jonberger

FOURTHLY

The celebration of bombs
does me no good.
The joy experienced
in explosions
is unfathomable and
extremely beyond me.

If I can avoid
bursting bombs
and real rockets
exploding overhead,
I’d be happy
– though just as happy
to skip the fakers,
year fireworks.
Fuck the Fourth.
I won’t have seconds.

HIS REQUIRING ESTIMATES

Matt’s dildo requirements
are too specific
for anyone to help him
in the shopping.
He knows what he wants
even if he has trouble describing it.

“Sometimes, I wish I had the telepathy, or, you know,
some way to communicate my ideas
so that others could understand them.
What do you call that?”

He doesn’t know, but
he does know
his dildo needs a fringe
and polka dots
and fourteen variable speeds
so the shopping gets specific
as he assesses
his requiring estimates.

BARRY SAYS

Barry tells me his time is up.
Barry tells me there is little to fear.
Barry tells me it’s the Day of Reckoning,
he reckons
and that things will be different.
Barry says we ought to find God.

Barry tells me the fight is nigh
while giants try
to kiss the sky
where eagles fly
and doves cry.
Barry tells me things are getting real, yo!
Barry says the ice cream is melting
and I should make some freezer room
to save it.

Barry tells me, “No, really. Move that shit around.
Don’t let it melt!”
Barry tells me I fucked shit up.
Barry says he’s out of here.

THE INEVITABLE

If you focus on the cracked violet paint
on the nails
on the hand
holding on
to your dear life
it might postpone the inevitable.

Do not look over at her lacy red bra
jiggling rhythmically
so close
in the car.
Entrancing it may be,
it may well break your concentration
and take you on another path.

Stay strong.
Stay on track.
Maintain.
It’s hard
but it won’t be
forever.

MISUNDERSTOOD

The novels you write
are not the novels
anyone cares to read
which might be your intent
as your art may be too sophisticated
for the huddled masses
yearning to be free
of inconvenience.

Your work is for better people
theoretical people
people who deserve your brilliant thoughts and ideas
as opposed to all the folks
whom you actually know
and who have actually tried
to slog through your text.

They were not good enough for you.
They do not appreciate
what you produce
and never will.

You might as well accept it:
your before your time
and your novels
will not be published while you’re alive.

You won’t be published anytime afterwards,
either,
but
at least you won’t have to see it.

RHYMES WITH EX

The boy you settled on
is kind
and smart
and pretty funny, really
and
he bears
a significant resemblance
to an earlier suitor
whose name
just so happens
to rhyme with Wii.

I’m not suggesting
that there’s something
in your past
that you’re trying to resolve
in the present
but, if you’d like
I’m happy to discuss with you
some late night
over drinks
and condoms
and rhymes with ex.

RHYMES WITH GILLIAM

In the cemetery
at the gravesite
of a family that will remain nameless
(but rhymes with “kill, son”),
there is the headstone
of a wife
that said
among other things
in quotes
the following:
“I will never love another
the way that I love you.”

Next to the stone
of “rhymes with wary”
is that of a man
whose years
suggest that he is her groom
as his epitaph repeats hers
– though separated by thirty years.

The catch?
At the side
of “rhymes with Gilliam”
are the names of three other women
each with the same last name
and “beloved wife”
among their credits.

They could be his daughters
but no other men
are included
and these are the long-ago dead
before the girls
would choose to keep their daddies’ names.

“I will never love another
the way that I love you,”
he wrote,
post mortem,
and perhaps
there is some missing explanation.
Maybe he had a way
to love them all differently,
like,
“from eighteen ninety
to eighteen ninety six”
or
“during the first Roosevelt presidency,”

Certainly,
there could be some rationale
for Mister Rhymes with “Kill, son”‘s serial after-expiration philandering,
but I prefer
to think
that the dude was a dick
and
I’m glad he’s dead.

PRECIOUS MOMENTS

I don’t want to disturb you
but
I would like to take some time
to say
just how fond I am
of you
and wish
that I could know you
better
than the constructs between us allow.

I would like to have deep conversations
with you
at varied times
with differing positions.
I would like to know
all about your views
on the parrot
or Poirot
and pierce all the other mysteries
I have yet to uncover.

I don’t want to get in the way
of your day,
but I’d like you to understand
how long I’ve waited for this moment
– so long as it doesn’t creep you out.

I want to find a way
to breach our distance
and become something much closer
than we are.
I want to experience something special
– that I have not yet found
with anyone –
with you.

I hope you will allow it.
I hope you will take of me
what you will
and
I hope you don’t call the Pigs.