The Buyers by Lee Stern

The buyers are here
and they want to be sure there is something to buy.
If there’s nothing to buy, they’re going to go back to their sad houses
and line up behind the other sad buyers.
So please try to keep that in mind
when you have something ill to say about them.
Let the buyers advance for the good of humanity.
And let them reconcile their obligations
even when it is still the morning hour for us
and we stand amazed at the quality of the light.
Let the buyers settle their affairs
using the most advanced principles of modern accounting that we are able to relate.
And let the things they have bought settle down easily on shelves.
Let the dust that accumulates become the surface for the road that we keep.
And let the super abundant boxes
sail nightly through the shores of the heaven we can name.





Lee Stern, California, USA

A Peppermint Tree by Lee Stern

I think I should have a peppermint tree to show for everything.
And I think I should have it now.
The fact that they don’t make peppermint trees
shouldn’t even enter into it.
I expect you to deliver it to me
and send me a card telling me that it’s on the way.
If you tell me where to put it, that’ll be a plus.
But I’m so used to you not saying anything
that, if I have to figure it out myself,
I won’t get excited. And I won’t blame you.
Because I know you have enough to worry about.
And you don’t need me to chime in with more aggravation.
So you don’t have to say anything.
Just show up with the peppermint tree
and I’ll consider that you’ve done your job.
I’ll consider that there’s a forest somewhere.
Maybe loosely tied together with dust in its hands.
And its angels are whispering your name.


Lee Stern, California, USA

The Dimmest Forest by Lee Stern

Let me walk in the dimmest forest without you,
unstringing the lights that you left on the pole.
Let me do this without wavering
and without making excuses
for the fact that I didn’t want to do it when it was dark.
And let me wear my best clothes when I’m doing this
so that people know that I wasn’t upset.
Let them think that when I put the lights in a different place,
a boardroom of people I happened upon made noises.
And then retreated, I think,
to a place they knew where it was no longer possible to discuss their
...........myths.
But where it was possible nonetheless to enjoy themselves
and to marry the sanctimony of their lawful tears
in one way or another, perhaps,
to the bulb that departed from the lasting socket of their shame.


Lee Stern, Los Angeles, CA, USA