jonberger

I am reading Dr. Seuss
on this train
back to where I’m from.
Marvin K. Mooney was written
to encourage Nixon to leave office.
Ten days later
he resigned.
When I saw this children’s book
just laying near my building
I resigned myself to fate
and realized it was time
to quit the big city.

This train takes me back
to my hometown
though I know
it can never be the same.
I have no one left there.
I burned bridges
and trashed tunnels
as I made my escape.
No one will pick me up
at the terminal.
No one will offer a guest room.
No one will care
that I’ve scurried back
tail twixt high tops.

Everyone will recognize me
and no one will talk to me.
I have no one back at home
anymore
which, probably,
will make it much like my years
in the big city.

Maybe I’ll get a job.
Maybe I’ll mend some fences.
Maybe I’ll make some new friends
and find the things that I liked
from my childhood
when I read books by Dr. Seuss
and looked forward to the future.

But my future has just exiled me
back to the past.
What have I done?
Where am I going?

I guess I’m going home.

Diametrically across the club
in a secluded corner
she sits alone:
the girl too hot to talk to.

There is a radius around her
of too many people
too intimidated to get closer.

She doesn’t look lonely
but perhaps that’s a front
the mask she wears
over her terribly beautiful face.

Perhaps she is waiting for someone
cavalier enough to approach her
unafraid of being out of her league.

Probably her beauty is a moat
and she is simply waiting
for the one
willing to cross it.

She is almost certainly looking
for someone to come to her
and offer her an opportunity
away from this solitude among the multitudes.

She clearly wants someone
to brave this challenge
and face her angelic face.

I could be that person
I suppose
or perhaps it’s the guy who just joined her
and is making out with her
and now leaving with her.

He looked pretty self-possessed.
Damn.

You were impressed seven years ago
when you were young and silly and easy
to drink under the table
and off of your feet.
You thought I was something
then.
You saw me
as something to aspire to
or so your words suggested
for I was always one
adept at interpreting implications.

You thought I was amazing.
I was not.
I was confused.
I was dangerous.
I hurt you
in slight ways
because I didn’t know
to treat you better
so we couldn’t last long.

But now
after such time
I see you’re back from outer space
and I’m the one impressed.
You look great
but you always will
while I still have a face for radio
but
to know what you’ve accomplished
in this time:
the books
the videos
the programs…
we are seven years apart
but you are worlds away
from what you were
and you were always remarkable.

I haven’t changed
or left.
I’m still the same
and going nowhere. You
have been everywhere
and back again.
I know my words of praise
may mean little now but
I’m glad to see you.

Welcome back.

(For Russians)

Living in the Pole of Cold wasn’t the worst thing.
Temperatures could reach the seventies
if you knew Fahrenheit
– which, if you lived in Siberia,
you didn’t –
but it was once clocked at under seventy below, Celsius.
That’s cold.
Tatiana knew she’d have to get out.

She had friends in Oymyakon
of course
and she’d miss them
but she could stuff all the people she loved
in one floor of her apartment complex
and if doing that would let her escape town,
she’d do it
at heartbeat speed.

She didn’t know what she could do
out in the greater world
but she knew she would figure it out
once she was in a place
where summers didn’t last for seven weeks.
She needed to come in out of the cold
somehow.

When she found the job
she took it right away
and has not yet looked back.
She thinks of her old life
sometimes
and smiles, warm
in her memories
but also because she can remember
from great distance
and from within a jacuzzi.

This is not where I expected to end up.
Nuuk cannot simply be walked into
and was never on my intended itinerary.
I had not planned on this village being home but here I am finding something of value.

Everything is small here.
A quarter of the country lives in town
but still it’s smaller than my college.
Nine out of ten residents are natives
and use ten percent of the resources.
The university has 150 students
who can go to any of the four cafes in the greater area
of this capital city.
It is cold
staggeringly cold.
Still, I can see finer qualities.

The people are not friendly
as they rush indoors.
The buildings are epic
and the roads are often iced.
There is little to do
and few to do it with.
There is isolation here up north
but blessed isolation.

