jonberger

I’ve been thinking about you, and all I’m going through in my heart and it’s true that it’s difficult.
While there’s also great joy for this bouncing boytoy, I know still you destroy with insults.
And yet I must try, for though tears I may cry, still you can make me fly through your loving.
Tasted my tales before? Then you’ll taste ’em once more, as I remove them from my oven.

Loving you is hard, like a rock. Loving you is sweet, like cherry pie.
Loving you is bitter, like an eggplant. These cliches are real. All right.
Loving you is tasty, like a jelly donut. Loving you is sticky, like honey.
Loving you is hard, like a scone. These cliches are real. All right!

So you know where I stand, praying you and I land, feet to feet, tit to hand, and with me stupid, groping.
I can’t say what’s your deal, if you feel like I feel, if you love me for real, but I’m hoping.
You could tell me right now! Just abandon your scowls and decline your eyebrow. Go on: kiss me.
I beg of you, please! I’m on figurative knees; it’d put me at ease! Don’t dismiss me!

Loving you is hard, like rock candy. Loving you is sweet, like an eclair.
Loving you is bitter, like an eggplant. These cliches are real. All right.
Loving you is tasty, like a churro. Loving you is sticky, like Elmer’s glue.
Loving you is hard, like my erection. These cliches are real. All right!

Occasionally, I return to the alternate reality
where Paul McCartney opted to keep
the original filler lyrics to “Yesterday”:

“Scrambled eggs.
Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.”

Johnson opted to stay in office
for an additional term.

Sgt. Peppers included both “Penny Lane”
and “Strawberry Fields.”

John Lennon announced the end of the Beatles
in December, 1970.

The country rock band Eggs over Easy became huge.
making the pub rock movement much bigger
thus causing the stars of acts like
Graham Parker, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello
to shine far brighter
than they do on our world.

I love to go to Costello-Land for the rides.

Not so many people cover “Scrambled Eggs,”
but the song does have its defenders.

I still prefer our reality,
but it’s a nice place to visit.

On Help!, that little Beatles’ album, Paul McCartney
(heard of him?) has a few songs in a row.
They’re listed as Lennon/McCartney,
like they always are,
but usually, the singer is the primary writer
and often the style kind of gives it away.

“Tell Me What You See” can be summed up
by some chorus lines:
“Open up your eyes, now, tell me what you see.
It is no surprise, now, what you see is me.”
It’s about who you see, and it being the narrator,
presumably identified by their face.

The next song is “I’ve Just Seen a Face,”
and what is it about?
It’s about the narrator seeing someone’s face.
Interesting, no?

The album also has “The Night Before” and “Yesterday.”
Both McCartney tracks.

Well, I found it interesting.

I was sitting at the singer/songwriter club
checking out the exit
as was often my wont
when this exceptionally beautiful girl entered,
dressed to the eighteens
(you know: to the nines,
but doubled?).

She was in tight pleather
high heels,
everything was shiny,
everything placed to impress.
Her face was gorgeous, too.
Made up within an inch of its life.
Fine stuff.

This was a woman
I would call in college
Too Hot Too Talk To.
Nothing has changed since college
except I don’t usually see women like that.

I was perhaps staring too much
or perhaps she was staring too much
for how could she not?
How often does she get the chance to see
the under six foot, chubby bald poet
in his natural environment,
leering and seething?
She must have been so excited to see me!

Which would probably explain why she sauntered over
to say, “Hi Jon!”
I did not recognize her.
“It’s Olivia.”

She was an old veteran of the Open Mic wars.
I hadn’t seen her in maybe six years,
certainly never made up like this!

“I would never have objectified you so
had I known it was you!”
I absolutely did not say.

We talked for an hour and listened to the music.
She was only in town to visit.
It was good to see her.
It was really good to see her.

In the time that you’ve been gone I found another lover.
She pleases me as good as you; one’s as good as another.
She could be your twin: she’s thin, she’s sweet and fine and good.
The only difference is she lives in a better neighborhood.

It was inconvenient when you left me for a week
so I went seeking another one, and it was fun.
I found her easily; it seems to me she’s as quick to please
as you were. If she were to leave me I’ll look you up!

There was nothing wrong with you except you departed.
I know that my subsequent actions seem slightly cold-hearted.
The evening you left was easy but I got lonely, come the dawn.
I ain’t no fool and I don’t wait for what is gone.

It was you that chose to leave town for a week
so I shopped around for another one, and son of a gun!
I got her in seconds flat! She came to me just like that!
I’ll replace her if she gives me reason to…

Maybe I had no idea of what I was looking for.
Perhaps my shallowness kept me a stinking boor
so that the women I choose all seem like the one before
and I cannot make distinctions with any candor.

