Poetry, Jeffery Berg
It wasn’t all neon.
Many times, a dull pearl.
Pleasantly soft
rubbered buttons
of a Walkman and the black gold
of The Beverly Hillbillies.
In our town we could find
at any time
an old or new
Phil Collins song somewhere
on the radio. The words
of The Blind Assassin
falling away on the book-on-tape
in my station wagon.
A plot unremembered.
He’d get pissed when his pop icon
was dissed—it’s easy to bind
oneself to another who’s more
ethereal, powerful—
maybe it’s all they have. Joni Mitchell’s
“Carey” as the train glides
past Manassas—tree-shaded
houses on flat land under dusk.
The sky: a band of rose
under grey
until the grey darkens
and all that’s left
is ourselves
and our luggage
and the band of rose
between the trees.
Jeffery Berg's poems have appeared in journals such as Impossible Archetype, the Leveler, Court Green, and Pine Hills Review. Jeffery lives between Jersey City and Provincetown and regularly reviews films for Film-Forward.