There’s something going on
that’s not quite right.
It’s in the air.
It’s everywhere, omnipresent.
You can taste it
on the tip of the tongue.
Something’s on the way.
Something different.
It’s full of premonitions
this thing a’comin’.
Is it the bad moon on the rise?
The good fairy
back from the Neverlands?
Will it disrupt for jusice
or evil?
There are no answers
yet
simply change on its way
but something
important
is about to happen
soon.
I still have Mike’s address
and he’s still on my group mailing list.
I haven’t removed him from my promos
though I know he won’t go
even when he hasn’t told me so.
Mike’s been out of touch
for quite some time
and I don’t think there’s much I can do
to change that.
We’ve had our highs and lows,
our valleys and peaks.
At this point, though, we never speak.
I miss him.
I wish it were different.
I’d love to talk to Mike again
and write to him direct
but all the response I’ll ever get
is a Return to Sender note
and that’s all he wrote.
Someday, I’ll take him off my list.
I’ll give up on the memory of Mike.
Until that time
I’ll keep those rejected emails
as the only way I stay in touch
which isn’t very much.
Life is wretched
and incomplete
and chaos reigns in this realm
and nothing will ever go right
until I clean the yogurt out of the fridge.
I was so optimistic
when I bought it
thinking I could kick off
a health regime
that would conquer my girth,
my cholesterol and hepatitis.
I was so young,
so full of hope.
Now, I am not full of hope
nor full of yogurt
as if has sat in the dark cold
for months – maybe years!
Nothing else can enter the refrigerator.
If I add another item
the center shelf will not hold.
Something has to be done.
Someone has to take on that cultured menace
someone has to bite the bullet
and bite the yogurt.
Only then
can the world be made right again.
No, I’m
I’m flattered, a little,
but no.
I will not go have sex with you.
Not for money.
I don’t do that.
I am not a prostitute
despite what you might have been told.
I am not against the profession
if it’s entered into
without coercion
or societal requirements
or anything else restricting the decision
from being a private one.
I’m not hung up about sex.
I’m all good with whores
I simply am not one.
Certainly, it’s an honor
to be offered payment
for something that is often given freely
willingly.
But I cannot accept your money.
Sorry.
No.
we can’t go off together, now,
either.
Knowing how much was on the table
I couldn’t just do you
for free
anymore.
There is beauty
that is only skin deep.
Conversely
ugly is sometimes
only superficial
while underneath
lie several layers of lovely.
That sort of charm
may prove more valuable
as it is harder to find,
oh so much more difficult to discover.
To learn of such appeal
would be quite hard-earned.
I would like to quest
for that inner beauty.
I’d love
to love one who seemed an ugly duckling
but hidden deep beneath
was a disguised swan.
Could that be you?
Might you have those hidden depths?
Could you get them?
You seem hideous enough…
That song you just wrote?
I really like it.
I liked it the first time I heard it
From Billy Joel
thirty three years ago.
I get it.
Writing songs is hard
and sometimes
it helps to look to your mentors
to get a sense of how a song
should be wrote.
At some point, though,
the song’s gotta get wrote by you
not the mentor.
There’s no shame in what you’ve done
– that is,
unless you’re still thinking it’s yours.
It ain’t.
It’s not even Billy’s, fully.
He borrowed, too,
so you’re not alone.
But don’t get any bright ideas.
There is something
in the air tonight.
I can feel it
and I’ve had my fill of it.
This stranger at the next table
will not stop staring
nor will Colin let it be.
I’m stuck in the middle
between these meddling males
neither of whom
is paying me
the right kind of attention.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Maybe
I can sic Colin on the creep
and then make my breakaway.
Maybe then I’d be free.
My therapist says
I may shoplift no longer.
What are you,
he asks,
sixteen?
Wait, I reply,
is it all right to steal at sixteen?
You pay eighty dollars a session
he responds,
is that how you want to spend our time?
I wonder,
I answer,
how much of our conversation
is simply volleys of questions hurled
from one to the other,
pitchers and catchers
striving for supremacy.
Metaphysicality,
at eighty dollars…
that’s pretty pricey, you know?
saith Doctor Jones.
A reverse haiku!
I reply.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
You’re stealing our time
he says
patience diminished,
and I think we’ve established often
that this is not what you should be doing.
But it’s fun! I say.
It’s not helpful, says he.
I answer, it makes me happy.
He grunts, closes his notepad
and says, time’s up.
Looks like you’ve robbed us
of our session.
I grin.
And you said
I had to quit shoplifting…
I knew you were a mess
from the moment I met you
and I thought to myself
"I could clean up for a girl like that."
It was something about your look.
Your eyes had something hard to believe
about them
and your chin pointed out rebelliously.
I had such filthy thoughts about you.
Since, you’ve been making such effort
to be rid of me
sending me on missions
introducing me to your girlfriends
and intimating opportunities with them.
You’ve washed your hands of me
that’s clear.
And I can accept that.
I am playing the cards you gave me.
I don’t like it.
I don’t want it
but this is the deal you provided
and
I’m making the most
of your clean hand.
I saw my old school
and some of its young students
the other day.
One had aged poorly
the other, not at all.
I am not into high school students
the way I used to be
and by that
I mean cultural conventions
no longer let me get into high schoolers
as I did in my teens and twenties.
Cultural conventions
and laws.
I didn’t mean
to have the predilections that I do
nor did I mean to get caught.
I can only apologize so much
for who I am
how I am
what I want.
All children are art
as I see it
and art
should be complimented
appreciated
experienced.
They will not allow me
to be myself
where I am going.
The place they’re taking me
will make me
into something far different than I am.
This could be the last time
that I’ll be myself.
I don’t know
how I feel about that.
jonberger 