jonberger

If I’d known it was the last time,
I’d probably have done things differently.
I’d probably have done everything differently.
I would have watched you carefully
soaking in every last aspect
to remember and treasure forever
or longer.
I’d have offered you something
to remember me by
or something simply filthy.

If I’d known
that there would be no repetition
I’d have done anything I could
to seek repetition
probably
which would have left us
in no different a space.

I didn’t know how creepy I’d been
how freakish
how dangerous yet dull
I appeared to you
and anything I’d have done,
aware that I was about to receive that knowledge
along with walking papers
would have only hastened that very end.

Being me
there was probably no way
I could have changed trajectory
and being you
you’d probably not have cared much
had I made the effort.
The fix was in
and I was done.

I’m sorry it went down this way
– you have no idea how sorry –
but I’m glad I had the time with you I did, and
I still wish I’d known
and had done something better.

When you came up to visit me
at school that first year
and I heard that some girl I liked
had a boyfriend that I knew
but didn’t know about,
if you know what I mean,
and I had to go to my room
and close the door
and turn on that sad song
and put it on repeat
and listen to it like ten times in a row,
I’m sorry, Danny,
that were in the room
and had to witness that.

You came all the way up
to my college town
at your own expense
and I was so mired in my own misery,
suckling at sorrow’s teat,
I couldn’t be the host
that you deserved.
I just drank and sighed
and left you to fend for yourself
which you probably made the most of
but still
I’m sorry I didn’t serve you better
that time, Dan.
You came up to visit me a lot
and I should have been more generous
considering.

You really did come up to visit a lot
and you spent a great deal of time
in my home
during those earlier high school years.
I should have been more appreciative
of all you offered me.
You were there when my back went out
and when my heart got torched
and you even did what you could
to untorch my heart
from time to time.
I don’t know
if I was ever able to reciprocate.

I can see why you were done with me
when you were, Daniel,
and I’m sorry for my part
in our falling out.
You were a good friend
once
and I’m sure
I didn’t tell you enough
and having to listen to "Muskrat Love" ten times
was in retrospect
probably ten times too much.

Know my body.
Learn the things
that have made me. This
is where the sweat pools first
and this
is where the sweat pools last.
That freckle looks like a pierced ear
and those freckles over there
resemble the constellation Cassiopeia.

My smile is a rare thing
because I do not like my teeth
and my gums bleed occasionally
where I sometimes bite them.

My right leg shakes
when I’m nervous or excited
and my whole body shakes
when I first see you
after time apart.

My hair line
is not without faults.
My body hair
is not without gray.
My stretch marks
are not visible
but only because skin in my family
is conveniently elastic.

There are pocks and warts
that I don’t like to talk about
but are obvious
under special circumstances
– some of which we’ve already experienced
though some are still to come.
Zits
can be found
on occasion, as well.

There is much of my form to know
little of it worthwhile,
in my opinion.
I hope
after enough research
you can prove me wrong.

Your worth is defined by your actions.
Your actions are defined
by what you can produce.
Is it a thing
or an art?
Is it the love of family and friends
and folks you fuck?
Is it the animosity you create
and the systems that are changed
because of it?

You can make fear or resolve
or a swing set
that your kids may remember
long after you’re gone.
You could produce a really great pizza recipe
or a song like an infection.

But if you leave nothing to show,
what have you done?
Who are you?
What is your legacy?

You have to produce
something.
You have to do a thing
of some sort
or what are you worth?

She’s not going to be there.
You travel in hope
of seeing her
where you’ve seen her before
but her schedule
is unpredictable
and your hope and desire
offers no insurance of result.
She will not go out tonight.
She has better things to do,
things that don’t involve you
as part of the equation.
She is living an entire separate life
that had naught to do
with you.

It’s good to get out
despite your fears
that this mission
is doomed to failure.
It’s good to try, too,
but it is best to be honest with yourself
and set expectations low
so as to avoid the obvious incipient disappointments
coming down each and every pike.
The wisdom of pessimism
will cocoon you
saving you from surprising misery
at voyage’s end.

