Love And Prepositions (And How To Use Them Without Getting Slapped In The Face With A Penis Or Worse)

By Martin Bemberg

In. One can be in love with someone. If this way of being in is sufficient, I'd suggest being inside them. That is, if you are a man. But have no fear, queers! One lover mustn't be a man in order for you to be inside them. Some may disagree, but these people often have a rod shoved painfully far up their asses, which causes them to lose touch with reality (see: "with," "up"). Once you are inside your lover, it can be quite difficult not to have a special place in your heart for them. If this is not the case, I'd suggest you reconsider your values, but this may just be me having a monogamy rod shoved painfully far up my ass.

With can be special but it doesn't have to be. You can physically be with someone even if you do not necessarily love them. (See: "monogamy rod.") But being with someone can also denote commitment, connection and intimacy (see: "monogamy rod"). A woman can be with child, and hopefully that is the product of love. Sometimes it is not, which I find unfortunate, but just because I see it that way does not mean it has to be (again, see…oh never mind, you get the picture). One activity which can be especially effective in building intimacy is getting drunk with someone, but beware, this can also be especially bad and lead not to building intimacy but eroding it. However, when it is special, inebriation with a lover can swiftly lead to euphoria and almost always to sex, which is something you have and share with someone, unless you prefer to go solo (or maybe you use both hands, who knows.) But be careful with "with." With is not always positive. Watch out when your lover is angry with you. This may lead to his beating you with his bare hands. (The female version of this is known as "passive aggression" or "withholding sex.") He or she might end up wanting to have nothing to do with you. This is especially unfortunate when she is with child and that child is yours (though less responsible men might refer to this as "being off the hook").

At is the most expressive and creative love preposition. This is why it is my favorite. Few things are more exciting than presenting oneself at a potential lover's doorstep, unannounced, and shouting, as if from a mountaintop, "Here I am! Come and take me, my sweet Rick!" This can also lead to disaster, especially if your lover has a lover at his or her home at the time. Unfortunately, sometimes our lovers are at the end of their rope with us (see: "with"). When it comes to love, we often find ourselves saying things like, "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time." This is most common after a heterosexual male has experienced a close encounter of the 69th kind, that is, with a transexual (about whose orientation he "claims" to have not known about - see: "about") in the back of a taxi cab. Often such a heterosexual male will "claim" that someone must have drugged him, but do not believe this for a minute. The only acceptable explanation is "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Indeed. One can be mad at their lover, sad at their lover. Often these two emotions are the result of one being drunk at his or her lover. When using at, drunk is never a good idea. Try "with" instead (see: "with"). When talking about drunkenness, about works in about the same way.

About connotes emotional connection in the same way "with" connotes a physical one, and is therefore exclusively negative. A good rule is to without "about." And remember, it is not a good idea to be drunk about your lover, the exception being when you're just going to have one more.

The Letter About The Letter, And Then The Letter: Dear John

by Martin Bemberg

Hi. I am writing things about you still. Don't worry, they are not the kinds of things that make you hurt. I don't think. I always enjoyed having you read my writing. You have a good brain. So let me know if you are interested in doing me the honor of taking a look at them. I understand if you are not.

I hope that you are well.

John

***

-D-

When I had finished what one might call the perfect shower (unless you count the couple times I smoked spliffs while bathing at The Blue House, which you might should), it is only natural that I should dry off, which I did, with the one towel that is dry, which I chose, as I should, for its success in this regard, only to find the lingering blades of hair barbered and short upon my shoulders, remnants of a haircut, only then to think of those hairs' origins and the haircut you gave me one month ago, perhaps exactly.

You took your time, which I did not mind but rather admired, you took requests like a club DJ and some you dutifully rejected, for after all you are the barber and I the mere meek agent of your craft. It should not matter how I feel today about it. Such would certainly bring back thoughts of what was lost (besides my hair). Such would do no good.

But before I put it out of mind, I might could say just how nice it was, to have another improve my looks and rid me of what I do not need, a cleansing, like a bath, and just how nice it was to have another to negotiate with and compromise, like adjusting the temperature of water in a getting-to-know-you kind of way. I do not think it happens that way very often. Sorry, but you were special.

