jonberger

PIC PERFECT

When you go to the bathroom
leaving me alone in your room
since you don’t want me to disturb your room-mates
which is a little insulting
because I’m so charming
I sometime spend my time
investigating.

I devote most energy
to your photo albums
which really should be digitized
and if they are
you should really give me permission access
but it wouldn’t be as good
as seeing the shiny statements
of your early years
available only in sneaked seconds.

I don’t know if you’d forbid me
if you knew how I studied you
at fourteen,
eighteen,
twenty two
and twelve.
There were lots of cameras in your household,
weren’t there?

You were so excited
by so much.
You adventured
and still do, I know,
since only the daring
would waste time with me.

It’s the daring spirit
that keeps me exploring
in your apartment
when you abandon me
for your frequent pit stops.
I want to find your undiscovered country
and invade it.
I want to experience
all you have hidden
though if it bothers you
you never have to know.

IAM

It hurts sometimes
to hear you’re sad
and there’s nothing I can do about it
not because I am not a good and caring person
but because you don’t know me
and don’t know what I would do
to improve your lot
which is everything.

I would stop following other women.
I would dance like a fool
– more of a fool
than what got me arrested
as a post-grad.
I would look for the boyfriends
that made you cry and purposefully
pointedly poke them in the eye
and then not run away,
but stand proudly
awaiting the beating
they could finally direct
at one more deserving.

I would joke for you.
I would work for you.
I would introduce you to better boys
so you could quality compare
and allow them time
but hope that you would see
that none would care for you
quite so much as me.

I love you
from this distance
and if you know it
you probably think it’s something creepy
and small
but it’s big.
It’s bigger than my ribcage.
It’s bigger than my lungs.
It’s bigger than all the times I’ve ever had lunch return on me
and, considering the kind of crap I eat,
that’s huge.

I want you to know
that I would never allow you to be sad
if there was something I could do about it.
Also
I want you to know
who I am.

ARTISTIC IMPULSE

Beautiful songwriter
in the lonely cafe:
your voice is so lovely,
so sincere
when you sing the classics.
Continue, please.
Entertain us
with the canon.
Keep singing the songs of others.
Stick with the hits.

The material you are composing yourself
or written by the girlfriend
who subsidizes your career
with her job on Water Street
is not something we need to hear
ever again.

You are very pretty
and mildly accomplished
with late seventies folk rock.
You have found something
you can do
and do well.
Some people
can wait a lifetime
and still fail
in that regard.

Don’t push your luck.

THE RETURN

Honey, it
has been so long
since the funeral
and the ultimatum
and the end.

We have not spoken
in all that time
though I have envisioned
our conversations
– or, rather,
the gestures
since I can never be sure
just what you’ll say.

It was ugly
at the end,
I admit that.
You said some pretty hurtful things
things that I have thought about
and considered,
and finally decided were incorrect.

I’d like to explain that all to you,
if you’re willing to listen.

Tell me,
my sweet:
do you forgive me now?
Will you reconsider our life
and return to what we once kept so close?
Oh.
How about now?
Now?
…

now?

SEVEN SUBJECTS

It has come to my attention
through life study and seconds of research
that there are seven subjects of poetry
plus one
which makes eight.

All the topics that have ever been written about
are boiled down to the essence
of these seven and one:
Praise God
Praise love
Praise life
Damn love
Damn life
Damn society
Victory
and Pets.

There is nothing else and
if you think about it
for precious seconds
(like I have)
you will see how write I am.

Hymns praise God.
Love poems praise love.
Those two are the biggies.
Then
there are modern poems
new age pieces
about the glories and wonder of the world
praising life,
which might also be about God
or the Force
or however you anthropomorphize
your personal savior.

When your relationship goes bad
you will damn Aphrodite
but more frequently
love itself.
And if you write
about identity
or politics
or justice
then you’re damning society.

Of course,
if you like society,
you’re all about America
or liberty
or smiting thine enemies
and eating their brains.
It’s all about the Victory, yo.

After that,
there are people
who will talk about how cuddly
their little Snowflake is.
These people should be beaten
into a meal
for Snowflake
but their poetry topic
usually in doggerel verse
is begrudgingly unique.

And that’s it.
That’s all there is.
Come up with another subject
people write about.
Spend seconds
– moments in trying.

If you come up with something
let me know
so I can introduce you
to Snowflake.

ALL APOLOGIES LXXVIII

I am sorry.
I am sorry I forgot how to love you.
I am sorry that those things
that seemed so charming,
so adorable,
so long ago
have transformed into shuriken
tossed accidentally
at one another.

I am sorry that the joy I felt
in your presence
became boredom
then annoyance
then anger
and then
something else again.
I’m sorry we didn’t speak of this sooner.

I’m sorry when we did speak of this
it was encrypted
like a poem
or code
when what we were once all about
was sharing
and talking through dawn
and seeking to understand
all of each other’s stories
and sacrifices
and strengths.
I’m sorry it all went to shit.

I’m sorry for my part
but also for yours.
I’m sorry what we’ve been doing to each other
after what we used to do for each other.
I’m sorry I don’t want this anymore.

I’m sorry, really,
that it couldn’t have been handled better
or faster
or more elegantly.
I’m sorry
this is the end.

But
I am glad
that at last
it is over
– and for that, too,
I am sorry.

THE GAME OF MERCY

She said,
"If you’re not going to play the game…"
and I laughed: "I’ll try harder."
"OK," she said, looking up at me,
"One word, then. What is on your kitchen table?"
"Dirt," I answered.
She looked piercingly. "Jon…"
"Really! Well, dust, probably. But a lot of it".
"All right. How was the last book you read?"
I thought, then blurted. "Enlightening?"
"Good!" She held my hands in place
winning the game of Mercy
we hadn’t yet started.

"What’s next?" I asked.
"How do you feel – right now?"
and even before she stopped her sentence,
I answered: "Lucky."
We continued the word game
for snowy hours more.
I did all right,
once I found the rhythm.
But the game we hadn’t yet begun?
I never had a chance.

THESE WICKED GAMES

Never play Chicken with Steve
or I Never
or Mercy.
That boy plays for keeps
in the games children live.
He is brutal
and experienced
and, however engaged or competitive you may be,
he wins.

Steve is a winner
in a world of whiners
and is proud of his successes
in these wicked games.
He takes toys seriously
long after others might have
long ago given them up.

And playing with Steve
is a sucker’s bet
for he sucks the joy out of pleasure
and makes everything a contest
with consequences too dire
to deliberate.

So never play Catch with Steve
or Horse
or Race.
Never wrestle or argue with the boy
it is too important that he win
and too difficult to have fun.