Is there any way you could be respectful
of your youngers?
There are just so many of us
– after all, we’re practically everyone –
and you are so,
just, in the way.
I mean, really in the way.
I don’t think you could be any more in the way
unless you made a concerted effort
to try.

Think about the world around you
and try to keep in your lane.
Remember what it was like
when you were young.
Didn’t you just hate geezers like you?

She said that she saw you.
I thought that wasn’t true.
The girl that she had pointed at was old.
You’re fresh and new.

From distance I could see
why she’d relayed to me
your presence near, but it was clear
that here you would not be.

When lastly we had talked
you’d completely balked
at spending time in places I
had claimed I’d ever walked.

But she’d claimed you’d arrived
so in me hope had thrived
until I took a look at her.
Then my hope just died.

She seemed like if your life
had suffered some great strife;
like you’d become a mother
or a welfare-worn housewife.

It made me feel quite good
that in my neighborhood
if you would make no visit
than at least this lesser would

and since she looked so bad
I could remain unsad
and live without much missing you
and keep myself quite glad.

It seems
upon reflection
everything I do is wrong.
In some cases,
it takes some thought to see
the errors in my actions,
the failure in my life,
but it is always there
shadowed, subtle,
waiting to pounce
at its eventual opportunity.

If I sit and read,
I should be exercising.
If I perform,
I am greedy.
If I stop harassing those sweet young girls
I leave myself lonely,
alone, unloved.

When I go to a help a friend
in his own personal crisis,
I am supporting the First World Dynasty,
selfishly supporting the existing hegemony
instead of jetting to Africa
and protesting the mining of blood diamonds
(and when I fly to Africa like that,
I’m contributing to climate change.
Oi, it’s a mess).

There is no winning.
Everything I do causes suffering,
produces shame.
The world is not ready
for me to make decisions
or act in any way.

Perhaps it would be better
just to die.

Except…

My friends and I
keep wondering what you might be up to
in this day and age.
Holly says she might have seen you
as an art dealer in SoHo.
Mellie thinks she heard you’d moved back East
(which, since you used to be in New York,
I guess means Hempstead).

Jones suggested you were finishing school
or married with two and a half kids
and one point three doggies.
He’d heard a report
that supported that fact.

No ones been directly in touch.
Someone said
you could be dead.

I think it’s been so long now
that pretty much anything is possible.
You could be in space
or a star
or flying so high when you’re stoned
or you could’ve been mooning us
across the street
in an apartment that we never noticed
but Holly
– the other Holly –
had a different idea.

Anyways,
What’s new?

I got caught
the other day
by one of the myriad multitude
that are my millions of fans.
This one
had a bone perfectly ripe for the picking:
After yet another brilliantly successful performance,
he approached,
and called me a liar
or a hypocrite
or maybe just said I was wrong
(I wasn’t listening that close).

Apparently
one of my works,
a glorious piece regarding gentrification and nostalgia,
referred to a particular pizza place
in glowing terms
but he knew
as well as I did
that the place sucked.

“When I told you about Nino’s closing,”
he accused,
“You said, and I quote,
‘So what? That place’s lame.'”
“Was the place really called Nino’s?” I asked.
“You know it was.”

So I would like to go on record, now,
random fan whose identity I am far too important to recall
(but was possibly named Mike Shoykhet),
and admit that,
yes, you got me.
You caught me
saying something in my work of art
that was not entirely true
and not even my opinion
but was stated simply to serve the purposes of the piece.
You have found me out.

You have uncovered the dark secret:
that I may say something
in my creative ventures
that is not always one thousand percent
journalistically verifiable.
Alert the media
(that is not my poetry blog)
of my heinous crime.
Let me suffer slings and stones
from a horrified public.

Go off, random-but-theoretical-Michael,
and report my misdeeds.
Inform any and all of my inaccuracy.
I deserve whatever you can have done
for I have erred
and must be punished.

Oh, and also:
fuck you, Mike.

Your talent offends me.
The craft you display,
the capacities you’ve reached
so quickly, smoothly,
so fucking effortlessly,
it rankles this old soul.
It berates my ability.
It mocks me entirely.
It shames my skills
and my existence.

Goddamn you
and your amazing art!

What you make
with such ease
makes me need to ease you
straight out of existence.

I want you gone from this world
so there is a chance for me
but I know full well
how much we’d all be punished by that.
You are to good
to be allowed to quit.

So you’ve got a stay of execution,
you asshole,
so long as you produce
all the stuff
that makes me hate you.

Fuck you.
Just
fuck.

I hear you’re lousy.
I hear you’re lazy.
I hear you’re pretty sleazy,
and amazingly easy to hate.
I hear that you’re horrible
at what you do.

I’ve been told
from a very young age
that everyone under the sun
has something
they can excel at.
Imagine, though,
if you were Michael Jordan
but were born long
before basketball even existed.
How sad would your fate have been then?

Perhaps that fate would be little different
than your current state:
deemed incompetent by any and all,
unenjoyable,
uninspired,
uninteresting.

It’s not your fault
that your talents are undiscovered
or do not exist
in this current lifetime
with this species of human.

I’m sure you are appreciated,
for example,
by maggots.
They’re exactly the kind of creatures
that could see value
in what you do.

The doctor says there’s hope,
there’s a future,
that something can be done.
He believes I can get better,
be cured,
and fix the sitch I’m stuck up in.
The doctor remains optimistic.

The doctor is telling me that
at the end of a long dark tunnel
there is some light,
barely visible,
begging to be reached.
The doctor thinks that, subsequently,
a long and winding road will also be involved,
but that after all that hard traveling,
there’s some health to be found.
The doctor believes we’ll get there
to wellness.

The doctor stated, imperially,
that it will not be easy.
That diet and therapy and rehabilitation,
all may be involved
– extensively –
for what feels like an eternity,
but that we can do it.
I can do it.
He is under the impression
that fate’s prognosis is positive.

The doctor is simply unwilling
to prescribe some damned dick pills.

Anyone got a second opinion?

I am not what they think I am,
neither as smart
or as experienced
nor quite so worldly wise.

I am not a hero.
I am not a vampire
nor a demon nor angel.
I am mortal
and messed up
and meek too often
and too little underfed.

I could use some underfeeding
right about now.
I am not brave or resolute
or at all prepared
and I am certainly no boy scout.

I try to be good
more than evil
and kind
more than careless.
I fail far too often.
I am not a fan of failing.

I like to talk about how I was conceived in Las Vegas
and my mother loves to deny that story
but who’re you gonna believe?
She was all drunk on complimentary wine back then
– and 60s weed.

I have never smoked up
but have had
like
a thousand contact highs.
Maybe you could stop toking up so much
around me?

I like comic books
and quirky comedies
and AntiFolk
– though don’t ask me what that is,
unless you’ve got a month to kill.
I talk at length
just a little.

I’m better than most
and annoyed by those who disagree
but far too modest to ever say that
– except in rhyme.
I rarely rhyme.

I like Two Boots
and I have a short attention span
and I like Two Boots.