But I should not think about it.

It is sometimes better to ignore than swim, for the sea is sometimes cold and dreary. (Try telling that to Mr. Matthew Webb, the first to swim the English channel. Don't worry, I too had to look it up on Wikipedia.) This would not be my first sea/shore metaphor. I have a poem, about a ship on the other side of the sea. The ship embarks on her second voyage ever, a second maiden one. I was captain of the first. The poem is about jealousy.

I wrote a story about a boy named Sea and a girl named Shore. There are tons of puns in that one but none worth telling. It is about religion and having children, which is to say it is about going crazy.

There is that song we both like. "Liked," maybe I should say? "I Never Saw The Point In Trying" it was called, and I suppose still is. I do not see the point in writing this letter, if that's what it is, but I saw and see the point in trying. Trying to do what though I surely do not know.

To share still maybe, if that is okay with you.

Yours but not,
John

El Campo Minado

por Martin Bemberg

El amor es un campo minado
Cuando el corazón grita brincando
Desde el infierno y de prisa demasiado
Hasta el invierno y su muerte que no se puede evitar.

Love is a mine field
When the heart shouts springing
From hell and too hasty
Towards winter, towards its death inevitable.

Sugar And Spice And Somethings Briefly Nice

By Martin Bemberg

I remember this one time...
I was sugar, you were spice.
It was pretty nice.

Now oh so happy light, with plumbum chest, its ticks quite heavy
For the many marathons too far (but too far for whom?),
And who would ask for more can ask the past
What one might miss, what one might
In some somewhat likely future kiss and find.

Oh, really?
Oh, nevermind.

I am really good at wanting things I cannot have,
Or so say miles.
I am really swell at manufactured smiles and twisting wiles,
At least until they walk away or even charge and even while disarming.

And I am great at showing you your charming ways,
At giving you for days but just a few my lusting ear,
And especially gifted in saying this and saying so in song,
"So whisper here,"

And I am by far the best at saying,
"It is okay, I now hear, for you to say goodbye,
My Dar, my dear."

I remember this one time...
I was sugar, you were spice.
It was pretty nice,

Which one might miss, which one might
In some somewhat likely future kiss and find.

Oh, really?
Oh, nevermind.

With Men Well Furnished

By Martin Bemberg

Of dreary days and perfect weather,
I do not know which is worse nor which one makes the missing better,
Nor which one flesh would rather have, if it could choose
Between the two to make milieu in.

But this one thing is certain, two cheeks that once grazed grateful
Just like one curtain might fluid as one lush's swill
Brush against one window sill as our one
And Lonestar at noon
Do furnish bright - or might - my room.

Like Caesar said "So in the world:
'Tis furnished well with men,"
Furnished too, I'd say, are you with memory of them,
For which there is no last farewell,
No end in sight, nor one to see,
Which sparks these thoughts that sing like hell
Of what could never be.

Life Without The Internet

By Martin Bemberg
this is probably not how you feel, but it's a cute little emo poem you might draw inspiration from.

Life Without The Internet

When I use it more often as a table in my lap
And less as a laptop, and am under the influence
Of things like Janis Joplin on vinyl and four dollar wine
And the kind of spliff that Sarah calls a New York Cigarette,

I say things to you like, "I like you a lot right now,"
To which you say, under the influence of time of year or month
Or whatever else,
"Why? Because I am being distant and dismissive?'

And after I have spent who knows how long
Recycling my unsmoked, ashtray butt-touchers,
In a kind of re-make, I'd say, if cigarettes were a movie,

And after I have spent who knows how long
Wondering how long the remaining flakes if any
Will survive past me, rather, how long I'll be a smoker,
Rather how long I will live (see: 67),

And because I have spent who knows how long
Wondering why moths love four dollar wine so much,
At last I see as I hear in stereo one violent shudder
Why guys like Alex Delarge of A Clockwork Orange
And Hitler of a Reich that worked like clockwork
Loved the German composers,

And while recalling your birth the day the Berlin Wall fell
I say, "No, because you are not mean,"
And because there is a silence I do not understand
And no possibility of typing, I put paper to pen
In hope that someday soon through some miracle without wires,
When it arrives, I will send and you will read what I have written,

And hope that you are flattered to find a poem
In which you are more important than the end of communism,
And more powerful than Beethoven's ninth.

