Is it love that I’m feeling?
Is it a stiff breeze?
I am fifteen – it could be anything in between.
I suspect it’s the latter.
Your lips are so inviting,
plus you’ve got great backlighting.
It’s a picture that’s certainly inciting.
What could I do to know more about you?
Perhaps buy the full subscription package,
I suppose.
If it were true love, I would.
Rumi wrote, in a poem called “The Meaning of Love,”
that when trying to write about love
“I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away…”
Pretty fucking lazy, Rumi.
I think Van Hagar sang
“Finish What Ya Started”
just for you.
Like Paul Simon said,
“Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
Well?
We got off the phone an hour ago, agreeing that you’d pick me up.
Then my mother said I
couldn’t
go
out.
You’ve been traveling the distance ever since
and I
am waiting by the front door
for you to arrive
only for me
to have to tell you
to turn around
again.
It’s
cold.
We brought the ashes
and we brought the address
and we brought our memories
but we didn’t bring a picture of the old building
and if we had, it still might have been so different
between then and now,
we might not have been able to decipher which corner
my father had grown up on.
His parents had a candy store on one of these corners
above the train,
but there was no longer a retail store on any the corners
so it was difficult to ascertain where he’d been.
We wanted to leave some of his ashes
at the place he’d grown up,
but we didn’t have a good way of figuring it out.
A picture might have helped, but who knows?
Without one, it was just a matter of guesswork
and luck.
We had a bunch of ashes, though,
so we decided we could leave a little of him
in front of each of the buildings.
Even if that meant being wrong
three out of four times,
one part of Dad would end up near his
ancestral homeland,
so that would be a hit.
Of course, it would soon be blown away,
but you do what you can
in cases of spirituality.
When my father invited me to join him for a therapy session,
I expected combat.
The image that came to mind was an idealized me with a quarterstaff
defending against two attackers: my father and the therapist.
I wasn’t sure what the attacks would consist of, so I tried to come prepared.
I had a series of grievances listed and ready to go
so whatever my Dad had to say, I could counter it.
What occurred instead was a warm greeting from Dr. X,
who asked me if I had anything to say.
I did.
“I always felt my father was distant.”
They looked at each other and nodded, sadly.
“Dad left my house because he wanted to sleep late, which, as a child,
felt like an attack. I didn’t have the restraint for him to stay.”
Dad absorbed that, too.
And it went on. The things I was prepared to use as self-defense
were instead an opening salvo which, afterward,
my father apologized for,
with Dr. X chiming in.
It seemed like that was more of the purpose of the session:
closure for my father, to be able to speak honestly about issues with me
that perhaps we hadn’t been able to discuss without intermediaries.
I hadn’t been in therapy for a while at the time.
I was unprepared for its power.
I didn’t feel bad at the end of the session,
though it certainly felt incomplete.
We didn’t repeat the exercise, though.
I’m not sure what Dad got out of it,
if he was satisfied, or if it was emotionally difficult,
or what.
We did not discuss afterward.
By the time I started my own therapy,
we did not reverse the process.
It is too late now.
The last time you started over
you came back as Kennedy,
a no-nonsense clerk in Chicago, right?
No family, no friends. Just a head-down,
all business, serious imports/exports clerk
who was going to be business-oriented,
and maybe figure out a life from there.
You started going to a bar, joined a darts league,
gained some weight, got the jacket resized,
met a girl… kind of usual stuff.
You made a bet on your darts team, didn’t you?
The cycle kind of makes sense from there
if you think about it.
However the bet goes, the bookie sinks his teeth into you.
You get hooked on the action, and eventually
you owe the bookie what?
Seventy large? Shit.
So your throwing arm gets busted.
So you embezzle some exports to balance things out.
So you get a little bit caught
and you turn a little bit state’s evidence
and you get a little caught doing that
and now it’s time to start over again, isn’t it?
Who do you wanna be now?
Johnson, maybe?
I showed Philip the thing I had brought from the park.
