jonberger

After the dancing
was friendship, heartbreak and food:
pizza, you and I.

We both come and go
like seasons, each moving past
changing, remaining.

I don’t dance much now
still, I would like to share some
pizza with you, please?

The sweetest fruit
can be plucked
only at the right time
and must be consumed
whenever you wish.

The rain has covered it up, I think.
I’ve been walking so long,
holding the flowers so long,
so tight, since the cemetery.
I should have left the roses there.
That was the plan.
But I held on to them tight,
thinking, stupidly, they were you.

The empty raining road,
no one paid me any mind,
but now that it’s getting more crowded
and I realize the mess I’ve made,
I’m glad it’s gotten dark.

I must look a fright.
You looked so wonderful today.

I should probably get to a hospital.

The waves are calling.
It’s too cold for them yet
but they call, just the same.
The season is not yet upon us.
The weather is not ready
to rush into the water
to brace the freezing temperatures
and feel the ice
all about you.

“It won’t be that bad.”
It can’t possibly be that bad.
It’s too early to know if it’s that bad.

I’ll know soon enough how I’ll fare in the waters.
I can defy the siren call of the waves
for a few months more.

Have you tried doing with less?
So you already have nothing,
but have you considered going down to half of nothing?
Perhaps selling the other half for collateral
for a sweet business venture?
You could sell it on the street under the title
Sweet Nothing(s), LLC, Trademark Pending.
The parenthesis is because you only have one sweet nothing
at the current time.

Once they start to sell,
you can build up a stock
and start going door to door,
like they did in the old days.
After that starts going well, you can open up a mom & pop shop,
then start selling to cops, and bell-hops and mop-salesmen
and everyone else.
Your place will be going bonkers in no time!
Soon you can franchise,
and maybe hire your grandma part-time
and put a gag order on her,
so she won’t give you anymore trouble,
even if she is dead.

I don’t think I’ve ever reached a point
where I have been able to sate my hungry love
for someone fully.
No one has ever given me a chance.

I believe that I could
with you.
I suspect I could have my fill of you.
Won’t you please reach the limit with me?

Let me know if I can get to the end with you.

…and then suddenly there’s a pivot,
and everything changes.
Your direction, your momentum, everything.
The horror ride loses its terror
and you find life goes steady.

A simple solution arrives
and you’ve regained control
where it seemed impossible before.
All after a blink
that you couldn’t have imagined.

Just wait for the blink.
Hold on.

Back when I had the loft,
I would walk down the back steps
into the endless back floors
and always discover new areas of my sublet
that I hadn’t yet taken advantage of.
So much raw space in East Harlem
– and for such a reasonable price.
Amazing!

It had taken me a while to get into this place,
but it really proved to be worth it.
I was glad I’d waited.
The main floor was kind of dumpy,
but going down these other floors,
they always had cool white walls that had been recently painted.
No work needed to be done.
Storage a’plenty.
Rarely anyone else around.
Performance space for whatever I wanted.
Heavenly.

Sometimes, I would find neighbors in these spaces,
and I worried about sharing,
but it never proved to be a long term problem.
The apartment remained mine,
and no one disturbed me in my solitude.

Really, East Harlem was a perfect place,
like a dream.

Oh yes, this placeused to house a hunger.
This place used to contain a need so great,
I would come most nights to feed it.

This was once my opium den,
my favored whore house.
This was my den of iniquity.
This is where I’d go
to let it all hang out.

They razed that place.
They cleared it
to simply build another business.

It does not seem to feed anyone’s needs
the way it used to feed mine.

All right, alright…
I know I’ve done some dumb things,
but tell me this,
who’s the bigger fool:
the idiot who marries the spy
or the one who becomes a spy
to avoid being blackmailed for having married a spy?

Wait… I know the answer to that.
Let me come up with another hypothetical…

All right. Who’s the bigger fool:
he who marries for beauty
or he who marries for love?

Yes, OK, that has a fairly clear answer, too.
Well, then. How about, who’s the bigger fool:
the one who weighs three hundred pounds
or the one who weighs two eighty?

Fine, but who’s taller?