jonberger

After the accident
we were disconsolate
for a little while.

Then, when the android parts were grafted on,
we started getting pretty consolate
after all.

Our little buddy began to come back to us
little by little
in the shape he was before
and soon
when the automatic upgrades began updating
the hardware just went places we didn’t imagine.

His eyesight improved.
He ran stronger.
He could smell from a greater distance
and urine proved iridescent
(We never understood what update
caused that).

It’s like every seven years
your body replaces all the old parts
and grows anew
but he had become something fresh far sooner
with all of his improvements.

We may miss the old Henry
with the four legs and the four feets
and the no assassin attachments
but better to have one Henry
than no Henrys, you know?

The poem you are about to recite is politically incorrect
which isn’t really a problem
– you love that shit.
It might also get you beat up.
That’s cool, too.
Instigating trouble is what it’s all about.

But they might not like you
after they hear it
and that may not be something
you can bear.

The fury is to be expected
but the not liking?
That, somehow, is a bridge too far.
How can you handle the opprobrium,
the remorseless judgement?

Better you skip the whole experience
than dare the raised eyebrows.

It’s important to know that you didn’t break my heart.
You shook up my weekend,
that’s for sure,
and my confidence
took a crazy hit,
but I deserved that.

I didn’t treat you the way you deserved
and maybe it seemed like I didn’t care at first
but you showed me how much I did care.
I cared more than I thought
but not enough to destroy me.
You didn’t destroy me.
I was undestroyed by you
though I was certainly not in good shape.

It was somewhere in between.
I got sick.
I felt bad.
I learned things
but I handled it.
I’m not confused by anything.
It’s important
that you know that.

When you find your people have difficulties
managing aspects of their lives
and you want to help them
you feel a need in your body
to get them the support they require
but you know they have to figure things out
all on their own
because otherwise
they’ll simply be dependent forever,
it’s a painful state.

It’s an ache in you
that you cannot satisfy
a desperate thirst that cannot be quenched.

This wound
may be worse for you
than your people.
They only have the initial problem.
You have that
plus so much more.

When I’m at an open mic
– which I am,
like, most of the time –
and I find that it’s getting late
and I haven’t gone on yet,
I have to start doing the math:

“If I go on in ten minutes,
I then have to stay
about an hour afterwards
because otherwise I’m an asshole.

“But if the thing is winding down by then
and there are only two or three more acts
then I have to stay for them, too,
because it would be an asshole move
to abandon them
when they stayed for everyone else
– unless they came later in the night
and only signed up after they just dropped in
hours after the open mic started.

Then THEY’RE the assholes!”

Of course, since I arrive pretty early
most of the time
I tend to get on pretty early
but there are some open mics
that have a random sign up
so it doesn’t matter when you arrive
and then there are some crazy popular open mics
where even if you arrive promptly,
there are people who arrive super-promptly
and you’re just shit out of luck.

I haven’t been able to do the math for those situations yet.
I’m just an artist after all
– an artist who risks being an asshole.

When you think of your personal best
and find that you’ve been able to beat it
not through a grand accomplishment
but through steady bulldog plugging away,
just nose-to-the-grindstone rubbing at the problem
until the eraser has disappeared to a nub.

Through work and endeavor
you find yourself more excellenter
at metaphor and expression
and getting your point across clearly and directly
without having to beat the point home
through repeatedisms through the block.

And you congratulation yourself for all you’ve done
because you may do it again tomorrow
and Thursday, to boot!

The dungeon’s pipes are clogged again.
No one’s rushing to fix them because
y’know, it’s a dungeon
so the toilet’s backed up
and the stay here has become torturous.

I’ve complained to the guard on duty
this month
but it doesn’t look like
there’s any resolution in sight
or smell.

Good news is:
my weight loss plan is going
better than planned.

I really hope your letters
are allowed in this year.
What’s new out there?

Way up north
in a neighborhood nobody else knows
we congregate near Dan’s
waiting for the gang to get together
so we can head for ice cream
only to discover that it hasn’t opened for the season yet.

We should’ve known.
Nothing happens in this little inlet
without an announcement.

We would have heard when the ice cream shop opened.

So we’re at the park
wasting and procrastinating
and wondering how the sunny day
is gonna end
and we think that this is what Spring will be like
when it comes
and wonder if maybe we should be checking our phones
to see if our parents need us
but probably not.

We’re OK.
We’ve got hours before anything needs to happen.
We’re kids.
We’re all right.

He hadn’t been threatened
but he carried the knife
and so when he was threatened
he didn’t feel so bad.

He was threatened
because the freak
thought he could get away with it.

The freak came up to him to apologize
sort of.

They’d gotten into it
the other day
when the freak tried to bum rush the stage
at the outdoor concern
in the same park
they were both hanging out in right now.

When the freak got near the stage,
he just pulled the freak by his cane
away from the stage
while the freak cried,
“No! Not my cane!”
over and over again
until they were far enough away
from the stage
so as not to disturb anyone.

So the freak came up to him today
to make sure there were no hard feelings.

“Nah,” he said, hand out,
“I just wanted to make sure the show went off smooth.”
“Cool cool,” the freak said, “It’s just that…
It was dangerous, what you did.”
“Oh,” He said, “Like trying to break and enter
into somebody’s space?”
“Well,” the freak went on, “You didn’t have to take my cane.
I can’t walk without it.”
He couldn’t help but notice that his cane wasn’t in sight.
“You shouldn’t have fucked with me, man,” the freak said, louder,
checking around the park for his friends, looking on.
“Uh huh,”
“Cuz I will fuck YOU UP.” The freak was beginning to shout;
his friends were beginning to laugh.

“You getting what you need?” he asked,
“Your friends looking up to you yet?”
“Yeah, BE LIKE THAT!” The freak flicked and pranced away
and no one had to unsheath a knife at all.

No one had to see a thing
but he knew it was there all along
and that was all that mattered.

I didn’t like his look.
I thought his ponytail was effeminate
so he kicked my ass
so I asked for a different hair stylist.
I hope you appreciate the results.

This lack of head of hair
is what the new guy came up with,
y’see.
I guess you get what you pay for.