Stewart Alter

by Stewart Alter

Fidgeting and uncomposed,
His coat in the way,
He wanted to leave his seat
When the performance began
To join the actors onstage.
He was drawn to the radiance
Of sequenced moments
And exposed intentions
Through lines ripened in memory.
He wanted to be a presence
Close enough to hear their breaths
Rounded into words—
Not, as he now heard,
Coughs in the assembly
Of shadows, in the role
Of the distracted, eavesdropping
On half-completed scenes.
His thoughts mingled and astray,
He turned them toward the vague
And disturbing muttering,
So bitter and blistering
And untransformed by artifice
That he was unsure what to say.
He wanted to leave
The darkness,
But someone had to stay
In the audience, to watch
And to listen,
With no role to play. 

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

by Stewart Alter

I know nothing about my snoring self,
The loud beast whose breathing chills the village.
I have never heard myself, but have been told
My snoring is the terror of the night.
I know myself only as the dreamer,
Master of the quiet and private signs
Who slips nimbly through night’s animation.
But I have become the cave of the dragon
In which each day ends, the legions of Rome
Milling restlessly in the colonies, threatening
To stir up all laws and languages.
I know myself only as the dreamer
Who was prepared to face the senselessness
Of my own discomforts, not those I imposed.

I wish now that I had known success
Was the blessing of sleeping silently—
The foxhole fellowship of hiding unheard
Together for weeks to surprise the enemy,
The lovers’ afterlude when satellite minds
Regain their orbits in expanding space.

For I had envisioned a different end for myself:
Old man beneath a broad suburban tree,
Lying on my back, and pedaling from leaf to leaf
Until I reached the sky,
I would return outside one evening
To climb and doze off, undiscovered
Until a few mornings later,
Casually I would be spotted,
Huddled in the branches,
Dear old eccentric. 

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

by Stewart Alter 

She had not fed the birds for days
And missed the cardinal in the muddy yard,
The way he dropped down to the earth ablaze,
And slipped back up into the fog unmarred. 

The more drab the day, the more color lent,
For he showed no signs of his search for seeds,
No traces marking a desperate descent
In a life consumed serving basic needs.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

by Stewart Alter

Fidgeting and uncomposed,
His coat in the way,
He wanted to leave his seat
When the performance began
To join the actors onstage.
He was drawn to the radiance
Of sequenced moments
And exposed intentions
Through lines ripened in memory.
He wanted to be a presence
Close enough to hear their breaths
Rounded into words—
Not, as he now heard,
Coughs in the assembly
Of shadows, in the role
Of the distracted, eavesdropping
On half-completed scenes.
His thoughts mingled and astray,
He turned them toward the vague
And disturbing muttering,
So bitter and blistering
And untransformed by artifice
That he was unsure what to say.
He wanted to leave
The darkness,
But someone had to stay
In the audience, to watch
And to listen,
With no role to play.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

by Stewart Alter

I know nothing about my snoring self,
The loud beast whose breathing chills the village.
I have never heard myself, but have been told
My snoring is the terror of the night.
I know myself only as the dreamer,
Master of the quiet and private signs
Who slips nimbly through night’s animation.
But I have become the cave of the dragon
In which each day ends, the legions of Rome
Milling restlessly in the colonies, threatening
To stir up all laws and languages.
I know myself only as the dreamer
Who was prepared to face the senselessness
Of my own discomforts, not those I imposed.

I wish now that I had known success
Was the blessing of sleeping silently—
The foxhole fellowship of hiding unheard
Together for weeks to surprise the enemy,
The lovers’ afterlude when satellite minds
Regain their orbits in expanding space.

For I had envisioned a different end for myself:
Old man beneath a broad suburban tree,
Lying on my back, and pedaling from leaf to leaf
Until I reached the sky,
I would return outside one evening
To climb and doze off, undiscovered
Until a few mornings later,
Casually I would be spotted,
Huddled in the branches,
Dear old eccentric.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.

by Stewart Alter

She had not fed the birds for days
And missed the cardinal in the muddy yard,
The way he dropped down to the earth ablaze,
And slipped back up into the fog unmarred.

The more drab the day, the more color lent,
For he showed no signs of his search for seeds,
No traces marking a desperate descent
In a life consumed serving basic needs.

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.