Dead Rose One

Sep 2023

Nat Lipstadt

My portrait was painted by Jackson *******

~My portrait was painted by Jackson *******~

<|>

“there are no lines or lies in my writings
there are no definitions and perception is only your truth.
Therefore,
my poems are splats and drips, you make them into paintings that hang in your own private museum,
but signed by me as first passenger”

<|>

when did I write these words?

can’t recall, though undated,
they seem all too familiar, and thinking that if I didn’t,
I should have…
for the title of this ‘poem painting’ has lain in quietude,
a resident in my file of
“someday writs, awaiting,”
when the itch demands you will
essay
the admixture of words and swords
that will cut a newborn reciprocity of thee and me,
an unbound bind that ties and frees us
from and by our shared senses…
today, an inadvertent blinding sunlight stumble is demanding a
fulsome scratching

<|>

the portrait of each is the irrational intersectional of splats and drips,
each viewer, reader, filters the image through a common
uncommonality,
which is as it should be,
for if we are each created in His image,
how glorious is the diversity of our deities,
each of us a tiny drop of paint on a tableau
of a small planet, insignificant but
uniquely beautiful intelligent species of godlike creatures,
human

<|>

the précis of this conundrum conversation bewilders,
a single word drops,
of plaint, paint, blood,
a seconds blush blurred
that is the building blocks of imagery
I state is mine,
but now realizations swiftly fertilize,
the portrait is not of me,
but of me blended into thee,
and this poem,
is our composition
that hangs in each of our primary
museum,
newly re-titled,
**A Passenger, Realized

Sept 13, 2023
8:35AM
NYC

sunlight direct in a tall building blocks away sneaks into my room,
blinding me into awareness

#my #portrait #painted #jackson #******* #lipstadt #passenger #realized

Sep 2023

v V v

Closet Cleaning

Stops and starts
tidbits and scribbles
3 years of notes and files
and pain filled ramblings
but nothing cohesive.

Instead, what’s written are
the short circuit musings of a brain
on the mend after 25 years of
miscellaneous addictions.

I gather all the words together
and wonder what to do with them.
I contemplate deletion, but no,
there has got to be something
here that's worthwhile,
something worth saving.

So I pull out all the lines
that somehow feel right,
lines that have potential,
lines that show me how far
I’ve come since getting clean

and I write down the best of them
and then comment on each
from my current perspective.

     I used to chase the dragon
     now the dragon chases me
     across fields of wet leaves
     in the timid December sun.
(I must have walked a thousand miles while being chased)

      I force feed the feel good
     to override the let down.
(One of the main reasons a user uses)

     There is no willing oneself to wellness,
     there are no bootstraps to pull on, and
     no self talk to conquer the chemical
     malfunction in my head.
(Without Faith and Hope, I wouldn't have made it)

      It’s a kind of spiritual act,
     A mystical replenishing of
     all the used-up parts of me.
(Could have said meditate just as easily)

     I knew it was wrong
     but I wanted it easy.
(Perhaps the most honest thing I have ever written)

     It makes me wonder if
     the gaps I have are
     there to protect me.
     But more so it makes me
     fear that hidden moments
     shaped the core of me,
     and when I don’t like me,
     what's missing are the things
     that if I knew I could not
     survive the knowing of them.
(I can only assume this made sense at the time)

     I do best when I live in retrospect.
     The present is too real.
     In the present my demon is here.
     In retrospect
     I can choose to leave him out.
(So glad I got past this, and live solely in the now)

     When we exist for only ourselves
     the world is not round,
     it is flat and we tend to fall off the edges
     into pandemonium and unhappiness.
(Still so very true!)

     In all of my searching I
     cannot find a way to love you
     like you need to be loved.
     In other ways, yes, but
     second to what you want.
     But even so I want you to know
     you are my rock, my harbor,
     my safe place, as consistent as
     the dawning day, as reliable as
     the setting sun, and as beautiful as
     the harvest moon.
     Without you I am lost.
(She saved my life and she knows it)

     When I am close to God
     I smell lavender.
(Don’t remember writing this but I like it)

     A common idiom -
     don’t put skeletons in your closet;
     My father hung bones like he hangs his shirts.
(Never been a fan of “Do as I say, not as I do")

     I can't let myself
     be shamed for that
     which I'm already
     ashamed of..
(Be kind to yourself!)

     I'm not afraid IN the dark
     I'm afraid OF the dark.
(The unpredictable loneliness)

     I will never be happy because
     there is too much I don’t know.
(The need to be in control is a death sentence)

     There's an uneasiness with the
     easiness of stress-free living.
(Chaos is a large magnet and I am sheet-metal)

     Sleep never satisfies for long,
     like a drug tolerance 
     its ability to provide escape
     loses effectiveness over time.
     You'll notice this while dreaming,
     your dreams become more vivid
     and uncontrolled, a rolling
     tide of daytime worries warped
     into colors you can't escape.
(Sleep, by far is the most elusive aspect of healing)

     I am afraid of love 
     and that's a difficult existence 
     when your greatest need
     is also your greatest fear.
(Such a horrible paradox to live in)

     Pounding my fists on
     the darkened altar in my mind
     makes the night much darker.
(A place I’ve been where you do not want to go)

The gap of these years has now been recorded.

