jonberger

My writing project has fallen on hard times.

I’d kept up to date.
doing amazing quantitative work
until two days ago,
when scheduling and laziness came together
to bottom me out,
leaving me in the position to catch up ever since.

Today, I woke up needing to write forty two poems
to regain control of my schedule.
An impossible task.
My day isn’t helping either.

Jury duty’s trying to put me on a case,
and I’d love to explain,
“Judge, I would be happy to find this criminal
and/or civil defendant guilty or liable today,
but I have an entirely voluntary poetry quota to meet
(the quality of what I write is not important;
just so long as I write the number of poems, it’s all right)!”

I doubt the theoretical judge would be sympathetic.

Though I won’t catch up, I’m working at a healthy clip,
and I’ve scheduled lighter days
for the rest of the month,
just in case crises came up.
So I should still be able to come out of my hole.
Don’t count this boy out yet!

Mediocre is defined as “straight up the middle,”
like Middle of the Road radio programming was.
Both have a negative connotation, though.
I think I support that negative.

Who wants average?
Huey Lewis & the News is pretty average.
“Power of Love” is optimum Huey Lewis + News materiel,
so it’s the epitome of averageosity,
simply perfect in its mediocrity.
I did not like it when it came out,
when I had a care for the band.
It has not much grown on me.

I’ll bet it has its supporters;
I believe it charted.
I’m sure it’s an excellent song
for those who like that sort of thing.
If that’s not the perfect sentence for “Power of Love,”
I don’t know what is.

The single choc’lit ball I snuck this morning
is not enough to curb my hunger today.
What was I thinking?
That was no balanced diet!

I need a million choc’lit balls to keep me going!
Only that will keep me sated.
Only that will tamp me down.
Give me the sugar that I crave,
the flavors I rave about,
the choc’lit I savor!

I need it now…
Otherwise, how will I make it through the next eight minutes
until lunch time?

Sorry.
Three minutes.

In the days after Floyd,
in the face of BLM,
in the choice to defund police,
we have the option to make daring decisions
and see if cops are the one-size-fits-all approach
to our social dilemmas
or if we can figure out more nuanced solutions to issues we face.

Perhaps mental health financing could be considered
rather that battering rams
or EMTs instead of shotguns
or seasoned tape kit workers instead of SWAT teams.

Random thoughts for a reactionary world.

It goes to show you never can tell
what they never tell you.
Nobody told me, after all,
there’d be days like these.

Nobody told me that
that flat top moves up slowly.
Who’d have expected that, with all that cracking spine?

Certainly nobody told me that rock and roll has a back beat
that can’t be bluesed any old way it was used.
I could never tell that on my own;
I had to be informed!

And I didn’t know,
until somebody told me,
that Marie from Tennessee was older that three
but less than seven.
They never tell you this stuff
without certain dispensation
and I don’t got that.

I just wish that I could get some information, please.

A Wealth of Concerns
I’ve got an abundance of excuses as to why
I’m not qualified for the position
you’re trying to fill.

I haven’t worked in your office before.
You have no idea how I’m going to fit in
with the other employees.

It’s been at least a week since I’ve worked in any office.
Who knows how I’ll behave around civilized people?

I’ve been know to get a little focused on the work
at the expense of proper socialization
in professional settings.
I wouldn’t want that to happen with you guys.

Lastly, I’ve killed at least eight of my former colleagues
at my last job.
Frankly, I’m surprised I was able to get a reference from that company at all.

You didn’t check with them?
Oh. That’s disappointing.

Well, now that I’ve shared my reservations,
let me tell you why I think I’d be a good fit
for the position…

I had to look up “fly in the ointment,”
don’t ask me why.
I learned a little bit in the process;
let me signify:

an ointment ain’t a thick stew of a treatment.
That was lesson one.
That was news to me, at least…
and this shit ain’t done.

It’s a biblical reference, doncha know,
for you ungodly sorts.
It comes from Ecclesiastes,
I’m able to report.

A reference to how a healthy potion
can be stunk up by some dead flies
which is not what I assumed it meant
whenever I hypothesized.

So here I am presenting this story
as a public service to all.
You’re welcome. I’m certain you enjoyed
and I’m so glad that you were enthralled.

Walking cross town on this drizzly day
the street is lightly travelled.
Few are taking this path across town,
perhaps they’ve reached their destinations.

Schools are closed.
Where are the children?

A wig lays lonely on the sidewalk.

No animals roam;
they know better.

Trash has been taken in;
perhaps that keeps the creatures at bay.

I walk a lonely road
and it is a grey day.

We don’t touch.
Why don’t we touch?
I think that’s about me
Because I avoid contact.

Everybody around us hugs.
People who just met hug.
We don’t hug.
That’s about me.
It must be.
It’s all about me.

Why do I create these lack of connections?
Why do I build
walls?

Why do I insist on
walls?

The lesson had been good.As I left the house,
I saw my room-mate on the street.
"What’s going on?" he asked.
I shrugged. What did he mean?

He looked beyond me.

I turned. There was a man on a ladder
right outside my window.
The window I had just been sitting at
the last several hours, working.
"I thought I noticed a shape," I said.
"No idea."
"For a small building,
it sure has a lot of work done on it," Barry said.

I didn’t hear what the work was later.
I may never know.