jonberger

When people come up to me
and thank me for my performance
I’m incredibly appreciative
but worried because I fear
that they might interpret something
that I didn’t add.

Yeah, yeah, “Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,”
all that crap, I get it,
but I write pretty concrete stuff,
where I say what I mean
and a poet is honest,
one hundred percent.

So when people say,
“I see what you did there,”
finding inference I didn’t imply,
I’m just not sure I should take the credit.
I mean, I’d be willing to sleep with them, sure,
but getting the points just seems a little too much.

Anyway, can I have your number?

There is an ancient piece in my catalog
that early adopters
of the Jon Berger Mission
used to call out for
before it made everyone feel too skeevy
(and anyway, I don’t much repeat material
so it became something of a moo point).

Thing is, back then,
when they were out there,
calling out like cows for that early material,
they’d invariably get the name wrong.
They’d be in the right ballpark
get the right point across
have the right rhythm
but simply utter incorrect words.

So I ask you:
were these fans trying to kill me
with their intentional indifference?
Were they making a point to cut to my heart
with their active point of telling me,
“I like you enough to remember
there’s something about you that’s cool
– but not enough to care what it is.”?

That’s what it sounded like.

Again, everyone was always in the right vicinity
of the title,
but could never stick the landing.
They just couldn’t match my brilliance.
Or maybe I sparked some creativity in each of them
so they wanted to try out their own phrasing.
Or perhaps they found better ways
to say the same thing.

Oh, I don’t like where this is going.

Anyway, I don’t do that poem anymore
so it’s not an issue
so we can just drop it, all right?
All right!

This girl was scared
because it was the 80s
and little girls had many things to be scared of
back then.

I wanted to impress her sister
and think of myself as a writer
so I composed a story
of the far-off fantasy land of Parisia
where little girls could conquer their fears
because, hopefully, nuclear waste was a less realistic concern
and mutually assured destruction was not the only deterrent
hanging over their heads.

I passed a dot-matrix print out to the big sister
who said she gave it to her little sister
who didn’t really know what to make of the story
so I didn’t earn the kind of points I wanted to with the older one
but she didn’t stop talking to me,
so there was that.

And I came up with the land of Parisia
which I was able to cannibalize parts from
in the future,
so there was that, too.

The man with the pie knows just what to say.He’s got the will to be witty and a wish for a way
to get out of this jam which is in the pie filling
and is ‘zactly how willing he is to get gone.

You can ask the pie man for his explanations
but his way with the words will lack hesitations
as he spills out whichever such clever endeavors
he needs to convince whomsoever whatever.

For he says what he has to, and says it quite well.
He invents situations, and somehow they gel in-
to fantastic experiences – not exactly a lie.
Always escaping the lips of the man with the pie.

If you see the heavy set bald man kicking chunks of icy snow
down the way
or from a big pile of snow into the street,
do not question his sanity.

He is doing good for society.
He is doing his small part
to diminish the amount of snow piled up
in your environment
so that you will be able to walk about
more freely.

You don’t have to thank him
for his effort.
Just let him keep to how quiet work
as he kicks ice ball after ice ball down the sidewalk
into the street.

If he keeps at it, the snow should be all gone by
late April.

I didn’t know her. I didn’t know of her existence, really,
except in theory,
but I see what she meant to you
and I know what you mean
to the world around you
and if she helped make you
what you are
then she clearly was formidable
and her loss will be felt.

I’m saddened by what you’re experiencing.
I know it must be severe
and I know she deserves
ever instant of the sorrow you feel
and so do you
because it’s the price you pay
for the joys you received from her before.

I know you’ll be better someday
and I hope you can see that today
and I wish I had gotten to know her
a little bit
so I could understand what has been lost.

The guy in the middle of the crowded train
is stretched out
sleeping
taking up a row of seats
and no one is waking him up.

It doesn’t seem fair.

The guy doesn’t seem to have a home
so he has nowhere else
to rest his head
and all there is for him
is the shellacked seat for his back?
How comfortable can it be?

Would that we could provide him
a better rest
for the short time we share
on this train.

Sweet dreams,
MTA warrior.
Get where you’re going safely.

My car don’t know where it wants to go.
It would like to cop a stop, just take a rest,
end its driving efforts lest
it lose the fuel that makes it run.
I seek car-placement completion.

I can’t find a way to make it so
to get settled in a neighborhood
where I can leave my car for good
and find a safe, securious home
where, surely, no car vandals roam.

Answer me, and don’t say “no!”
Can you help me find this place?
For I’ve seen no hair, no trace
or this land where parking dwells.
If it’s in the town, I sure can’t tells.

I’ve been thinking about these two elders for a while now,
two figures who I consider mentors
neither of whom ever volunteering for the role
but both having provided me inadvertent insight
as to how to be an artist
through modeling
for decades now.

In my mind
I’ve tried to pit them against each other
but I haven’t been able to find their poles of opposition:
The head and the heart?
Down home storytelling vs. literary pretensions?
Shirts vs. skins?
None of them quite fit the dynamic.
It wasn’t like the pair were ever really fighting for my soul.

I’m no closer to finding answers on how to write
about such instrumental figures.
Perhaps there’s no right way.
Perhaps every way is wrong.

As I live and grow
my dynamic with these people ever changes
so my thoughts differ year on year.
Maybe next year
I’ll find a definitive answer.
Maybe tomorrow.

There’s a poet I discovered years ago
independent of my old East Village existence
and then, later, I discovered he was connected
with some of my AntiFolk brethren.
I don’t know if he was actually part of the scene,
but he seemed to know some of that crew.

Anyway, after the books I knew him from,
it looks like he published some other works,
and I just was able to receive them in the mail.
I hope they’re as good as the older ones I learned about
back at the turn of the millennium.

Only I will be able to tell, I guess, eventually.