jonberger

Please understand
or at least consider:
these people you profess to hate,
they are your neighbors.
They are the creatures closest to your culture
and way of life
and, yes, definitely
they do not agree with you
in every particular
– they may even claim hatred of you,
too.

So what is the best way to respond to them
those that spit in your face
and steal your shoes
and urinate in your coffee?
What leader would counsel hate thy neighbor?
What book is that from?

Be kinder.
The antivenin of hate
is not bigger hate
like a brush fire prevented by a larger flame.
The hate is already out.
it can’t be prevented
but it can be diminished
with a softer strategy.

Something to consider
– unless
that’s what they want you to think.

Dude!
Dude, don’t you think it would be easier
if you weren’t so rigid
so stuck
so tight?
Don’t you think you could mellow out a little
dude?

Yo,
if you think about it
you could be anything you want to be
if you only put less limitations on yourself.
No need to be so bound
to the ground
if you’ve found there’s a place you want to fly.
You can make it if you try, you know, yo.

Just –
just think it through.
Try something new. Expand
beyond your pre-set beliefs.
Become something bigger
better, hotter and wetter.
Just consider what expanses you are capable of
if you stretch,
if you attempt,
if you strive.
Just…

Be better.
Be flexible.
Be what you want now,
not what you thought you should be
when eight years old
or eighteen
or even after you just ate.
Be what you want to be
dude.

The good guys won
(because the good guys always win.
If they didn’t
then the other guys
would have been the good guys all along).

The good guys won
and they dictated the terms
included the simple fact
that they won
and by how much
and they told the bad guys
to feel bad about losing
which, believe me,
they did.

Then the good guys
asked for money
and accused the bad guys
of crimes against nature
and humanity
and good taste
and the bad guys shrugged
and said, “You got us!”
(because what else could they really say
or do
or be?)

So the good guys got to be smug
and wealthier
and the bad guys got to act guilty
and beaten
but didn’t really feel too bad
since they knew
that if they’d been the good guys,
they’d do the same thing, too.

The good guys went about their business
and so did the bad
and they all thought
about the next time
and all lived ever after
– but not happily.

Happiness
never entered the equation.

Eventually
there will be peace;
it has to happen.
At some point
the warriors will be dead
or too tired to continue.
There was a Hundred Years War
but by Year 101
it was over, right?

There is always peace
eventually
and the truce takers need to agree
on whether they still disagree
or simply can stand the sound of bombs no more.
Peace comes finally
in the end
for all.

And after the guns have gone dusty
and after the blood has dried
and after the scabs have fallen off
and the tired are well rested
and all are again used to their peace
how long
do you think
will it take
until they return
to their earlier arguments?

They blow bubbles on thirty fourth
on the corner
in the heat
as we wait for change of lights
or wait on a friend
or lose water weight
sweltering under midday sun.

Music is coming from somewhere
and the crowd congeals
and some sway to the tune
and the bubbles blow and save my soul
as some girl begins to dance.

Soon
a ripple flows trough us
and more
follow the leader
and move to the rhythm of the music.
We become
in this oven of a city
something else
something organic
something interconnected.

The light changes
and some keep the beat
crossing the street
but within instants
our moment has passed
like some laughing gas we’d inhaled
but then fully absorbed
leaving us to return
to some sort of normal.

I think, sometimes,
of that day in 1947
when Corporal Pepper got promoted
and was deeded responsibility
for training the boys
to march and blow
and write to Miss Lonelyhearts
and perform in public.

I think about how he found his recruits
young men to do his bidding
like reading scores and playing them
for scores of years to come.
I wonder what inspired the man
and how inspired the men who obeyed him became
enacting his psychedelic vision for so long
and so well.

I think about them
and him
and those that worshipped
the band
even after all these years,
acolytes of a style
not from twenty years ago today
but much further back.

I consider the Sergeant’s Band sometimes
going down a long and winding road
of reminiscence
before I come together
let it be
and imagine other things.

The poem you just read about my mother
isn’t about my mother per se
but rather
a typical mother figure
that I have been plagued with
at various times in my life.
I’m not saying that there aren’t elements
of my real
honest-to-Apollo mother
in that poem,
it’s just that
the character was more of an amalgam
a collaboration of parents I’ve experienced
heard about
met or married
at different points
during my voyages across this globe.

The mother referred to
in that poem
– and I’ll take from your silence
that you loved it –
is not my mother.
She’s a little like my mother
but not so much
that she would recognize herself
in my work
should she ever be troubled to read it.

Anyway,
the poem in question
was fundamentally true
if not necessarily honest
in all the particulars
(enough of an explanation
to keep legal off my back,
right?).

Eighteen years ago
I thought you were something.
Clearly
some time has passed
and you
have become something else.

I thought your flights of fancy
your strange ways
were evidence of your wild spirit
and dark creativity.
Probably though
they were just proof of some bipolar disorder
that has yet to be diagnosed.

You seem to be doing well enough
at the other end of this ten foot pole
that separates us.
You still look amazing
like trouble
like danger
like a whole bunch of things
I didn’t know enough to avoid
eighteen years ago
when I was younger
and thought I was smarter.

You can do better than that.
I’ll bet
at some point in your life
you’ve already done better than that.
To be frank
if you’ve been alive as long as you look
you’d HAVE to have done better than that
at least once.

I’m not judging.
I’m not preaching.
I’m not complaining about your lackluster attitude
and your insufficient accomplishments.
I’m not saying you suck
or even that the things you’ve shown me suck
or anything else that you might interpret as disparaging.
Really.
I’m not saying it
but if you read it that way,
that might be something you should look into.

I just think
you’re selling yourself short.
You can perform at a higher level
than what’s going on today.
I mean no offense.
I don’t want to discourage.
I just think
that you can do better than that.
At least
you should try.

Bernard tells me
my people don’t exist.
He searched for them
using arcane stratagems known only to his people
only to discover
that nothing can be found about my grandparents
and their business
or their home
before the war.

“It’s like,” he said,
“They were wiped away,
as if some ultimate chemical cleanser -”
“- Like a final solution?” I ask.
“- Yes!” he exclaims,
“- was used to eradicate
all evidence of them.”

So
no trace of the Bergers
on their ancestral homeland
of Staten Island
which means
I can continuing denying
having roots back there
in that backwards borough.

So,
I guess,
win some, lose some.