At Last Your Laughter

by Martin Bemberg

Rain and storm and tears for fears
And then at last your laughter.
We merge lightly as we find our proper lane,
Chat differents and sames, and what's more,
Befores and what we're after after,
And then, at last, your laughter.

A Sandwich Of Feta, Tomato

by Martin Bemberg

Last night from the film depicting the infamous Ilich,
One Carlos Ramirez-Martinez, I learned to smoke while writing,
Paper to pen.
I watched as Angie, my favorite, ein Deutscher mit Gewiss,
With one hand held a cigarette betwixt two fingers,
The middle, the fore, and held down left-page,
Twisting cigarette, which faces not out but faces palm instead
As he wrote with his right, smoke slipping probably through fingers
Until it reached his eyes and told him, I would think,
"It is time to put me to your lips, it's time to stoke me,
Smoke on me again."

And I think of course of ceding smoke and of course drink too
In your presence and how of course
It has been one year, one year since playing games that
Being new to you seemed too to strike me somehow novel.
One year ago today - one year or so ago today -
Our trading tongues in ways that number more than one
And less than three,
You taught me and not to mention brought me yours,
And after I gave lesson on how my South pronounces oil,
I thought this tryst of ours might just be dear upon your shores,
But you are, it turns out, from love-dearth stock and disappointed soil.

Today's raw tomato (it made me sick and sore, debased unto the gut)
Perhaps was rotten, but then of course there is the chance
(There's always the chance)
That it was the thought of you only once forgotten,
The thought of your "make like an adult and wake diurnal,"
Your "Before I for the day go",
Your each-day sandwich of feta, tomato,
That tinged this sickness-sad nostalgia.

Perhaps it was the without-fail or the with-for-certain calling in your chest,
Was the daily-left something I would never otherwise have put to mouth,
But which for that I came to love so much the more and nonetheless.

Seagazing

Seagazing

by Martin Bemberg

Even now, indefinitely ashore and even more than every now and then,
That far-off vessel I once christened comes many times to longing mind.
We are many marathons apart, but thanks to one lens less miraculous,
Through which I've just now merely glanced, I see her setting sail
On a second - keep that secret - maiden voyage.

Her coming into view, for such a brief accident, has occupied much mind
And, given her brand new set of canvas sails,
Seems to be at that point of no return
I don't remember being warned about but probably was.

It's such a shame, they tell me,
To covet such a distant shore's belongings,
To mark the ocean and its ending,
But they've gotten it all wrong -

It's the motion of departure that I envy.

Came August Left September

by Martin Bemberg

It's the leaving season, and the will-leave, and the left-already.
It's time of year I saw you first, you on stage,
Sing bottom alto in tongue I think I'd probably never.

Learn my love of dying grass and air so thick at night you might could swim it,
Of swims, swams, have swums and the way you hold your mouth
To think of how to say them.

Remember now,
Such that months, having made now 'most a year, have come,
Such as months, having drowned my pages, seem hardly gone,
Much like months address themselves to you:
Much like such is life, c'est la vie, it is the leaving season,
Something old, something new.

It is time of year:
Sing chills from foreign fingers as tools towards leaving vices.
Sing politeness as keeping-long kissers and diplomacies erotic.
Sing enthralling, sing exotic.

Sing calling home
About the boy you met in America.

Yon Side The Bosporus

by Martin Bemberg

You point to that branch above our café,
That light-wrapped arbor arm,
Some remnants of a Christmas passed,
Which I think you have only read about,
Perhaps seen on TV,
But whose carols you have, in truth, heard
From Thrace-invading missionaries.

And I think, as you map the lineage of your tongue,
Of the black beyond that limb to consider
That cliché your creed calls paradise.

Then having come to mistrust my elations
My soul makes like a skeptic and turns to run.
That this night just might be the oasis, probably I could not deny,
Though not for lack of trying to make its ringings less than true

And I think, now that we have gone this night our separate ways:
"You remind me of everything that is beautiful
And everything that is beautiful reminds me of you,"

Some words I should have told you then
And not in tears as you are leaving to meet your brother,
Who will never know of me, I reckon, back home yon side the Bosporus.

