I Could Only Be Happier
By Jeff Kersh

I Could Only Be Happier
If this Diet Coke from Jack-in-the-Box
had a splash of bourbon, a mighty tang
to cut Nutrasweet's thick metallic flavor.


If my feet were at home, propped up
on the coffee table as I lay my head
in my new wife's lap, discussing
houses and babies and possibilities
instead of behind a computer
negotiating the ins and outs of help files
and documentation strategies.


If the power went down, stranding
a whole building's worth of machines,
and the phone system, too, and all
the bosses could do was send us
travelling down the highways and backroads
for an afternoon of simple pleasure.


If the world had a place for the educated,
the creative, dare I say the artistic,
free of corporate considerations
and political conveniences. A place
where a single tree could be drawn and photographed
and written about until its leaves shone
with love and proper attention.


If this damned phone would stop ringing
and all my customers would be content
with their software, their work, their lives.


Copyright Jeff Kersh. All Rights Reserved.




Jeff Kersh has published poetry, fiction and nonfiction in a variety of print and online journals. He currently lives and works in the Saint Louis,Missouri area, where he leads a writers group and explores the world of multimedia expression.







Flurries


What other name to give them, those translucent
flakes that move within the belly all the times
the belly should be still and keep its mouth shut?
Smack the bottom of a bottle of Diet Coke
then open it, splatter the walls with foam,
and you're starting to get what I'm talking about.


They flurry about (yes, they do what they are)
whenever she appears, and she always appears
as opposed to walks in or pops right up;
there's a magic about her appearances, as if
Bubba and Joe-Bob in their fishin' boat
seen them aliens again, the ones what probed
their butts. See? Just talking about her,
her habit of just coming into view, hazy,
like something out of a bad poem or a movie
about love spelled L-U-V, all caps.


Damn. Where was I? Oh, when she appears,
the flurries begin, swimming slow circles
right about where my liver is, gaining speed
and intensity as she comes closer, giggling,
I swear to god, giggling! Or singing, buzzing
all my internal organs like I'm about to have
diarrhea or some sort of gastrointestinal whatsit.
Is this good? Is it normal? For adults, I mean!


Copyright Jeff Kersh. All Rights Reserved.






Insomnia


The buzz, low and ineffectual like a fly's complaint,
loiters at the back of my head through hours
of infomercials, snacks I'd never consider
during waking hours, endless reams of thought
spilling from my half-awake recliner.


After a while the walls begin to entertain,
shifting ever so slightly into a parody
of off-white - light blues and yellows flicker
like Christmas lights without the cheer,
stars without their attendant atmospheres.


And I sit here planning the next fifty years
of my life, multiple outcomes for each
nascent possibility - the speeches I'll give
to my son about sex, or my daughter about
avoiding it, mull over the double standard;


There are fifteen difficult-to-detect stains
in this brownish carpet, each of which
the cats inspect one by one as they mill
around the room, glancing occasionally
at me to see if I'm ready for bed yet.


I'm not; I won't be; I let the night wash over
as if I were outside, moonlight and wind,
taking tracklights and AC breeze instead.
I've read every magazine in the house;
I'll be much better tomorrow night.


Copyright Jeff Kersh. All Rights Reserved.





Low Tones


Not quite a whisper
but far from full voice,
We talk Sotto Voce,
isolating this moment
from this hazy local bar,
our friends clustered
around thrown-together tables.


I'm too intellectual
and far too insecure
for a bald-faced come-on,
but my intention is clear
in your eyes, liquid
from a family of drinks
and a mob of cigarettes.


We revel in dynamics,
a clandestine song
playing counterpoint
to drunken chatter, clack
of billiard balls, Van
Morrison-laced speakers.
The best conversations are soft.


Later you ask me why
it took me so long
to suggest intimacy, waiting
for such a non-intimate place,
but you say it softly
as if barstools can hear,
as if this place is sacred.


In a sense it is, closeness
demanding such low tones
after a symphony of sensory
overload improvised
from lust and fantasies
we both knew flesh
would vindicate someday;


Even though I leave town
tomorrow, never to return,
our song will resonate
through my borrowed apartment,
its dull roar punctuated
by memory and fantasy
too bright to be so quiet.


(c) Jeff Kersh. All Rights Reserved.