Things are changing over here
in the Casa.
You’d hardly recognize me right about now.
I’m not yet twice the man I used to be
but I’m getting there.
I am learning to accelerate my abilities
to their maximum capacity.
I am lengthening my sentences.
I am expanding my vocabulary.
I am stretching out my billable hours.
I am improving my fashion sense
my musical taste
and the drugs I take.
I am taking in more protein.
Things are good.
Things are better than good;
things are best.
You can hear yourselfin other’s stilted slurred speech
after hours
in the squall of the night.
You are afraid how much you parrot
these sounds you’re hearing
and don’t want to repeat these behaviors
any further.
You sound embarrassing in your ears
as they blather on.
You wish they’d stop
but they have so much stupid shit to say
and it’s all with your stupid voice.
Just shut up, you!
But you won’t.
You know how stubborn you are
when you drink.
There are people
who see a challenge
and fail.
And then they grit their teeth
smile grimly
stamp their feet
and take on the challenge again.
The best of these people
are called heroes
but too many of them
toil in obscurity.
I am someone
who knows nothing of that kind of behavior
and those kinds of people.
When I see a challenge
and fail
I wonder why I even bothered in the first place.
I claim “sour grapes,”
and then go buy some sweet grapes
to assuage my shame.
I may even get grape jelly,
to ensure that the grapes are sweet enough.
Challenges are so 18th Century,
don’t you think?
Haven’t we had enough of them
by now?
Looking in my mirror, I’m not quite half-impressed
in my shiny, out-of-season pants and thirty-year old vest.
Wing-tips must be somewhere in my rat-hole of a place.
And onceupon I owned a comb to run across my face.
Tighten up my noose tie, and then I just must fly.
I’ve got a date to say goodbye.
Skitter out the front door, and so long to neighborhood!
Late to reach the train and escape Dodge, just as I should
to enter new environs and arrive in better parts
of a city well past sleeping that contains all of the arts.
I find myself in SoHo where the beautiful all come by
and to the place where I must say goodbye.
There is someone I must meet here whom I will not see again.
She was someone very recently whom I once called a friend.
But that isn’t how things are now; as they say: good things must end
even though for more than six months there, I tried hard to pretend…
In the distance, I can see her. Like a vision she awaits.
At this moment, this is starting just like all our other dates
where I cannot catch my breath as I watch her from afar
then I stumble stupefied toward the one with whom I’ll spar.
It’s time to close the distance. No longer will I spy.
I must approach to say goodbye.
I walk near. I say hello. We hug. We kiss. I smile.
I warm up in her presence like it hasn’t been a while
since we weren’t last together. Like it won’t be longer still
’til we see each other next. I say no longer we’ll
be in each others lives. And she doesn’t mind. I sigh.
It doesn’t seem to matter much to her. We’ve said goodbye.
Our life together ends today. It’s over now. Goodbye.
Yes, but what of the comic books?
When you invited me over,
I distinctly remember
that you mentioned the words
“comic books.”
They were words so nice
I heard them thrice.
I don’t usually get up at this time of day
for anything less than a Deadpool cameo.
Can you provide me with at least a Wade sighting?
These things are important to me.
Without the graphics in my system
I do not know how to excite my eyes,
to tickle my fancy
enough to get my motor running.
This seems necessary in this era
to begin the basis of the dawning of the day.
So tell me now and tell me quick,
lest I fear I fall:
where are the comic books I was proffered?
Are there any at all?
The thing that I meant to tell you about
is not the thing that I’m going to tell you about
but maybe the thing I am going to tell you about
is not the thing I am currently telling you about.
I don’t know what I’m saying yet
is what I’m saying right now
but the potential for what I’m about to say
is pretty fucking high
to something fucking tremendous.
I’m looking forward to whatever I’m about to say.
I hope you are, too.
What?
I think this experiment has gone just about as well
as could possible be expected
under the circumstances.
Advance apologies
will have to be introduced
as a regular feature
of the Jon Berger repertoire.
What could possibly go wrong:
People accept my apologies?
Genius at work, folks!
A tank will wank
all the way to the bank
when flanked by cranks
who yank their shanks.
Thanks.
What I think I’m about to do is really cool
and I am, quite frankly, pretty stoked about it.
I’m gonna apologize preemptively
for the next piece
which hasn’t even been conceived of yet.
This is pretty ingenious.
By getting the apology out now
and setting standards so low out the gate
no one will expect anything from me.
I’ve seen artists do this at open mics
I so frequently attend:
they’ll say they didn’t practice
and they just wrote the piece
and they’re getting over a cold
and their mother just died
so no one will expect anything of them
and then – surprise! – they’ll do a really shitty job
so no one will blame them.
Well, now, I can really phone in
the writing of the next composition.
I don’t know if I’ll even show up
to write it.
This is great.
Maybe I’ll call it shitshow.
Oh my…
I cannot wait to see what I come up with next!
The temperatures were right around freezing
so snow wouldn’t melt.
Ice Cube had a good day.
The glass might have looked half full
but it was really fully full
and there was another half full glass
right next to it
and there was an ice bucket just waiting to be filled.
Ice Cube had a good day.
All week, people were ordering
lemonade, limeade, fruit punch, Sprite and Coke.
Not one iced tea requested today.
Ice Cube had a good day.
Someone had a boombox
with a CD cued up
and a track by NWA all ready to play.
Ice Cube had a good day.
Tray after tray after tray after tray…
Ice Cube had a good day.
Whatever bad thing
you think you gotta say,
Ice Cube’s had a good day.
jonberger 