When you got away from me for a week
I went out lurking for another one, on the hunt.
She fell into my trap. So perfectly gift wrapped
for me. If she flees, I’ll be sure to reach out to you again!

So, here is how it’s gonna go:
I have a warning. And I’ve got to let you know
about the danger of what’s been happening
and how you need to be aware of everything.

Since we met all those several weeks ago
there’s been attraction that I’ve been wary to let show
but it’s escaping. Yeah I’ve been bursting at the seams
and what is more than that, I think I’ve burst my support beams.

Damn! This isn’t simply any emergency.
You need to understand just what you do to me.
I got to let you know I feel explosively,
dangerously, feverishly, guaranteed
to love you.

So now you know the truth of how I feel
and the pain of love feels so much less real
because now that it’s shared, and since you know it, too
I think that anything can happen, because you love me, too!

But wait a second! Have I spoken too soon?
Are you, in point of fact, to my love song, immune?
Well, I’m embarrassed, since I misread so much,
more, I’m in so much pain, since I won’t have your touch.

Motherfuck! This really is now an emergency!
I need some help just ’bout immediately!
Why did no one ever think to warn me
that love could ever possibly be conceivably
so fickle?

The plan was laid. The bet was made. We had settled on the trade
if I should win and you would lose because of options you might choose
I am sure that you would find the opposite of peace of mind.
Your spirit would be in distress and you’d be absent happiness
which was the best prize I could win but you had more you must throw in:
Your assistant must trade teams to join my squad and switch regimes.
You’d lose your girl. I’d gain her skills. What a swell way to build ill-will.
And so agreed, legit and fit, we faced to sit, prepared to play the game of Spit.
It took a while, as we were good, each the best in neighborhoods, as well we should be,
but now you’ve lost, your girl is mine, the day is fine, victory, sublime, like such sweet wine, will be served into a stein, by thine formerly aligned assistant, now assigned to… me.
I said you were gonna lose that girl!

You know how it is for me now.
You know that I can’t live without you right.
That is simply unacceptable.
I cannot live this way
needing someone so desperately.

I’ve gotta dry out on you immediately.
I’ve gotta stop needing you right now.
As soon as you’re a want
and not a need
I’ll be back
and things can return
to an equitable state.

Right now,
I’m afraid it’s goodbye.

Last night, you said some things.
Last night, we talked of rings.
Last night, you were so sweet.
Last night, I said you’d meet my parents
at the first opportunity.
What is this current disunity that we are experiencing?

Last night, we seemed so simpatico.
We planned a vacation in Puerto Rico.
Two kids and a lifetime in Hartsdale;
our fill of picnics and yard sales.
Last night it seemed it was all planned out.
What is it you’re now trying to shout?

Are you trying to get away?
Is that what you’re trying to say?
Do you seek to tell me nay
but in a way that’s a bit more gray?
Cuz in that way, you’re doing OK!
You’ve been confusing me ALL DAY!
If you want to lead me astray,
then you have certainly got your way.

Last night, our love was storybook.
Last night, we had dreamy eyes. Take a look!
Last night, we were looking to the future.
Today, it seems you want to suture
all the things that we said
into some kind of threaded creation.

Last night, we were all sorts of perfect.
Now, it looks like you’d like to reject
the plans that we had arrived at.
Hit ’em with a bat and make ’em splat
into a mess and let it lie
on the ground there until it dies.

Last night…

With my headphones I play songs of yesterday
going all around the way doing my work
thinking all about my love and the ways I’m dreaming of
being with her and of shoving all the smirks
off the fuckers and the clowns while I listen to the sounds
of the Beatles playing round and round and round
and round and round and round as my jerking down the stairs
gets me to the bottom floor where I pour myself through the door
into more work, continuing on with the theme of the evening:

Love must be hidden.
She must not know.
If you find her light,
do not let it show.

Continuing on, I enter buildings new, traversing smoothly through
a constantly attainable slew of access points, accruing entries everywhere.
It is here, there, everywhere that I go, always hearing what I need
to know that the boys are with me, warning of what I must do to stay true
to myself going forward, to be free. I see it. I taste it as the boys tell me why
to cry, to lie, to apply the hiding principles at just the right times. I go to work.

Love must be hidden.
She must never know.
If you catch her in her beauty,
just let it go.

The sun is setting in this darker time of year and I have fears
that inhere clearly, constantly.
I should be going. I must be going. I get gone, but still my
Liverpudlians play. They say “You’re going to lose that girl.”
They talk about being “sad and lonely,” about being “half a man.”
I know the song. I know the songs well. I sing it to myself,
without the disc spinning for me. I know it by heart.

Love must be hidden.
She must not be told.
If you feel the words of love,
keep them sealed, like gold.