jonberger

The ship exploded out of its chassis
burst through the heavens
and ruptured the atmosphere around it
heading to parts unknown
– into the skies
heading for adventure.

We were looking for new worlds to conquer
my crew and I.
We were planning to explore the universe
and discover new things to exploit.
We were taking our pluck and ingenuity
and any spare parts we could find
into galaxies far away.
We’d be gone a long time.
We had our mission to fulfill.

The space around us
changed color.
The air within us
changed texture.
The smells around us
were basically the same
but sound
stopped
as the entire crew
all nine of us
stood looking out
astonished at the worlds we were seeing
and the world we were not.
Words failed
and we lost our tongues
and there was nothing to hear
as the rest of our senses
were barraged with the exotic.

We were afraid of what we would find
We were excited about what we could see.
We were surprised to learn what we’d have to do.
We were were prepared for adventures aplenty
but not their absence
so
after too long searching for things to take
hunting for others to despoil
we turned around
deterred
until we returned
interned on our own earth.

We were alone.
We found nothing.
We came.
We saw.
We went full circle
tail firmly betwixt legs
don’t you concur?

It never ceases to amaze me
that the first time I saw you
was the fourth time you saw me.
You…
"You are so beautiful to me,"
you tell me every now and then
but you,
you’re beautiful to everyone
all the time
and the first time I spied you across the room
I didn’t quite gasp
but I did notice the universe take a turn for the better.

So how is it possible
that I might have been in your presence
and not even realized it?
Is it conceivable
you can hide your light
with sunglasses or puffy hats
or too many drugs snuffing the sparkle in your laugh?
How could I not SEE you
when you so naturally steal the center?

And more importantly
how did you see me three whole times
before I opened my eyes to reciprocate?
What was I doing that insured such total recall?
Oh.
Drinking.
Sweating.
Passing out at your feet.
That sounds about right.

Any way
you could maybe spend some time
forgetting those early meets?

I wish you hadn’t left, Caroline
we could have had a future, and it would have been real fine.
But you had to travel your path, so I guess I’ll just go mine.
I’m sorry that you’re gone, Caroline.

I’m sorry ’bout the way I sold your dog.
I’m sorry I blew your grandma, and then put it on my blog.
The divorce, it was unfortunate – but left Google all agog.
Still, I’m sorry about your grandma – and the dog.

If you’d stayed around, we would be wed.
We’d celebrate anniversaries, with breakfasts in our bed.
Either that or one or both or all of us’d be dead.
Prob’ly nothing in between: dead or wed.

I miss you most in mornings, Carolyn.
That’s when you seemed the happiest, but also the most thin.
Plus, that was the time most of the arguments I’d win
– maybe cuz that’s when I’d slip you gin.

If you will come back to me today,
I won’t make you apologize, you wouldn’t have to say
a single thing to earn forgiveness which would come your way
the minute you come home with me to stay.

You should move here
to America.
You should try your luck
on the Great White Way
and see Jaws
and eat hot dogs
and enjoy all the things
this fat country
has to offer.

You could stay with me.
I’ve got a couch
or, if that’s not comfortable enough,
you can share the bed.
It’s big enough for two
if you don’t mind sharing.
That’s one of the beauties of the ol’ US:
we got big here
or we go home.

I don’t want you to go home.
I want you to be away from your comfort zones
in locales where you need a guide
who will take you by the hand
and lead you to all the best places.

I think you might like it here
if you have it a chance.
Leave everything you have
everything you know
and stay with me for
a little while.

I’d do the same for you
if you lived here, too.

If I were Tom Lehrer
I would not have retired
from songwriting so early.
I would not have produced
so few albums
and I would certainly not continue teaching
some stupid snotty
students
for so long
when a higher calling
was so close
so viably within reach.

If I were Greta Garbo
I would have kept my face
in the public eye
being sure to define my own story
and not be controlled by the vagaries of fafe.

If I were Roger Waters
I wouldn’t have left the band.
If I were Syd Barrett
I wouldn’t have gone crazy.
If I were Richard Wright
I wouldn’t have died.
If I were Nick Mason,
I think I’d have been all right.

If I were Jesus
I think I’d have sought to promote my purposes
and gotten a handle on my branding
and kept a more civil tongue
and lasted a little longer

and definitely
I’d smite the Beatles
because of Lennon’s big fucking mouth.

