POEM OF THE DAY

The Last Thing I Remember

By: Mark Lipman 

 

The last thing I remember

Before the world fell apart

Tumbling like the shrieking

Cries of falling flesh

From 110 stories up

Exploding into rubble

Splattered upon my windshield

On the last day

Of my peaceful memories

When the alarm bells rang

Waking me from my naive childhood

At the very instant that

Life as we knew it

Would change forever

When nothing would ever

Be the same again

With the fate of everything

Hanging in the balance

Like an unexploded cluster bomb

In a child's hands

Just waiting to be turned

The wrong way

As our dreams and nightmares

Collide, fusing into one

Like two souls

On some unsuspecting crossroad

Catching that hint of recognition

Waiting in the other's eye

Knowing that this singular moment

Would change the course of history

I opened up the letter that you sent

To read the words:

                             I love you

 

I will never be the same again

POEM OF THE DAY

Official Reports

By: Mark Lipman

 

Contrary to the police report

You can eat love

It is a reciprocal dish

Best served for two

Full of nutrients that help keep

You going throughout the day.

One alone however

Could never get their fill

It's funny that way

This feast or famine world

 

But government documents have proven

To be wrong in the past

According to the official reports

The CIA and Dick Cheney

       never lied

 

So why should I not believe

That if you loved me

I would be full

Gorged out on happiness

 

Government employees

Seldom know anything

Let alone everything

With all their inaccuracies

And false statements

No one can know for sure

Or be held accountable

For misleading my heart

To the American people

 

Where is the independent commission

To study the facts

And determine conclusively

Just how closely related

The events of our separation

And this empty feeling in my gut

Really are

 

Who is to say that

If you offered me your lips

All these statistical falsities

Would not be blown out of the water

That every restaurant

Across the nation

Would be shut down

From a single kiss

 

When the whole truth be known

In open court

That yes,

You do look good enough to eat.         

The Shooting Star by Mark Lipman

Once upon a time there was a shooting star.  And this shooting star was very happy, because when it passed the sky at night it could see all the lovers gazing up at it in wonder.  But then one night, when he was shining in all his glory, he heard a whisper from way, way far below on earth and what he heard terrified him, because someone had pointed up at him in the sky and said that he wasn’t a star at all, but a meteorite. 

“A meteorite!” he shrieked within himself.  “How horrible!”  How could it be that he was merely a meteorite?  And as he listened to the voices below he began to discover.

“You see,” continued the whisper, “when a meteorite passes close to the earth some particles break off and burn up in the atmosphere and that is what we see.”

“What a tragic ending!” thought the meteorite in shame.  A star, is the greatest creature in the universe – it gives warmth and light.  Without the stars nothing could live.  To be degraded to just a meteorite in a second’s time – and not even that, but just a piece – just a fragment – dust – that’s what he was – just the dust off a meteorite – it was more than he could bare ... but then, just as he reached his deepest despair, another, much softer, much sweeter voice rose up into the air, “Oh look, a shooting star,” said the voice.  “How beautiful it is.”

Heraing that his heart beat just a bit faster as he chanced a glance downward to see where those words had come from and at that very moment he spied the lovers’ kiss.  With that he raced across the sky in a fiery red.

Just dust he may be – but that, that is what dreams are made of.