jonberger

“This is not the day for it, Henriette!”
She looks at me balefully, full of apology.
I don’t buy it for a minute.
“Come on, now. You broke that planter to get my attention.
You know you did. I am down to my last blue nerve with you.
If you don’t behave, it is off to the dungeon with you!”
She knows I mean it, so she sits up to her full height
which is really something to see.
“That’s better, Henriette. I appreciate you making an effort.
Very good. Perhaps I’ll be able to give you a little treat.
Now, go to your corner, and we should be able to go for a walk
– later!”
Henriette seems a little sulky now,
but the many-eyed creature slithers off to her own dimension,
taking madness and infinite dissension with her.
I hold what remains of my self-control with me
and thank the heavens that our universe is allowed
to breathe for a moment more.

It is not the biggest, not by a long shot.
But the Empire State Building was the tallest in the world
for its moment
which lasted forty years.
Now, as you climb, you will become ragged,
taking fateful breath after breath
reaching ever higher
only to reach the eighty sixth floor,
only the chin of the sky,
where you can see higher than ever before:
as far as eighty miles away.

Later, you can go to the World Trade Center,
reaching loftier heights through easier means.
That will not mean as much as now
when you have, by your own power,
witnessed the majesty of the city.

You may collapse now.
It is worth it.

“To make me scream,” he said,
“You’ll need two parts shock, three parts danger,
one part pleasure,
two parts fear,
and four parts narcotics.”

“That’s all well and good,” I said,
“But why would you ever tell someone
the way to make you scream?”

“You know,” he grinned mischievously,
“In case you wanted to.”

Her backyard was a glass junkyard
where all her crystal had gone to rot.
We walked it sometimes, when she wanted to smoke.
I appreciated that, not being inside, where the smell would be contained,
though all the shambles of ice beneath our feet freaked me out.

“My mother loved this stuff,” she’d say, forgetting the repetition,
“but it always felt too… careful for me. I was worried growing up
that I would break it.”
“Looks like you did.”
“When she was gone,” she’d nod, “I took a bat to her collection,
and it was simply smashing.”
I laugh at her punchline every time.

She didn’t destroy everything indoors.
She would bring some of the glass outside and swing at it,
wearing protective gear.
She would stomp some stuff underfoot.
“It took a long time to go through everything,” she said.
“It looks like there’s still some solid pieces,”
I gesture to what looks like a mermaid figurine.
“Special occasions,” she says with a smile. “I’ll get to them, eventually.”

We lost touch. I don’t know if she ever got to destroy everything
or if she herself was destroyed first.

When I biked with autumn frequency
I’d end up in the cemetery
where the ghost pipes would oft sing to me.
I could hear of legends wordlessly.

It is not as if they all made sense,
all these histories from the well-past tense.
Still, I listened hard, as I lay on fence,
while the pipes would information dispense.

And I learned of life from the ghostly dead,
such as Eerie Anne, and Olde Headless Jed
who had been short-lived, but their lives, long shed
and who knew their graves like the back of their… heads.

Lots of data came from the stones out there.
Much of it good; none I shall share.
If you want to know about about the dead, go where
I had been by bike, if you’re not too scared…

I gave my love a bouquet of lightning and she looked back at me.
"To symbolize the thrill you bring to every moment,"
I swore,
"and the thunderous love I have for you!"

She seemed somehow unimpressed.
"Samuel gave me the rivers,"
she said, "I can drink of the rivers.
What can I do with your storm?
Be electrocuted?"

"Well, for one, Sam can’t give you the rivers;
they’re the King’s. This is more of a metaphor,
and -"
"Looks like the storm is ending," she said,
walking away. "You know,
Bobby offered me the earth beneath my feet."
"Again, that’s the King’s, not his to provide,
but very generous of him -"
"I can touch the earth. I can feel the water."
"What can I do with your thunder and lightning?"
"You can feel them, just like you can feel me?"
"Inappropriate."
I thought it might have been too far. Perhaps it was
the shock value I was going for.
"Er… sorry. I will seek a better gift for next time."

So now I’m looking for a bouquet of starlight.
Anybody got some?

Late nights, with less distractions,
I hunt your history
and it sometimes succumbs to me,
providing details I had not previously found
or have lost in stupors.

I look for you and hope to find aspects
that will explain
what you never did.
Why you are gone.
Why you could not remain
with any of your partners
long enough
for me to find answers through them.

I have asked myself enough times
to understand you
and gotten nowhere.

Perhaps
there are further secrets to uncover,
somewhere other than your beginning.
I shall hunt further for them.

I was following the rules as I understood them
– but I didn’t understand the rules well
at all.

It was my first time at a strip club
and Lach got me a lapdance
from this gorgeous blonde.
As she grinded atop me,
I thought the proper thing to do
was to show appreciation,
so I put my hands on her hips
and said “Oooh yeah!”

She very gently removed my hands
and softly said “No touching,”
and continued her act.
Her response seemed sensual,
and I wasn’t put off.

I just didn’t know what I was doing.

With the dance done,
my companions got ready to leave.
“Don’t get up,” Lach said, and was out the door.
I stayed around, to write about the experience.

I chatted with one of the waitresses,
who was also in a band,
but the authorities didn’t like me taking notes,
and eventually asked me to leave.

I just didn’t know the rules.

I think about it less often than I should:
the one thing that defined all others.
The one article that changed my life.
The cover story on Brenda Kahn
in The Valley Advocate encouraged me
to see her when she went to Amherst
and when I did, I wanted to see her
the next night in Springfield.

I didn’t go, but when I moved back to New York
the next year, I went to see her at the Sidewalk Cafe
where I remained seated for about twenty seven years
where I began a journalist, a poet, an artist.

I got jobs through that location,
I got friends,
I got apartments.
My life was defined in most every way
through the decision to see Brenda Kahn
all thanks to the article in The Advocate.

Hey, take a look at me now!
What am I? Your own brown cow?
I’m not just a piece of meat,
hanging flab and some teats.
I was a girl in a million
and then you just kept on filling me
with all of those goodies
and now it’s five X hoodies

to fit around all this size
so now you don’t act surprised
that I am unsatisfied
and want to leave you black-eyed
for what you have done to me
it is a pleasure to be
ready to (smack) get you whacked
so that can get you back!