When you arrive at your destination
she will be nowhere to be seen.
You will be alone.
Your quest will remain incomplete
unless
you opt
to start a separate quest altogether

The little tyrant I take care of
asks after you
with some frequency.
Maybe she saw me looking
at one of the pics
I took surreptitiously
when you were busy with one of the thousand things
I’ve seen you do.

She wondered if I liked you
and I try to give her honest answers
to genuine questions.
Since then
the subject of you comes up
with wind-up regularity.
We’ve gotten to explore
issues of relationships
and gender issues
and mutual respect
and non-verbal communication.
I’m learning quite a bit.

She is very inquisitive
and very interested
in what you are like.
I’ve been happy to describe
as best I can.

I just hope the little tyrant
is not too disappointed
after what I have to tell her tomorrow.

My breath is short
just thinking about you,
slightly from excitement
but mostly from fear.
I have no idea how to be
before you
between my hope
and anxiety,
I don’t know if you hate me
or love me
or even know who I am.

The alcohol
quiets me
a little
but my heart
beats too rapidly
when I enter your sphere.

I worry so
about your reactions
because I don’t understand them
but want to
very much.
I don’t know how you got this important
so quickly.
I don’t know why
I’ve come to hold you in such esteem
but I know how frightened I am
of what you think
when I have so little sense
of what that is.

Half the time I see you
I flee.
The other half
I fly to you.
You polarize my system.

God,
I really think
I’m gonna puke.

The feel when you came up
with an original way
to encapsulate your feelings on a subject
and you put them into a poem
and then you randomly glance
through your back catalog
and find that you wrote almost the exact piece
a few weeks back
thinking it was original then
but you are so myopic
that you forgot all about the you
of that yesterday
and goldfish-bowled your way
into believing your thoughts today
were brand-new and unprecedented,
just like you did last time.

The feel when you realize
how small you are
in the face of your past
which doesn’t even take into account
everybody else’s past
and the possibility
that the original thought
you already experienced
has probably been experienced by everybody else
a dozen times each
and you’re even more unoriginal
than the repeated use of the word "original,"
avoiding any synonyms at all,
would imply.

The feel when you wonder
if you meant "infer"
at the end of the last stanza,
and THEN wonder
if you really meant "stanza"
in the line above
and not "paragraph."

The feel when
everything
is doubt
?

The building leaves an envelope
for the rent under my door.
I slip in a check
and push it back out.
My bills get paid online
and delivery services are fast and efficient
in my neighborhood.

I am never leaving my house again.
There is no space for me
in the outside world
where I can be seen
in a way
I do not wish to be.
I will not subject myself to that
nor any other.
I will remain at home
where it is safe.

I have my books and poetry here
and have no need for anything
that remains in the ravages
beyond my window.
I can ignore the apocalypse
of the modern
and stay protected
behind lock and key.

This is the place for me now.
This is the land I shall haunt.
This is all the world I need
from this day forward.

That power pop band
the New Dylans were the self-proclaimed heirs
to the Dylan name
– in name only –
but others had greater claims.
Sam Dylan’s Supreme Dicks
were far more experimental
and Jakob Dylan’s Wallflowers had a much bigger song.

(By the way,
an early member of the Wallflowers
was named Barrie Maguire
who is no relation to the Barry McGuire
who charted high with Eve of Destruction, one of the first Dylanesque songs at the top of the pops. Wheels within wheels.
{and speaking of wheels,
Stealers’ Wheels went to number one
with a song that tried to out-Dylan Dylan
in delivery, absurdity and nasality.
“Stuck in the Middle With You” was co-written by Gerry Rafferty, who did it again with “Baker Street,”
which has nothing to do with Dylan
but had a really notable sax-line.}
Interesting, no?
Moving on.)

I met a Dylan wannabe
called Sam Camus
who later started aping Oasis,
of all artists.
He looked a lot like the Bringing It All Back Home guy.

And, of course,
all of this from a name
that Zimmerman took
from Dylan Thomas in the first place. Not a bad legacy
for some drunken poet.