Sonnet For Sleepless Phrophets

Sometimes our ilk, we cannot sleep
And for days sometimes we wonder about,
Minds meandering to, fro, in and out
At lightning speed - our ilk, which the witching hour keeps.

The moon has it's way of waking up
What we in daylight seem somehow to miss.
Deprived of pillow talk's tender goodnight kiss,
I feel it's time to find a bullet to bite and brown my cup.

As for desires of mine, first is dawn's crawl commencing,
Last is the alarm clock's beep and hateful hissing,
Not to mention a waking vacant and an absent lust.

As for regrets, there are yet few save worry,
For we sleepless prophets do lose soundness in a hurry,
But the perfect kissing couple seems a mattress and a dusk.

The New Sonnet For Helen

By Pablo Neruda

Translated by Martin Bemberg

When you are old, little girl (Ronsard already told you so),
You'll remember those distant verses I spoke.
You'll have breasts made mirthless by the nursing of your children,
The final sprigs of your vacant life…

I will be so far away that your hands of wax
Will plow away all record of my naked ruins.
You'll see how snow can come in spring
And how spring's snow is cruelest.

I will be so far away that the love and the pain,
Which I once poured into your life like a cruet brimming,
Will be condemned to die in my own hands…

And it will be evening, for my youth is leaving,
Evening, for only once do flowers share their essence,
For although you may call on me, I will be so far away.

Truancy

I see sometimes a boy or man across the way

With 15 years or fewer under a belt he does not wear.

Covered by lethargic hair his pompous ears, 

He opens with his purple Bic one or two or three or four 

Of six domestic beers, and drinks from one 'round 10 a.m., 

Unimpressed to say the least with spiral-staircased bottlenecks

(Their use he'd find more suited sawed and placed

On Robert Johnson's callused, darkly wedded finger).

He wonders too, and sudden as he often does, 

Whether Bluesman's digits might coulda been Satan's too,

Or whether maybe they were just Black Bobby's own to harden,

Like his drunk, melodic, soul sold to devil and to legend.

And when the pills run out, he heads for fish oil capsules,

Pokes their ends with unbent paperclips as liquid slips

Into the smallest glasses he can find among the cabinets,

Which ten years back his mother left him.

And for each fish pill poured, a single cigarette is liberated,

By a dip or a roll in pisces acids and along lines of powder,

Freed like fish in its own right from pink and white

And childproof capsules meant for itching throats 

And watering eyes.

Dude. 

This is way cooler than science class.

Butterfly Knives

By Martin Bemberg

My lover is most Christian among Heathens
And is not afraid of knives
Some cohort kings have banned and brandished,
Because she is a queen with no aspirations to supremacy
Save the supremacy of love
And I will swim there liberal and enamored
As long as life will let me.

If You Asked Me For A Poem I'd Say

By Martin Bemberg

Some days these hands, they wake to sleep
And some they wake to write.
Today these hands shake slight,
Not worthy of the pen, and so they type
And dream in unseen verses.

"Unseen verses?" you ask. "Unseen since when?
Since verses drowned in beaches black,
Which come around to tell the verses
They read verses now and then?"
(Yes. Unseen since then.)

A summer's day? A rose? I can't go there.
So should my hands then think in prose?
Should they think in prose and write
In verse of love beyond compare?

Well,
They can't yet write, these hands (they shake),
These hands, which you are in and wish to wear.
These hands, they shake.
So there.

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