When the gerbil died
I didn’t know what to do
so I danced a mournful dance
and I bought a tiny box
and I went to the back yard
and I prayed on it
and then I grilled the gerbil
so we could be closer
than we’d ever been before
and when I threw him up
ten minutes later
I buried it in the hole
and bought some cigars
to put in the box.
What did you do
when the gerbil died?
Look at all the little fishies
swimming by the moat
doing laps around our ready steady houseyboat.
The waters have all risen as the ice caps melt away
and all the things I think or thought come out as now I say
Fishes and boats
Fishes and boats
are the things I see.
Fishes and boats
Fishes and boats
surround my family.
Together we will float this world
just me, my wife and our nine girls.
Fishes and boats
Fishes and boats
it looks quite wet to me.
When I go out for my morning jog
I need to drop the giant log
which lets me run in place for miles
“No! Leagues!” I’m told by youngest child. “Look at all the…”
Fishes and boats
Fishes and boats
all on this lovely morning
Fishes and boats
Fishes and boats
see the sails a’soaring.
With all these ships in New York Town
it’s only bottom floors that drowned.
Fishes and boats
Fishes and boats
Let’s find an olive dove.
The swine is a clean creature
I don’t care what you’ve heard
it’s not half as filthy as surfing bird
and I should know, yes, know I sherd.
I’ve been a pig, and it’s ignominious
the way they treat us
so I’m glad
that I’ve gotten over that!
Everybody loves bacon, sure,
but that was me, for a while.
I don’t give a damn what you believe:
That was me. On fire. In a pan!
I’ve had some pork
in Brooklyn New York
but never again. Since I’ve been a pig,
I couldn’t eat one, too.
You don’t get what it’s like
to anthropomorphize yourself
with the different characteristics of the different animals.
You don’t understand
what it is
to be me
or a cat.
Or a dog.
Or a zebra-emu hybrid.
Or a pig!
Oink.
When I killed you and tore you apart
When I killed you and sliced out your heart
When I killed you and fried up the bits,
first I ate you, then went to defecate.
When I killed you because you were mean
and then cut off the fat from the lean
I fried up some portions just cuz I could
and then when I chewed you, you tasted quite delicious,
if I do say so myself.
I’m not bad in the chef department.
When I killed you to make my next meal,
I didn’t use poison; it has null appeal.
I opted for bludgeons and knifework instead
and didn’t let up until you were comatose.
and, soon after, expired. Slaughtered. Murdered.
Killed.
When I killed you I had no regret
but some days have passed and now in my head
are feelings that weren’t considered before,
like: now that I’ve killed you, I can’t kill you anymore.
Oh oh oh OH!
Oh say can you see
where time has taken me?
Up North to this land where I belong
and I will si – i – i – t – ing
this so-o-o-o-o-oooong!
Ah ah ah ah coo!
I had to get away from you.
You!
You you you you YOU!
You hurt me, you did it.
You were the one
so I left you with the pow’r in my lu-u-uNGs!
Oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh!
Haah Cha cha cha…
It goes on for a while. You may want to take a smoke break…
On that first date
that virgin fact-finding mission
to ascertain if we could be anything
other than friends
or the strangers we’d been the week before,
you asked me certain questions
that I answered honestly at the time
but didn’t realize were not entirely true.
I’d said I didn’t want kids,
didn’t think it would do much good
to add mouths
to a shitty world
but,
after what little time we spent together,
I realize that there are boys and girls
that deserve to be:
yours.
I said I really liked Dylan
because I am supposed to
but I realize
that I’ve never really understood
just what he was ever talking about.
“Tangled Up in Blue?”
What does that mean?
Is he supposed to be wrapped in color?
Come ON!
And royal blue isn’t my favorite color.
I said so
because it seemed manlier than periwinkle.
But in retrospect
I find my favorite color
is whatever you happen to be wearing.
I bring all this up
because I don’t want you to think you were alone
in your little white lies.
Like you
I too
was untrue.
Still
I do wish
you’d mentioned the husband thing
a little earlier.
She seemed unimpressed.
“Baby is it hot in here or is it just you?” I asked
and she snorted.
“Corny, lame and wrong,,” she said,
“You gonna ask if my father’s a thief,
or how tired I must be,
or tell me
how you’d rearrange the alphabet?”
“Those sound good,” I said, “tell me more.”
I don’t think I will,” she said,
backing away.
“Come back, baby,” I said in my best Lenny Bruce.
“I’d only use these lines because I can’t think of anything smarter in your presence.
“Have you seen you?”
“You’re warmer,” she said, “but…”
“From a bad start, I can only get better.”
She smiled
looked past me
and said, “Is that…!”
“Is what?”
I asked, turned,
and saw nothing.
When I turned back
she was gone.
“Well played,” I said.
I was impressed.
She told me she wasn’t going to drink
for the next three hours
and smoke weed for two.
She said she wouldn’t have sex with strangers
until Labor Day
“But maybe it was last Labor Day,” she winked.
She told me she had daddy issues
and momma issues
and old dirty “uncle” issues.
She was a problem child
she told me
and she was gonna get past that,
barring any unfortunate setbacks.
I asked myself
what I could do
to become a setback.
She couldn’t tell me
as her tongue was firmly ensconced
between the bartender’s teeth.
“Next week,” I told myself,
walking out,
“or maybe after Labor Day…”
It’s going to work out.
It always does,
really,
in the final analysis.
Everything goes according to the plan
of God
or Gaia
or secular humanism personified
in the shape
of a moron named Hank.
Things work out
the way they should
because if you run the camera long enough
everything settles.
Everything stabilizes.
This may not be a happy thing.
It may result in something truly and colossally awful
but it will RESULT
and you can rest easy
in the promise
of that eventual ending.
You
and I
and all others
will end up supplying the world
with exactly what it needs:
fertilizer to produce the next generation.
It goes the way it should
and that’s good
though not always for you.
I am sorry.
I know
– I can tell
from your stance
and your tired eyes
that you are sick of the attention,
done with the stares.
I realize you don’t need
the additional attention
I now provide
and I get that you, like some latter day Greta,
want no one sniffing out your candy.
It’s just that I’m sweet on you.
I recognize
that when you’re as beautiful
and wounded
as you so clearly are
it’s like the freaks smell your weakness
and jump head first
into the hunt
to take advantage of your vulnerability
and get from you
whatever they can.
I would like to join their list
if you would be so kind.
I will be different from the other predators
in that I am asking your permission
which is a step in the polite direction.
Won;t you let me,
please,
to the best of my ability,
exploit you?
jonberger 