jonberger

Really?
That was the applause I get
for Opus 301?
That’s all?
Why the hate?
Why don’t you appreciate my work
as much as you should have?
I know that I swallowed a couple of words
here and there
and misread that phrase near the end
but the poem
it spoke for itself
didn’t it?
DIDN’T IT?

I shouldn’t have to tell you this
but that poem you just heard?
It was really well-constructed.
I mean, there were two parallel allusions
running through the whole thing.
Did you notice that?
It was fairly rad,
you ask me.
The alliteration was pretty potent,
too. Frankly,
the work was subtle
– maybe too subtle –
but otherwise,
truly excellent.

I don’t get it.
is this audience
eighty percent retarded?
I mean
I’m not judging.
More power to you
but if you’re primarily of the mongoloid persuasion
couldn’t you have let me know
before I let my heart and soul out for you?
I mean
why waste my time?

Not for nothing
but tonight
I met a spoken word booker,
beautiful and charming
who could easily
have improved my career a hundredfold
and my ejaculations twice that.

She said she would stay
to watch my performance
and I smiled my secret smile
knowing that this
was a pivot moment
and my life would be forever changed.

And here I am
and here you are,
clearly unimpressed
and the booker
– or promoter. I didn’t really listen –
is gone
and she’d probably have stuck around
if you reacted the way
you were fucking supposed to
and my life is just the same.

I don’t blame you
– not entirely.
All the craft
all the technique
all the skill in the world
can’t help
if I’m not saying something interesting.
Sure,
you may appreciate the skill I brought
but if I didn’t bring it
to something worthwhile,
where are you then?

Not here
of course.
I did an amazing job.
I don’t know what’s wrong with you losers.
Clap, you fuckers:
clap!

A word that’s haunted me?
That’s the question?
Curious, but all right…
Prolificity. That word stays with me
always
in strange ways.
I uncovered my art
by trial and error
looking for a way to express myself
that catered to my utter
lack of attention span.

Once I stole John Hall’s shtick
of writing quick
I found a satisfying way
to get ideas out
(Well,
one way. You should see me dance.
Creativity simply sweats out of me
– figuratively)
and since my poems had become
kind of easy to write
the name of the game became
how productive I could be.

When my father saw my second show
he said, "You repeated a lot of material"
and even though that was mostly false
it became important
to write early and often
and develop a level of prolificity
so I could avoid repetition
– or at least shut Dad up.
I don’t know how I learned the word
prolificity,
probably in some book somewhere
but I had a best guess at pronunciation
and
when I uttered it
I looked people in the eye
to see if they understood
or were ready to counter its use.
I do that with many a word
while bluffing.

Prolificity had been in my active vocabulary
for years
until I tried to verify that pronunciation
hoping to ensure once and for all
how it was expected to be saided.
I couldn’t find it at websters dot com
or dictionary dot net
and, I noticed,
autocorrect did not seem to recognize it, either.
My favorite phrase
it seemed
was a victim of my imagination.

Autocorrect kept suggesting
prolificacy
so I added that to my active vocabulary
but I felt cheated
by a world that deterred
my preferred word
from being heard.

Time’s gone on
and I’ve found myself more accepting
of language that Webster never allowed
and prolficity
has crept up among my choices.
I’ll note
that as I write it
right now
the word still triggers warnings
from Google
and whatever other filters I have in place
but then, so does prolficacy.
The world around me
will not encourage my favorites
which might raise them
even higher in my regard.

So…
prolificity.
That’s my word.
I hope it answered your question.
It didn’t?
Oh…
well.

There’s a sliver of gold
resting near the ceiling
just after dawn
from which it is impossible
to turn away.
It hypnotizes, mesmerizes
keeps all eyes on it
even when they’re just mine.

I would love to reach out
and take this prize
but it is too early in the AM
for me to move
let alone reach for the roof
to get at the gold.
It’s amazing my eyes are open
at this ridiculous hour.

I would love also
to reverse into dreams
but please refer to the mesmerization
mentioned above.
I can’t turn away
and I can’t return to sleep
so all I have
is this bright sliver above me
tempting me
to finally fully wake up.

The younger sister
was the hotter sister
though maybe the elder had more talent.
Tough to tell.
It was easy to want both of them
and at night
in bed
he was capable
of having both of them.

They weren’t normally those kind of women
but something about him
his charm
his panache
his way with a wispily grown mustache
it left them weak before his wiles
his wishes and whims were theirs to fulfill.
Anything he wanted,
they would will.
at night
in bed.

It was strange:
in school
he didn’t feel too cool.
Too often
he felt the fool,
weak, wimpy,
like some string unspooled
but with them
it was different.
It just worked with those women.
At night
in bed
everything just went perfectly.
It was like a spell
between the three of them
during the right hours
with an absence of light
during which they were many bodies
with one mind: his.

He loved their time
and perhaps they did too.
They seemed to, under his purview.
At night
in bed
the two sisters and he
would live and love ever after happily
until he woke up
and faced the light
alone.

The heat is intense and it’s tearing me apart.
I can think of little but my tortured burning heart.
My torso’s on fire and it’s causing me dread.
If you don’t provide coolant, I’m afraid I’ll be dead.

It’s been a long time since we’d last been together
‘cuz no longer are we flocking birds of the same feather.
When we flew to separate corners, I think, that was the start
of the days when I went crazy with my burning yearning heart.

I can’t stand this thing that’s happening, my chest is in full groan
making noises and moans of infuriating tones.
I’m falling apart bodily, and it’s awful clear I’ve found
this kind of thing never happened when you were around.

