Dennis J Bernstein
Tell Me A Joke And Hold Me
Things to remember when i'm dying:
Fill the room with friends and loud music
and lots of rich food, 14 layers of sweetness.
If I say something mean or self centered,
or start to bitch too much
shsh me with a poem or a song,
A lullaby would be nice, or a nocturne,
or some generous loving silence.
But remember! The last sense to go
Is the hearing–The most passive
of course, but also the most expansive;
So talk to me, whisper, shout if you have to
Or hum, tell me a story or a terrible old joke
that I have heard and told a hundred thousand times.
Bio
Dennis J Bernstein is an award-winning poet. His most recent volume, Notebook 19 was a finalist in 2023 Best Book Award, Poetry International Book Awards. Five Oceans in a Teaspoon, won the 2020 IPPY Gold Medal Award for Poetry and the 2020 Best Book Award for Poetry by the American Bookfest, and was a finalist in 2020 Best Book Award, Poetry International Book Awards. Bernstein's previous collection, Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom, won the 2012 Artists Embassy International Literary Cultural Award. His poetry has appeared in ZYZZYVA, and numerous other journals. Bernstein's artists' books/plays French Fries and GRRRHHHH: a study of social patterns, co-authored with Warren Lehrer, are considered seminal works in the genre, and are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Georges Pompidou Centre, and other museums around the world.