jonberger

SAD SONG SAY

The breakup song you wrote me
was not very good.
The rhythm was lacking
and the sentiment trite.
You could do better.
Hell, you’ve yelled at me
so many times,
some of them must have rhymed.

I do not accept receipt of that song
or the inspiration.
Come back to me
and try again
when you’ve done a better job of it.

RAY BAN

When Ray comes to town
it all goes wrong:
No more drinking,
or shoplifting,
and only the cleanest of whores.
It’s like being in a monastery
where there’s not one bit
of monk on monk action.

When Ray comes to town
we lose something special:
the weird
the wild
the whiling away hours,
willing ourselves into every sort of trouble.
With Ray around, we regain control,
like a dowager aunt
who will write us out of the will.

When Ray comes to town
it’s all different,
and diminished
and inarguably undesirable.
Welcome back, Ray.

SAPPY

The tree we planted
at my boy’s birth
still grows
upward
outward
increasing its influence
and health
while my boy
long ago
stopped.

His plateau was so long ago
while that tree
continues to climb.
And the tree is lovely
and I’m glad we lay that seed
and I’m proud that something
I’d brought into the world
had attained such heights
but
I just wish
it had been my son
and that he’d become anything
other than a gym teacher.

THE FILE III

I have
locked deep down
in a box kept away
from all society,
a single simple sentence
that will tear her apart
the instant she hears it.

I keep it quiet,
share with no one my secret stock,
a sinister turn of phrase
that is cruel and unusual,
but perfectly suited
for its particular victim.
Oh, how she will be crushed
when she hears me say it.

She knows nothing
of its power,
its brutality,
the research required to compose it,
the pointed, planned effort of its execution.
She knows naught about my ultimate doomsday weapon
and hopefully
never will.

For after I detonate
this particularly potent mind bomb,
when I utter those eighteen syllables of destruction,
when I recite this unspeakable,
there will be no return.
This is my sentence of last resort
and I pray
she never makes me have to use it.

ILLICIT WEB

You swore you wouldn’t call
when she might be home.
I thought you understood
the delicacy of the situation
and wouldn’t do something
that could so easily jeopardize
the equilibrium.

Were you dumb
or dangerous?
Doesn’t matter.
You can’t do that again.
When I am here,
we mustn’t speak,
lest she uncover our illicit web.

Keep mum, then, Mum,
until the surprise party.

OUR UNITY

It would have been better
had I never told you,
just kept it to myself.
What danger is betrayal
if it is buried so deep
no one can ever uncover it?
Is it really a secret if it’s never shared?
I could have swallowed this shame,
you’d be none the wiser
and we would remain as happy
as we were just yesterday.

I should have kept quiet;
held it in,
but you’d always sworn I could tell you anything
that nothing was taboo
that our bond was eternal
and no earthly force could break it
– who knew those were lies you told?
Did you?

For my crimes against our unity
were not celestial,
had no satanic origins,
were simple and mundane.
I broke our vows
and I destroyed our future
– not with the betrayal
but the stupid
stupid admission.

REPRISE

Please do not tell Janine Turner
about the poem I wrote
where I violently fucked her
– or rather, a poster of her –
into soggy shreds
that could only be thought to be her
by the imaginative mind
that wrote the poem
in the first place.

Janine does not need to know.
She wouldn’t understand
this American boy’s urges and needs
and would certainly not see the value
of my posting my artist musings
all over America Online
and parts further unknown.

I would appreciate it
if you kept my poem
its contents
and my fantasies
away from Ms. Turned
– at least until I’ve gotten a chance
to introduce myself.

Please?
How can I make it worth your while?

PIERCED

Does it ever bother you
that Britney Spears has lived a fuller
more accomplished life
than you likely ever will?
Does it shame you
put you in a proper place?
Wealth, family, fame…
multiple marriages
many more sexual partners,
all around success?

Sure, she’s had help.
She has an army of support
to lean upon
for how could we have the divine Ms. Spears
without Hanson
without Tiffany
without Sean Cassidy?

She couldn’t have done it alone
but still, her heights
are higher than yours
for you?
You couldn’t have done it all.