jonberger

It’s not that he said we should never talk about it
but we never talked about it.
I don’t think I ever caught scent of it
in any of his later work
– he stopped sending me stuff
soon afterward.
He stopped coming to New York sooner afterward.

Maybe he had other places to be.
I know his parents left town
after the storm
so the timing made sense
for him to decamp
but I thought there might have been something –

but I’ve always ever assumed it’s all about me
when it really never seems to be.
So never mind my imaginings.
His latest could be about just about anything.

Oh, damn.

I was just about to have the feeling

that’s like the opposite of deja vu,
where you anticipate a future
you know you’ll never have
– but then the feeling never happened.
I wonder if it’ll actually materialize?

If you get to the point quickly
we won’t have to bat the subject around
forever.

If I reiterate,
I may have to re-hit-with hate
and nobody wants that to happen, right?

Right?

The latest Billy Collins collection of poems

that I have access to
is great (BC works tend to be)
but all the work is incredibly short.

I’ve got nothing against that.

I’m happy to read one and be done
and moving on
as fast as the next man
but is there a reason he’s so curt?

Has he run out of things to say?
Maybe he’s worried he doesn’t have long to go.
Dude’ll be eighty three any day now,
perhaps he wants to make sure he gets it all out
fast!
Possibly he has a form of dementia
where he lost all adverbs.

I don’t really care.
I still like the guy.

I’ll stick with him
even if he stays brief.

There’s a test I run every now and again
when I’m in my bed
alone, in the dark.

I whisper, quietly, "I can hear you,"
to see if anyone is ever there
listening.

No one has responded to me
yet.

On the ten-year anniversary of an EP I never uncovered,
to hear you again

is a fine thing.

I didn’t know you were back in the game
but to see that you never stopped,
oh, that is so good to know.

I would welcome you back
except you never left.
I was simply unaware.
I am quite happy
to have you around again.

The imperfect circle
etched on her wrist
does not represent her
as well as she thinks.

I arrived late
to the place I always go to on Monday nights.
I felt guilty
because they kind of expect me.
I’m something of a big deal around the place.
I only got there an hour late
and I didn’t miss anything important
but people might have been worried.

I could have warned someone.
I didn’t think I’d be so late, is the thing.

I’ll try not to let it happen again
but I know it’s gonna happen in two weeks time.
I guess I better give better warning
or maybe become less of a big deal.

That guy?
With the Leap Day birthday?
He’s twenty six as of the end of last month
but he looks a lot older
since his birthday
doesn’t come around too often.

Maybe we should have gotten him a bigger present;
I doubt he’ll make it
to the big three oh.

What I said about you, Spanakopita Pete,
back when you weren’t listening
because you were not in the state,
was not cool.
I was wrong to speak that way
in your very distant absence
and I apologize.

I should have spoken quietly
or not at all, Spanakopita Pete,
and keeping my own counsel
would have been the wisest course of action.
If you don’t have anything nice to say,
don’t say something
that can possibly get back to the individual,
that’s what I always say.

I failed to follow that simple rule, SP,
and if it were to ever get back to you
that I called you Moussaka Paul,
I would be mortified.
Simply mortified.

So say it isn’t so, SD:
tell me you haven’t heard anything,
please.