Brushing Teeth

by Martin Bemberg

It is only every day I think of ours.
Yes, right after I googled your name and found the poem,
Which you wrote, it turns out, in elementary school,
I brushed my teeth on the toilet and wished I could say
It was cathartic.

It is only every day that I think of ours,
Which, split by two seas at the very least
Grew by exponents with every looming disadvantage,
Skipped decline, went straight to dying,
And recur in me while waking,
Having not been purged in sleep.

Because of you, and only you,
I knew the mere Bosporus between two continents,
Between my West and your East,
But now and only now do I see the Atlantic, The Europe,
A slight Maghreb and a faint Mediterranean
Between our fixéd feet.

I Count My Blessings

After a hard day's ecstasy the legs are the first to weaken
Under the weight of the recently Belgian bicyclical Amber Ale.
We rid ourselves of town this weekend, merged lightly out of bounds
And into being soaked by and into being topped by sun.

So far spring has been a string of shoe-ins.
(As you'll recall we drove along and past
The reaches of recent ruins.)

You recall the time we accidentally trespassed
Taking photos of some through fish eye lensing.
I took, I shook his hand, the owner's, said my sorries.
(Now that's the stuff of cleansing.)

At the acme of our Arkansas I groveled east.
I faced my palms to Mecca and knew in Heart
And other places
That Mohammed was mistaken when he taught
Our graces must be parts of some regime.
It seems those too were thoughts of yours exactly
And I smiled as you lit my cigarette
And eventually took your ten percent.
(Yes, this is how it went).

Yellow House

by Martin Bemberg

Yesterday's majestic yellow glows,
Domestic and grizzly ear to ear
Sing softly nor a coward, and then we hear:
"Each day, spend it with you.
All my time, spend it with you,"
And then it breathes this call:
Either
"I have made no commitment" or
"I am ill so commit me,"
And so I ask "What is it?"
Whether or not we will make such a visit
After all.

Anna Beth Aquarius

by Martin Bemberg

We have been, or had been rather,
The edge of each other's summers until tabouleh,
But being of a certain ilk we knew each other's faces and creations,
Knew as if we've known since birth, or, at least, since we began to ponder
Things like mirth derived from faces and creations.

Stoned, you steered as we were hearing hymns I know
And hymns I don't, but want to know.
I said I'd not heard hymns I wrote, not on a stereo,
And you said, "I just inherited a stereo."

You said, "Do you know?" and I said, "No,"
But later at that bar which welcomes 'til it has to serve the masses
And their never altruistic comes and gos, my housemate elder asked the same,
Asked "Do you know?" and I was pleased to say, "Anna Beth Aquarius told me so."

Once a woman woke me,
Made me teach her Prufrock
As she listened to dubstep,
And I cooked my own breakfast
Of toast and over easy.
When you wake me
You get me stoned
And I say things like,
"I grow weird, I grow weird.
Shall I shave or save my dirty beard?"

You say there's nothing wrong with an earth or pub filled with soul mates,
No matter falling towards their future graves nor swimming in their ales.
I say the ground and its grails will carry us, Anna Beth Aquarius.

I Am Not A Lover

By Martin Bemberg

And so it begins, this end,
Because a heart entitled cannot, will not mend.
Because a lover is not a friend
And I am a poet asking, searching for a pen.
I dream a lot
And dream of carried cots
In order to forget them and when strong
To leave them, so that I might when longing
Remember and deceive them,
To sleep in them again.
But a lover is not a friend,
And though such maxims make flee
Sense and syntax from,
Leave longing bleak and free and then some
And then some more, I dream a lot -
I dream of up and down and
Mostly dream of carried cots.
I've been up, I've been down.
I've dreamed her in a wedding gown,
Perhaps too heavy or proud to carry up
A waiting staircase, to use the favor a carried cot
Before the knot is tied would not refuse.
But a lover is not a friend.
Because a heart entitled will not mend
And I am not a lover -
I am a poet who is always looking for a pen.
I dream a lot.
I dream the most of carried cots.