If I were someone else
I’d be happier
Because I’d know what to do
because it’s always easier
to know what to do
from the outside.

There are mistakes you make once
and then never again.
There are mistakes you don’t realize are mistakes
until the stark morning shows you the facts
in bright daylight
and you understand
with vivid horror
just how you were a fool.

I was a fool
last night.
Had I thought about your itinerary
how long you’d be in town
and what else you had to do,
I would have pulled it out
and exploited my favorite tool
to the best of my ability.

I should have taken your picture
over and again
had I realized it would be our last time
I would have had the chance.
If I had thought it through
I would have recorded your
white fringe boots clacking down the streets
of my city,
the long slit of your skirt
proving a view of tanned legs
and perfect knees.

I could have made prints of your shiny granny glasses
your bandana
your irregular uneven smile
and your sensuous pout.
I would have chronicled you
for my memory
and to prove that someone like you
was once seen
with someone like me.

I thought I had more time.
I thought there would be another chance.
I suffered youth’s folly
and will always regret
what I lost
due to my false belief
in a future I never got to see.

There are mistakes you make once
and then never again

and
there are mistakes you repeat
ad nauseum
ad infinitum
until you die.

I pray
that this mistake was the former
and, if not,
I pray that the Hindi are right
so I might get another chance.

She finally showed me the tattoo
the one she’d said
I needed to wait
to see
until she was sure I was "the one."

Now she’s sure
so now I’ve seen it
and now
I question
everything.

It says "I love you,"
which is so like her:
open
honest
caring for the world around her.
It is an invitation
that I wonder
who has accepted.

She needed to make sure
I deserved to see these open words
on her stomach
which could be visible at any lifeguard station
on Coney Island.

That tattoo could have been read
by all her friends
in her mid-riff bare days
or even in her bedroom
being petted by the boys on the block.

Who has read her tattoo.
Who has understood this exclamation?
Who has been loved already
by Susie?

She loves me.
Her body tells me so.
Now I must answer
if I love her not.

You are so beautiful
says the graffiti in the bathroom stall
as I expel the Indian buffet lunch
in an explosive manner.

I feel bloated.
I feel grumbly.
I feel weak
and stupid for eating so much
and dumb, for
I cannot explain why I do this to myself
with such retarded frequency.

I want to feel beautiful
but that’s a feeling
that feels so very far away.
If I had a pen on me
I would respond to the writing on the wall
telling those words just what’s what.
I am not beautiful today;
I feel like shit.

She was lyrical.
She was flowing.
She was motion
elegance and beauty
honesty in action.

She was daring.
She was dauntless.
She was dance
incarnate.
She was hot.

She was fast.
She was fearless.
She was fierce
a fiery force unfurled.
She was fucking fantastic
is what she was.

She was something
on the dance floor
with suitors approaching
leaving bloody
and doubters attendant
leaving converted
and songwriters, musicians,
producers of all sorts of art
coming upon her
inspired to create.

Such was her magic.
Such was her power.
Such was her soul.
She was astonishing.
She was magnificent.
She was lyrical.

Some days
while lying in bed
I think of things that might’ve been.
I wonder how life’s lines would be laid
if
I had taken you back
that fourth time.

When you came up to me
in the dining commons
one month after
those three Fall months where you broke my heart
three full times
and explained that you needed a friend
a friend like me
someone who had understood you
had loved you
had appreciated you
in a way that your new boyfriend didn’t,
and asked me to be that friend,
I was dead quiet
as I considered.

For a moment,
I wanted to be there for you
to hold you like I’d done so recently
to comfort you and ensure that you slept well
and awoke happy.
I thought about how I had missed you as a friend
and that
if we opened up communication,
what else might eventually be opened.

If I had welcomed you back,
I suspect,
we would have been kissing in a week
and rutting in two.
Your boyfriend would be out of the picture in three
and, if history served,
I’d be kicked back to the curb in four.

Perhaps nothing else would be different
and you would simply have another notch
on your belt
while I had another excuse to get you.
Perhaps we would have had that extra month
or maybe we would have made it
that fourth time
and still be together today.

Maybe I shouldn’t have told you to get lost
that brunch in the dining commons.
Sometimes I think about it
In bed
but then I get up.