I am free to move on towards what is to come.

While away from HP, I spent the last 3 years healing mentally and physically. I am now 3 years clean from any addictive substance which for me included Alcohol, Nicotine, Opiates and Benzodiazepines. It has been an extremely long road to recovery but it had to be done. I truly believe that had I not done it, I would be dead. As a public service announcement I just want to say that most people don't know that Benzo's are by far the hardest thing to get clean from. The most important literature out there for this is the Ashton Manual. https://www.benzoinfo.com/ashtonmanual/ I highly encourage anyone out there who takes Ativan, Xanax, ******, etc. on a regular basis to read and reference this.

Aug 2023

Nat Lipstadt

My Woman, My Partner

My Woman, My Partner

we need today it seems identifiers moreover,
as we slice, dissect, and categorize the W’s of our
individual experience,
by defining ourselves as pieces of categories

Today, woke with this title-to-be-poem in my head,
My Woman, My Partner

I like particular, individuating descriptors that distinguish
rather than categorize, summary’s that capture the
roomy broad and small strokes, the subtleties of capturing~
encompassing an image total, and yet intuitively tasting and
comprehending the depths and flavoring of our totality,
a combinatory humanity

my choice was My Woman, which was comprehensive
and distinguished, yet upon consultation with said person,
for pre-authorization approval, it was returned to me with
an engine-heart additive, that was both a word that denotes a
binding, ties, equality, and takes it to another, even ever
highest level,

this essay on how I came to title this poem, well, is the poem
in its entirety, it is the process, the point, the summary and the
minutiae of all I wished to convey.

Sunday Aug 13 8:03 AM

#my #woman #partner #lipstadt

Jul 2023

Where Shelter

Where In Deed is Shelter?

Where Is Shelter?

depends on the location of the storm…

so oft have I queried the gods and you?

Where is Shelter?

to which, my response, while surrounded so well (!)
within
my moated island circumferences redoubt,
always was a simple:

“Here, Here is shelter!

But so human, thus so prone to delimited vision,
always, we scan the skies outward, fearful of
the hurricane and storm that approach,
from without, appearing, and the brewing
sky’s danger is visceral~visible to the naked eyes,
when,
it is disguised within the chambers of the
body, festering, until it is pestering, and
shelter, sadly, is not injectable, transferable,
easy remedial, and the hunkering down
with four walls not the solution, for the walls
themselves are damaged by decades of
waves of innocuous gently lapping that still
erode igneous granite(1) and fissure the self,
this secretive, enemy insidious…

so it comes to be, that my own daggers have
pivoted, the pointy dangers pointed outwards,
well entrenched in their own defenses, now targeting
the whole of me, my outer walls breached, and
fired upon by cannons of cells, a treacherous
attack, bombardement par l'artillerie et les drones,
of the Fifth Column (2)…

so once more, say no more, but ask the brief of demand,

Where is Shelter?

the answer is as of yet to be decided,
but the forces
arrayed for and against
are equally determined!

W.S.

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3094276/the-unthinkable-is-our-specialty/

(1)
Granite is hard enough to resist abrasion, strong enough to bear significant weight, inert enough to resist weathering,

(2)
Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, espionage, and/or terrorism executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force

#whereshelter

Jun 2023

fearfulpoet

Memorial Day 2020/St. Crispin’s Day Speech^

among the millions who have never served, or wore uniform,
thought about it, was discouraged, and luck of the lottery,
the only one I’ve ever won, was #359 in the Vietnam draft,
cause my birthday was October X, and thus, stayed alive

yet, when, every time, hearing Henry V recite his battle speech,
copious weep that I was not there, for the deep need in my soul,
I too well ken, that I ne’er had the opportunity to become one of
a company, a band of brothers, this stripe, missing from my arm

would I have served if called? do not be absurd, the war was idiocy,
but that would not have prevented me from the chance, the luck,
to have been beside men, who would forevermore be mine, be my
very own band brothers...perhaps you think me mad, perverse,
not so, the bonds that formed such, gentle men for ever better...

“From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition”

^ Pride in past valor may be best expressed in the St. Crispin’s Day speech from “Henry V” (Act IV, Scene iii), delivered by the young king on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt.

By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say ‘Tomorrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names
Familiar in his mouth as household words:
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d,
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

—————————————————————-

#lipstadt #memorial #day #st #crispin #lmn

Dead Rose One Jun 2023

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

VEA EN ESPAÑOL
Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.

WRITTEN BY U.S. POET LAUREATE:

portrait of author

Dec 2020

Path Humble

in the beginning (June 2014)

you stand on your own two legs

you stand straight,
begin wherever fate
has you fall in,
but well remember,
wherever the line dance snakes to,
direction and destination,
you remain you-true,
on your own humble path,
be ever-wary of the snakes
traveling along side you

#in #the #beginning #ph #pathhumble