If you listen
in the hills
you can hear the fading sounds of heavy reverb
sucking saliva and excelling life.
Soon they will be gone.
To seek further signal of those sounds
you could go further in the hills
but you could go anywhere else as well.
Those sounds can be found anywhere.
Everywhere.
The world is pregnant, emanant
with such noise, if you choose to listen.
As someone once said,
everything is alive.
I really wanted to like the Doors. Something about their mystique drew me
so I bought a bunch of their records
and I listened to them a couple of times.
I read a couple of articles
about their origins
and the genius of Jim Morrison.
I paid attention to that first album.
I listened again
and again.
The band wasn’t for me.
Not every product pleases every consumer
and the Doors definitely seemed like product.
Morrison’s voice sounded like a Vegas crooner to me
which didn’t quite turn me on.
It tuned me out.
The tinkling organ wasn’t working for me, either.
The records have long since left my collection.
My perceptions have been blocked
to what Morrison might have shown me.
I’m all right with that;
I closed that door long ago.
The sea lions at the Queens Zoo
were fucking huge.
I should note
that they were not seals
though I don’t remember the difference
between seals and sea lions
(other than “ion”).
I’m sure it’s something pretty important.
I just wish there were a way
I could get that information
quickly and easily.
Don’t bark at me like that!
My tiny ears can’t take it!
These are not adventures in foreign lands
but areas we know full well.
Still, they have not been visited in quite some time
and who knows how they may have changed
in the years since the last sojourn?
I don’t think I’ve been here since COVID
which was a lifetime ago
and don’t know anymore what to expect.
Will they still allow my sort through the door?
Do they continue to serve macaroni salad?
Is Marianna still on staff in the back corner?
These important questions need answers!
We find these answers
and more
through our stay at Last Hope Cafe & Smokes
(which no longer allows smoking within the premises).
It is not the only place we frequent
in this long-overlooked neighborhood
but it is the only one
where Marianna has forsaken me.
When Crazy Grandma dies
and you have to come up with the right words to say
because people will be asking at the wake
and you want to seem respectful
but she’s been crazy as long as you’ve been alive
and you liked her all right
but it’s not like you had that much to talk about.
Like, you’d say, "Hey Grams!"
and she’d say, "The waffles are coming in from Left Gnosha today!"
and you’re wondering if this is a delivery service from a store
or a place or a state of mind
and you don’t even like waffles
you prefer crêpes.
So you wonder and you plan
and you come up with a phrase or three
so in case anyone corners you
or if God forbid
someone calls you up
you’ve got something prepped
but then there’s a round robin
and everybody takes turns saying something
and they’re all variations of
"Crazy Grandma sure is crazy!"
only it’s was, because a heart attack on the toilet
is no joke.
So everybody talks
no one is looking at you special
and you don’t have to worry
when you pop your couple of words
into the mix.
It works out pretty well.
Crazy Grandma sure is crazy.
Was.
That’ll do
The blockade is gonna last.
It has to.
The mutates will be held at the gates
and we have the underground bunker
all to ourselves
and the guards
and the maintenance staff
so we’re good.
Only…
the champagne can’t last.
We’ve been drinking so much
celebrating our survival
that we’re gonna be out
in no time
and we don’t have a way to get more.
Well, we can’t go back to France
for more now, can we?
You know that it’s only from the correct region
and we’re stuck underground.
The gates work both ways, now…
When we run out of champagne,
there will be no more
forever.
Luckily,
our cocaine supply is virtually limitless.
All told, today’s been a lazy sort of day,
just a lot of staring up into the gray,
aimlessly wishing awkward thoughts away
thinking of something vaguely positive to say.
Nothing seems to come to mind.
Perhaps if I try enough, I’ll find
that finally something will, in time
but so far, to date, I’ve been blind.
If I could at this moment perhaps see
– that is, have the perspicacity –
to escape from this sense of ennui
then I suspect I could be free.
Alas, though, I’m muddled in this mire
with the melancholy I’ve acquired
and cannot raise my spirits higher
to that of any to aspire
(to).
Speak to me again.
Call me by the name I was born into
not the one I chose
the one where I redefined myself.
Call me by my original identity
when I knew not who I really was.
Name me by my primordial material.
Know me in my earlier form
so you can understand me
through all my eras
all of my different adventures.
Get the full measure of me now
by seeing the transitions
through generations.
Watch the climb.
Hear about me putting the crown
upon my head.
Know my name
my original one.
Then there was the day
when the pockets got ripped open
because the metal coins were pulled from it
and just, like, torn from each person’s clothes,
then rolled away into those trucks,
which just rolled away to those central repositories.
It was like the biggest redistribution of small-denomination wealth
the US had seen in quite some time.
It was time for a change
and the government saw to it quickly and efficiently
with no muss, no fuss
and no benefit to the people.
The change was gone,
taken from us
and all that was left was paper currency.
Dollar bills reigned supreme
with a single being the smallest amount anything cost.
That was a day, let me tell you.
Coming soon.
I walked up the mountain – well really a hill
and asked the philosopher, “Please tell me: will
I ever be happy? And how can it be?”
After contemplating, she said to me,
“Lower your standards. It’s easy to do.
Just don’t be so picky, and let more things through.
This is the best way to remain happy.
Keep yourself open to opportunity.”
I stared at my guru aghast and agog.
“You think expectations have left me so clogged
that now I no longer know left from my right?
You know, it’s convincing, that right you just might.
“If I lower my standards as a general rule,
not be so high-minded I might find something cool.
If I open my eyes to what is around
I might be surprised by all that can be found.”
jonberger 