I have my summers
of glorious sun
and days of darkness to counter it
come winter.
I have the ice floes out my window
and no one to disturb me.
With this absence of activity
and the crush of nature
I cannot wallow in intellect.
I only wallow in this hard world.
This is what I’ve found in Nuuk.
This is what I shall treasure
through the long desolate winter. 

(for BA)

The feeling
when you write a song
based loosely on a movie
and then another movie
(completely unrelated)
uses it for their soundtrack
and the song gets tied
strangely
to both movies
but it’s no big deal
since the song does really well
cuz you got an Ace to sing the song
and the guitarist
is kind of an ace himself
so you’ve made enough money
and not even through product placement
with either movie
and the song’s about time travel, too?
Yeh.
That feeling.

And then later
you work with those same guys
and you write another song
about fathers and sons
and cycles of life
but there’s no movie to tie it to
and it does even better
than that first song
and you make a bucketful of money
– not that you need it
since you already wrote a bunch of songs a few years before
(which presented this way
may be another reference to time travel) –
and you can afford to buy a couple of cars
so that when they need tune-ups
you can be kind of a jerk
and insist that your mechanic
goes by the name of Mike?
That feeling, too.

We are the hot noblewomen
with too much time on our hands
but just enough boob on our chest.
We are easily bored
and willing to get involved
in seedy adventurers
with slimy smugglers
and insidious spies
who like us
very much.
Spies like us.

We are the newly converted
zealots for causes we’ve only just found.
We will do anything for our current overlords,
so different from those we had before.
We dance to tunes played
by a variety of manipulators:
preachers
father figures
bosses and spies.
Spies like us.

We have gambled too much
for far too long.
We are in deep
both economically and emotionally
into the world of the bet.
Our debts are huge
but even when paid, we couldn’t quit;
we’re too attached to it.
It’s the thrill
the chase
the heart racing
and facing excitement dead on.
We need the high
so we easily get pulled by spies.
Spies like us.

We are victims.
We are suckers.
We get attached to causes and beliefs
and masters that have interests other than our own.
We are pawns in wars
we may not even understand.
We come from all nations
and fight for any other.
We are susceptible.
We surrender to them
that can control us.
We surrender to spies.
Spies like us.

Return my calls.
Accept my letters.
Take me out of your spam filter.
Engage with me.
Let us speak.

I’ve been looking for some way
for us to connect again
but you seem uninterested
or perhaps unaware.
Either way,
I’m left without you
and I feel the need
for that to change.
I feel that need desperately.
Talk to me.

I don’t know what I did
that you blame me for
though I have five possible theories.
I’m prepared to apologize
for three of them
if you give me the chance.
Pick up the phone.

It hurts
to be without you.
I didn’t realize how much
until it happened.
I never dreamed
it would be so hard.
Please
talk to me
so I can attempt to fix it.

For just a moment
it was quiet.
No sound,
no sight…
just for an instant
constant white
with the streets bare of people
and all machines somewhere off-site.

There were no arguments to be heard
not one human to say one word.
There was simple blinding absence
of all but snow
so no faces to fight nor places to go.
Nothing to do but just lay low.

It was but an instant, though
in which the weather left all dumb.
It couldn’t be long
before a noise would sharply come.

Soon, my village would return
to its normal state
of angry screams and hard pumped breaks
and the curse of null across our land
would no longer be allowed to stand.

For a minute it seemed no creature walked or fought or loved or ached
and then arrived the snow plows’ quake
and soon the land was raked
and we were free
to live our lives
with our typical impunity.

The neediness?
It has to stop.
The words you say
the way you behave
your every action suggests
that you want my everything:
my heart, soul, mind
my time, my space, my property
my attention, my poetry and dance steps.
You claim to want it all.

You don’t want my all.
You can’t imagine
how very trying
my captured attention could be.
You could not possibly envision
what garbage is waiting for you
in my thoughts
or how toxic my heart has become.
To plumb it’s depths
would spell your perfect doom.

Were you to try to take my everything
it would drown you immediately.
It would crush you
my expectations
and you are
trust me
better off without.

Please consider
accepting what I’ve offered.
The love I have available
is a great deal indeed
and still probably more
than you are able to swallow.