I think the food you made for us is partially to blame
for staving off these awful feels my chest so often claims.
I can never eat right, unless I’ve been coerced.
so if you don’t came back to me I think that I’ll be forced

to suffer from this burning heart that’s leaving me near dead.
If you don’t do your part then I suspect my guts’ll shred.
I’ll be dying while I’m lying in a pool of my own sick.
So come back to me, baby, make me food I’ll finger lick.

If you prepare the dinners, then perhaps I can steel
myself for making lunches and a healthy course reveal
a life without the heartburn breaking through my every meal.
So cook for me, my darling; then my burning heart can heal.

This is so strange:
staring at the screen
watching you
in a medium I didn’t know you knew
singing singles of yesteryear
well past due.
I have heard of that song
even heard it before
but never really listened
and have clearly never seen your lips
around such hits.

It is a new experience,
you expressing such historic
classic cuts
before that camera
projected to my coast
over hundred of miles
as the crow flies.
I wish you were here
where I could be with you
with no screen separating us
but like you said before:
there’re so many places
you’ve gotta see.

I guess that little number
you present so powerfully
could speak for us
as well as anything else
you might try to say directly.

You look good
through that screen.
I’m glad you seem so happy
but sad that it’s so far away from me.

In college
in the dorms
on my hall
there was a lot of foot traffic
going to the dining commons
or the parking lot
or the Photography Lab
or, I dunno, to see my slutty ex
one landing away.
Wherever they were going
I was positioned in just the right place
to distract them.

I tried.
God knows I tried
to make people stray from their plans.
I asked where they were going
or offered them a brownie lifted from the cafeteria
or just called out, “Wait! Don’t go.
Stay!”
That was my mantra.
That was my war cry.
That was my entreaty
to make my dorm
the social destination of the season
or at least a place
to while away a few minutes.

Not everyone got an invite
to loiter at my door
but that didn’t necessarily stop them
from stopping by.
If I was awake
I was entertaining
and I had open office hours for all.
Clearly, I didn’t get much done.

But I did meet many people
even as they were going to parties
on other halls
or heading towards bars off campus
or just on their way to class.
I would find them on path
and I would have some minutes with them.
My home was a wild party.

After the accident
he couldn’t dance the way he did before
but popping wheelies in a chorus
let people know
he could still really move.

Marathons took a different turn too
much more of a strain on the arms
than before.
No complaints, though.
Complaints were for other folks.

He found
that the more activities he added to his day
the less chance he had
to curse the darkness of the night.
There simply wasn’t time
for depression.

Still
if the world sometimes pressed
down on him
like it did that one damned day
at least now
he had shoulders
strong enough to bear it.

The sex on display
was magnificent
as the women
and some men
of all shapes, sizes and stipulations
paraded before potential customers
who could prod and poke with proposals
until final selections were made
and couples
and threesomes
(and occasional eightsomes)
would retire to privacy
or occasionally, stages.

There were freaky forms of love on site
at the Love Bazaar
off of I-95 in Connecticut
at ridiculously high rates
for incredibly discreet services
rendered upon an indeterminate number of males
and infrequent females
at all times of night and year.

Consider going
if your morals are loose,
you desires are strange,
and your pockets are deep.
If you’ve got the money
you can make time
at the Love Bazaar
for all sorts of bizarre love.

I went downstairs to my neighbor’s apartment
which was bigger and weirder
than it had any right to be:
ninety foot ceilings
and wide open to the sky.
with pigeons flying the perimeter
along with ravens and lions.
My neighbor wanted to sell the place
and as usual I was considering buying
because apparently
I am made of nothing but money.
The library seemed run down and kind of creepy:
the books were ancient
but the rug was rotting from damp
and the fires near the fireplace looked nothing like intentional.
There were two bathrooms
one with a glass door and a W on it
which seemed sexist.
In the dream
I bid low on the apartment.

These dreams sometimes blow me away.
These dreams are there at the end of each day.
These dreams lie with me behind blue eyes.
Whomsoever sends them deserves an effects prize.

I was on a tour of the Titanic with my whole family
including my Late Uncle Irving.
In the dream
the Titanic was just a really big ship
that had never sunk.
Anyways
the real attraction on the good ship Titanic
was the world’s biggest airplane
which probably
would have been pretty helpful
for the Titanic in real life.
We took a ride on the plane
and it was legit terrifying
but really fun
like a convertible airplane
but maybe for dinosaurs?
Possibly in the dream
the plane was involved in an accident
an idea supported by some lame ass haunted house we had to go through
once we got back on land.
Now that place was a catastrophe.

These dreams cultivate the fantastic
with highs and lows both heavenly and drastic.
Much as I hope to achieve things some day
today it’s okay to let dreams hold their sway.

I’m at a concert
of some iconic musician
I’d never heard of
but he’s big.
Bowie status – only alive!
Simply everyone under the sun is here.
and the music is amazing.
He has this deep voice
and his arrangements are really full
and dark. Somehow
I get on stage
and by the end of the show the singer is just crazy high
Inviting everyone up
giving them all crazy high fives.
I hug him but lose balance and fall over
pulling him down with me.
He just laughs it off.
The show ends
I get off the stage and see his poster
and finally learn his name: Ray.
Out of the Garden Stadium
I run into Lach
who is shocked that I’d never heard of Ray.
Then Lach tells me lots of stories
about how he actually discovered Ray
and subsequently Ray did him wrong.

These dreams are amazing. These dreams are divine.
These dreams are the finest of finely fine wines.
If I would chose something as creme de la cream
I can think of aught better than all of these dreams.