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Oct 2019
Variations on OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

ah, me making the global rounds,
with the poem interns in tow, observing poet patients,
me, the anti-troll meme, asking the lonely legions,
“what’s up, just checking in,”

responsa included the nuanced range of variations
of the simplest terms,

Variations on OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

the normal curve of emotional disturbances, falling mists,
category 5 storms and verbal cover-up girl makeup all represented by
OK

this, then, the OK stuff of human poetry, the plain, the innocuous, inadmissible guiltily non-confessions that are the infectious complexity of heartache, humongous jealousy of those surficially
just innocently happy, those who fear of failing,
longing for what was and can not be true once more,
so with not-even-a-serious-word a reminder of our masks when meeting Quo Vadis,
the replies come in summarizing shades of:

OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

a perfectly good response, shadings and gradations
that shout volumes deserving of interpretations, talmudical exegesis,
across continental contestation,^^^meaning obviously that the contra-opposite is likely what’s meant,
all indirect giving access when delving into their abyss,
as in the rock n’ roll verse states,

“just dropped in to see what condition your condition is in”^

okay.

yes, it’s true okay is better than not okay,
which is better than the catch all meaningless of the
OK....the one, that dribbles off into air hanging, silent albatross

but the insertion of the modifier

just

makes the meaning of the fully, half born, sentence summation diagrammable except
OK
is not valid in life size, grownup version game  of Scrabble(d) hearts

this is how I spend my everyday vacation days
exploring everything human

the graze of a hand, the longest slow journey of a singlet tear,
a child’s shrieking glee, the nightmares gasps
when they woke the awoken,
the intelligible whimpering vocabulary of the new born innocent,
the spackled, patching of the speckled cracking of the
semi-autonomous, wish-it-wasn’t human,
my, busted-heart

so when two lovers continental shelves do not meet,
but graze each other, altering the landscape of emotions,
OK, just, okay is
sedimentary weak but perfect

you are the interloper ghost,
who now asks “how ya doing,”
the famous just “checking in,”
and
in the sliding spaces where mountain ranges get created,^^^

the O in Okay is a black hole disguised

I'm ok... as in just okay :)”

though this is a Buffalo Springfield “ain’t exactly clear”
you accept and understand for aching hearts are the
specialty of the maison

and that is all I have to say on the matter.

OK?
<>

3:21am Monday September 30 ~ 10:38pm Friday October 4, 2019
Written by
Nat Lipstadt  M/nyc
(M/nyc)   
511
       Stephen E Yocum, Karijinbba, CLARYT and ---
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