jonberger

Please don’t tell me
whether or not you’re real.
I think
It’s best to never know.
I’ve enjoyed our time
and kind of like you
but believe
it would be safer
to maintain the mystery.

Tell me nothing
of the truth.
Let memories
of our time
remain pure.

I’ve been meaning to ask:
how did you do
with that illness last week?
Did you…
survive it?
It’s just that
quintuple pneumonia is nothing to sneeze at,
y’know?

I mean,
I – personally – have never been foolish enough
to contract a serious disease
– too much effort, in my opinion –
but I suppose if you were to try to catch something
that would be the one to get.

So:
how’d it work out?
Did you lose a limb
a lover
your lunch hour
from missing too many days of work?

How’d it go?
Did you die?
You DID?

What is this word
I am trying to say?
Is it furor
or fuhrer?
Why would I be talking about nazis?
Why would I not know what I’m talking about?
What am I saying?
What the hell is going on here
with this place
and these words
and my identity?

I lost my ID, didn’t I?
I lost it all.

I’m sorry:
What were we talking about?

This poem I wrote about Catweazle
is called “Jon Berger is great.”
It goes very much
like this:
Jon Berger is great.
Won’t you give him a date?
He’s the poet you hate to hate.
Jon Berger: checkmate.

Thank you, Catweazle.

I should not have done what I did
with you.
You shouldn’t have either
but I can see how you’d lose control
with one such as I.

I have no excuse
– but your beauty
and energy
and love for a life
I have grown so sickened and exhausted with.
I didn’t realize that the joy I found in you
was because you had joy in your life,
was so overflowing with wonder
that I could suck it
so freely from your tit
and you hardly noticed.

What you saw in me?
I can’t say.
I can’t imagine what pleasure you got
but I know
I do not belong with one so giving.
I have no right to take pleasure
in how you take pleasure.

I have no right to use these best years
of your life
when I squandered mine
so far back.

I should never have done what I did with you.
I knew better
and by now
I think
you do too.

My wife is much hotter
than I deserve.
She is smarter
kinder
better than me and what I have earned
in this life
and all the others I can recall.

She is greater than anything I should know
let alone possess
if I can be said to possess such a prize
like the stars
or the wind
or a riverboat.

What grace has allowed me
to attain such heights?
God knows.
I certainly don’t.

The five years that separate us
is a hole.
You cannot understand what awaits you
when you attain my seniority.

These five years
of maturity
of longevity
of mastery of basic principles
have been hard earned
and keep us apart
in a way that one thousand days
will not connect
not twelve hundred
not even fifteen hundred.

You are callow.
You are young.
You are less than me.
The difference between us
is a friggin’ chasm.

And
I may not have kiddies
and I may not have a job
or a home and a woman who loves me
but
That doesn’t stop me from being being older
and wiser
and – dare insanity?
Better?
I dare.
I dare.
I do!

When you’re older
you’ll know what I mean.
When you’re older, you’ll understand.
When you’re older
things will be positioned
in wats that you could never have imagined
for life will exist
in innovative ways
new ways
currently inconceivable ways
– at least, for you
for now.

Society will suddenly seem reordered
but really, it’ll be a simple filling of the blanks
in a way
that will inky make sense
– when?
When you’re older.

It’ll take a while.
It’ll seem like forever.
It’ll feel an eternity
as you wait to become
what you were always meant to be.
But, despite the wait,
it will happen
and you’ll see
that it all followed its pattern
as if it were predestined.

You’ll get it
someday
when you’re older.