jonberger

I knew nothing about your sorrow. I had paid no attention.
I haven’t been looking out.

There are things I have been unaware of
worlds that I had not been observing
and for this, please allow me to express my apologies.

I should have been there.
I could have been there
and I wasn’t
and I feel bad.
Help me drown my shame
by absolving some guilt,
if you would.
Swallow the imposition
and improve my mood.

There, that’s it.
Thanks.
I hope that improves your sorrow some.
I know it’s done a world of good
for me.

These warriors
so important to so many
are new to me.
I will be careful
as to where I step
how I behave in this strange new land.

I will follow their customs as closely as I can
see if the people will respect me
for the honor I show
and will provide me further entrance
into their culture.

I do not know how far this can go
I do not know how far I wish it to.
Their warriors seem very powerful
and I dont know if I am prepared
for all their ceremonies
but I am not afraid
– not entirely so
and I will try.

May the gods wish well upon me.

Doug is missing.
Doug wrote everything is alive.
Doug exists as the purple organ
throbbing eternally
pulsing out, producing a life-giving thrum
and exuding out for all
something that lets us know
that we are there
and we will be,
even in an uncomfortable way.

We will be here, Doug,
to see you,
however we can,
whenever we can.

Back in the day
when we talked
like we were talking
and I offered you things like I meant them
because I really really did
I promised you a different life
in my two-bedroom apartment
in the South Bronx
with the filthy windows
in the industrial neighborhood
past the wrong side of the tracks.

I guess I didn’t think what a different life looked like
from here.

I thought I’d be saving you
but what I’d be saving you from
didn’t cross my mind so much.

I think that life you kept
has worked out pretty well for you
and the life you saved yourself from
was probably a wise choice as well.

The wrong side of the tracks
are still just that
and windows remain filthy.

I don’t think your rapprochement is going to work out
the way you had hoped.

You promoted your act at the funeral
joking and laughing through the whole showing.
You were not trying to keep a brave face
– you didn’t care at all.
I’m amazed anyone talked to you after that.

Though actually, they tried to fade out
from your life
but you wouldn’t let them artfully disappear.
You required the noise.
You commanded it.
When Shane tried to just leave you be,
I heard you stalked his job
until his boss made him go outside and talk to you.

You wanted him to run lights for your show?
How’d that work out?
Did he do it?
Did you finally take the hint?

Look, you’re not a bad guy,
except you actually really are.
You’re thoughtless and insensitive
and you can’t feel your way
outside of a paper bag
which shouldn’t be a difficult thing to do
– but you’ve got it puzzled out to an impossibility.

I think I can speak for your entire community
of former friends
when I say,
“Thanks, but no thanks.”

One of the people who was a model for my baldness was Kamau whom I have not seen in decades.

At one point
he was living with his uncle
and I called.
“Is Kamau there?”
“No,” the guy said, and hung up.
This was before cel phones. There was no other way to reach him.

I called back and said, “You know, there might be a different way to handle that. As a responsible citizen.”
“Kamau no longer lives here,” his uncle seethed,
“I do not know how to reach him.”
He hung up again.
Clearly, there was a story I knew nothing about.

I did not know how to drop things at that point
but I didn’t see what more could be gained
by aggravating the uncle.

Feeling helpless never sat right with me.

Feeling helpless does not sit right with me.

I remain bald.

I went to an ice cream place the other day.

It’s one I’d been avoiding.
I’d been avoiding it,
I decided, for a pretty stupid reason,
so I figured I’d give them a shot.

I didn’t like that it promoted
so many vegan flavors
because vegan stuff doesn’t taste good
but vegan stuff is better for the universe,
I decided, even if it tastes like turd,
so I should go on in.

I got over my bad reason.

The place had some pretty cool flavors,
after all, and maybe
I could feel good about myself
since the place

was good for the universe, after all.

No,
I wouldn’t order vegan.
That really is a bridge too far.

When I tried to pay
I was told my money was no good.
I blushed, thinking they recognized me
from my amazing poetry,
but they meant
I needed to change my cash
into a charge card
which I could then exchange into goods.

They would not accept the currency of the nation
at the store.
Poor people would not be able to easily consume their products.
People unfamiliar with tech couldn’t either.

I followed instructions
and got a charge card buying a $20 card for a $19.70 purchase.
I will not see my thirty cents again.
Someone buying a ten dollar ice cream would be forced to come back again
if they wanted their money.

I appreciate the store
exchanging my bad reasons
for not using their services
for very good reasons.

It makes me feel much better about myself
and, of course, much worse about them.

No need to stand in the ceremony.
This poem is about anything, really.
Just stay for a minute and it will fly
on any topic that might pass it by.

This might seem slow now, but soon it’ll take.

We’ll be moving soon, on my rep I’ll stake
everything. If it fails, I will take the rap.

Damn! What did I say? I got nothing but crap!

Really, it was never meant to happen
– and by that I mean
it really never could have happened
because anyone who had ever seen Jon Berger in action
knows full well that he is a slop pig
waiting to be sprayed down.

There is a Before picture
and there is an After picture
and Jon Berger needs to have effects added
to get near the After pic.

There is no cleanness in the Jon Berger model
and yet someone thought it might make sense
to use the words "clean" and "Jon Berger" together.

Don’t ask me. It may have been marketing that brought this up.
It’s usually them that brings the dumbass.

But maybe he’ll take a lesson from this,

pick up some pointers,
possibly lift a mop.

Who knows?
Stranger things have happened!

Nah…

In the lighter timeline
where opacity was up by three percent
and I had not accessed Divergent #50304R.43V5,
subsequently getting lost

in a present I had never opened,
I was unaware

that crime pays so amazingly well.

It’s possible that it didn’t in my original reality
but here, only the good die poor.

It’s unfortunate that it took me so long
to discover this fact
or the fact that kleptocracy and prejudice
are like peanut butter and chocolate
– and I have bought lots of stock in Reese’s.

This alternate universe took a little getting used to
but now that I have
I’m like a pig who has reached harmonic convergence
with everything
– and it’s all thanks to the technology that brought me here
and left me stuck,
never able to return.