“Do you think we can save her?”
“It’s not moving,” he said, picking at the bird with his pen.
“Hey!” I said quietly, so Mrs. Rosenfeld wouldn’t hear.
He didn’t care. “I think it’s dead. Mrs. Rosenfeld!”
In a minute, the teacher was over, looking at the small box
with the smaller bird inside of it.
“That bird is gone,” she said, solemnly. “Get rid of it,
before anybody catches anything.”
We carried the box to the bathroom, and dumped it into the garbage,
getting out of there before anyone else came along.
“Wanna go anywhere else?” Philip asked.
“Before going back to class?” I thought about it. “Like where?”
“Ms. Freeman’s class, Mrs. Takagi’s, the library… Thoughts?”
“I dunno…”
“Library!” Philip said, and headed for the stairs.
After entering, we headed straight to the research section,
where resided The Comic Book Heroes, by Jules Feiffer.
It features origin stories of a bunch of superheroes, like
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the original Green Lantern,
the Spectre, the Spirit, Captain America, and the Human Torch.
It was a bible to us.
Feiffer had written a huge essay about the heroes
and what they meant to him,
but it was far too long for us to appreciate
even as fifth graders.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled Philip out of there.
I don’t know how often he took sojourns like this,
but I didn’t think we’d get away with so long a departure.
Luckily, Mrs. Rosenfeld didn’t notice a thing.
We settled back into class, free of any bird,
and learned about something or other.
Should I come clean to the teacher now?
Take me back, please
from whence I came
to the land between the parks
where the cheap chinese flows free
(except for Monday, the day of rest)
and the all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet
has lost its way because there were too few takers.
Return me to the locale of many Mexican restaurants
but none satisfying to the gringo who knows nothing
of the authentic fare.
Bring me home to the place where cabs roam free
and right turns are delayed
and the police roam freely but seem to allow
the community inside the station.
Send me to a city where I recognize the occasional tree
on the occasional sidewalk,
where brownstones mingle with elevator prewar structures,
where avenues have existing bike lanes
but not yet lights to support them.
Take me to that special place, please.
If it happens quick,
there may be a tip for you.
I’ve got the good stuff. You need it in you.
Pump it out. Pump it out. Pump it out!
So take it always, if there’s a way to.
Pump it out. Pump it out. Pump it out!
I’ll get it to you, because I have to.
Pump it out. Pump it out. Pump it out!
I see you liked it. My, how the time flew!
Pump it out. Pump it out. Pump it out!
It needs to leave me whether you want it not, see?
I’ve a daily cycle, so please get it out of me.
Just get me tapped every few hours like a maple tree;
with all that liquid flowing out, I’ll feel so much more free.
Pump it out Pump it out Pump it out Pump it out Pump it out
Pump it out Pump it out!
You take what I’ve got just about every day now.
Pump it out! Pump it out! Pump it out!
You won’t want it always. In fact you’ll prolly disavow.
Pump it out! Pump it out! Pump it out!
I can’t say that I love the state of being part cow.
Pump it out! Pump it out! Pump it out!
Shit. I gotta save this for later for you, anyhow…
Pump it out! Pump it out! Pump it out!
Since you came around, the world has seemed like manga!
I love holding you close, just like a tiny panda.
You’re squeezing onto me, releases this Mylanta.
I provide to you, I feel a bit like Santa.
Pump it out Pump it out Pump it out Pump it out Pump it out
Pump it out Pump it out!
Pump it out.
Pump it out.
Pump it out!
This is bullshit.
The words
lining up in a row
to collect into a sentence
making a distinct point to obfuscate
to confuse
to intimidate and animadvert
to bring about mismeaning,
it’s just…
it’s bullshit.
We can do better than this, surely.
We can communicate with this language
that we love.
We can make love with our tongues
– I don’t mean anything by that.
I just mean we can make peace
through communication,
not raise each other hackles.
Or the other thing.
I can work with that, too.
But really,
I was just saying no to the bullshit.
jonberger 