jonberger

You cannot plan your path
to inspiration.
You can lay seeds,
hoping to reap whirligigs
or cute cat memes
or whatever it is you’re working on
but
in the finalty,
creation ain’t science:
it’s art.

The magical things
are not thought out,
they are felt through
with carcrash intensity
in the middle of the mind.

The magical things
are playful revelations
in a language no one fully understands
or truly wants to
except those who wish to merchandise their souls.

The magical things
come and go
as they wish
like a dandelion seed
or a whirligig
or art
– or something else.

Dear Mr. President:
You need to understand
the world does not simply follow
your simple plan
– or maybe it’s not that simple.
I don’t have a TV.
I don’t have a TV because
SOMEONE thought it was more important that I pay taxes
rather than very hat sweet 80 incher I had my eye on.

Am I blaming the gubmint?
Hardly.
I’m sure the Navy needed another six hundred dollar wrench.
I didn’t need cable.
I didn’t need that second car.

But I’ll tell you what I do need,
Mister President.
Oh yes:
I’m gonna tell
and you’re gonna hear.
I need a Berkins’ Bakery banana cream pie
right now.

I have earned it,
Mister P,
by being kind
and considerately righteous
and moray superior.
I need that pie
as an act of charity.
I need that pie
as a form of penance.

I want the Berkins’ Bakery banana cream pie
perfectly rich
that I so richly deserve
right in the face.

It is the only thing
that can make things right.
Do this for me, President Mister,
and we’ll see about a third term.

The sauce on the beast in the city
will bully saucy city beasts
in an urban, especially saucy fashion.
That is what you’re getting at,
is it not?
That
is what you’re seeking to say.

If so,
why not say that?
Is it perhaps because
it makes as much sense
as saying nothing?

And
could you get me some chips
to go with that sauce?

I didn’t go to your party because I hate you.
I didn’t go to your party because you stink.
I didn’t go to your party because the people that you like
are not the people I like
…at least, not since you decided
that the people you like
– like like –
no longer includes me
and they all liked that
just fine.

I didn’t go to your party because I had better things to do.
I didn’t go to your party since I had a cold.
I didn’t go to your party, though I thought about it
for a long long time
and even bought the spray paint and ipecac
just in case
the party needed some
livening.
I didn’t go to your party because I thought better of it.

I did not go to your party last night
or last week
or last month
and probably won’t go again
to any of the many many MANY
events you insist on hosting
despite your parents’, room-mates’, and landlord’s insistence
for quite some time to come.

I did not feel the need.
I do not have the urge
I have not found
the stomach
for quite such an affair
again.

I didn’t go to your party last night
because
I never received an invitation..

There is no such place as Fredonia, Wisconsin
but
if there were
I would go there.
I would trek out,
hitching,
taking plane, train
or filthy rainslick,
hydroplaning my way
to that blessed town.

I would go
to that fictional place
in that factual cheese state
and I would settle down.
I would find a home there
in Fredonia, Wisconsin
And become exactly what
I always meant to be.

I would transform.
I would translate.
I would transubstantiate my way
into a newer way of being.
I would alter.
I will reactivate.
I will become what I always hoped to,
what I always meant to be
what I always wished to become.
I would
live in Fredonia, Wisconsin
happily ever after.

And
I would be at the end of my story
if there had only ever been
a Fredonia, Wisconsin.
As it is
I must stay with all of you
here
in a world without Fredonia.

There is?
Right off some lake?
Lake Michigan?
It’s there,
waiting for me?

Oh.
Dear god.
Oh. .

Don’t make me go to your boyfriend’s shows
anymore.
It’s not just that the music’s bad,
made by a band of posers
or that the lyrical subject matter
has been better covered by earlier artists
like Dr. Seuss and Tweedledumber.

I don’t want to go
to your boyfriend’s show
because of the look in your eye
when the look on his face says he means to be profound.
It’s not passion that’s going through you.
Lust is too small a word.
You seem
engaged
in a way I haven’t seen before
like a beautiful zealot
gazing upon her new god.

You have never seemed that way
in my presence
– ever –
and I don’t believe
I like it.

It’s sad,
how you are,
at the front of his stage:
fanatical,
devoted.
I don’t care for it
so please don’t ask me to go
for if you request it,
I must comply.

While the building burned
and we were asked by some cruel god
to decide what it was we treasured most in the world
– or, at least,
in the apartment –
my girl and I came to our decisions quickly
independently
and significantly.

She rushed to her safe
and dragged it
in drenched curtains
to ensure it was protected from
fevered heat
and falling beams
as she escaped the fiery maw
that was once our home.

Once out,
she unlocked the safe
and found her photos:
rife with memories of lost aunts
international voyages
and ex-boyfriends.
She looked especially longingly
at couple shots of her and Steve
and I wondered if I made the right choice
when I carried out my treasured secretarial porn
since I’d have to return it to Steve the next week anyway.

It seems that everything I have to say
is something that I’ve said.
Every thought I try to think’s
already in my head.

I used to be original, but lately, in defeat
I’ve found that new attempts at cleverness
are replete with my repeats.

My head’s been clouded in a purple haze
for nigh on forty days.
What can I do to change my ways
and find new things to say?

If you can help, I’d be in joy
and freed from my slump
– for I have been…

look, gimme a hand, all right?

When you get back from your little hospital stay
when you feel a tad healthier
when you think yourself ready
and willing
and able
to handle issues
of a more stressful nature
then, I think,
we should speak.

We should talk topics we’ve avoided too long.
You should know what you do to me
– what you’ve done to me.
You leave me dry.
Rather,
it dries me out when your not here.
I need replenishment in your absence
but there’s no one to help.

When you’re gone
I fall apart.
Keep that in mind
in the future
the next time
you need to go away
to your little hospital.
Or
just don’t go.

Pablo P

Pablo Picasso was called an asshole
like,
eight times a day
– sometimes thrice before breakfast.
From birth,
this unjustifiable prick
would lord his magnified genius
over the rest of us,
redefining art itself
sometimes in his sleep.
He was called an asshole
day and night,
night and day,
whether working in watercolors
or chat charcoals,
porting coke to his studio.
He was named a nasty man.
Described as a dick.
Pablo Picasso was always called an asshole.

But that’s all right.
It didn’t stop his fame
his fortunate force of accomplishment.
His announced assholery
never stopped a single Sally
from getting in his pants.
He was beloved and astonishing
despite being an ass.

I aspire to that.
I want to be a man respected
regardless of his horrible behavior.
I seek stardom and adulation
without an instant of effort made
toward another human being.
I seek to be so great
that the world loves me
despite myself.

I want to be called awful
but still, be called.
I want to be an asshole
but still be loved.
It will happen
someday.
I’ve got half of it down…