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~ for the poet by the same name,
Melan,
a name derived from the Greek "melas"
meaning "black" or "dark"~
<>
oft have we warned you, be wary,
every phrase, a provication,
a cribbed script from a message,
a poem, even a pen name, says,
marke me man, the notion of the

Melancholoy of Innocence
a burr buried in my head's bed,
a sleep robber, a pseudo~scholar,
so intriguing this grand challenging
notion...
of the purity of melancholoy's essence


my oldest friend from an early age,
before I knew the word to grasp~capture it,
in my youthful
tristesse grave,
what rendered my soul so vulnerable
to an emotion that had no direct visible cause,
but powered me with a puzzling
strange insight of keen visibilty,
that filtered a glow about all, about what
my eyes saw, my heart felt
...

nearly now, the better part of a century,
I recall the first days of exploration,
of a world, that
dished out equal portions of
ecstasy and misery,
and well taught me the value
of silence
of observation,
and how to record
a memory so that so many, so many decades later,
is crisp with its original fraglity
that overwhelmed way back when
I was but a toddler


a world that was cruel,
a lesson, that came very early,
but made me quiet but not surly,
observant of the human quirks and their potential,
the people surrounding acting in an up dated version
of a Bible Tale
..

where guilt and innocence were precise and clear,
and there was no middling muddle,
to confuse, or be abused,
to obfuscate or obscure


lines of demarcation in black clearly drawn,
so it was soon gone, the innocence,
that was gifted to us all at birth,
and though I mourned its loss,
very quick came the silent thought of
,
well, that's no surprise!

that melancholy matures, extends and distends,
now and then, even shocks,
by the newness of returning old sadness,
and the ceativity of its constant reintroduction,
accompanied by a startled,

well, that's no surprise!

and here the shocker though,
acts of human kindness are not so far and few between,
just perhaps, less well advertised,
so when spotted. self similar words emerge,
even happy shouted
,
well, that's a surprise!
3/29/25
~an artwork beneath our feet, yet invisible to
our eyes, constantly changing ,interlocking
interlinking~

this poem has asked for composition
everytime, I walk upon and past the sculputure
beneath my feet on the Esplanade by The River

(Diatom Lace on the East River - Stacy Levy
www.stacylevy.com › projects › diatom-lace-on-the-east-river)  (1)

but as I daily hurry past (for years) and over this pattern form lifted from the
river's flowing,
a daily delaying,
for the words good enough to honor it, the invisible floating floral tentacles,
attaching each water molecule to the next,
do not arise of sufficient quality of wordsmithy,
the Whitman words do not float up from the waters rushing past,
and come to rest in my multi-tasking poetry conceptuals

many months, even years,
have gone by and after every water walk,
the sculpture stabs me guilty,
of procastination,
and an unwillingness to tackle it,
like the other tough stuff that haunts me

so this morning, when I drown in the file laughingly called
100 & One Drafts
a J'accuse (1) finger stabs my eyes and repeats the caveat of the sage
Hillel the Elder: (1)
If not now, when?

and even as I sit and compose,
the words refuse to surrender unto me
for easy transcription
and the chest tight with guilt, from all the
promises I've made and remain
unkempt & unkept,
that stunt and stun my spirit,
with inconsolable sadness

So
I distract myself,
check the sleeping woman<
take my morning meds,<
reheat my "The Gamblers Mug" (Cezanne)(1) of morning coffee,<
and alas, at last, once more surrender to my worst,
and issue an invitation to >you<
come visit me, come walk with me,
perhaps together, a greater good will emerge,
and we will feed each others tongues
with syllables and sounds,
that will trigger,
go figure!
a suitable poem
worthy of a great art work,
the lace of diatoms
in the water,
that our eyes cannot see,
but our hearts
can feel
and with better words,
be so honored,
by a poem
truly worthy
of this


miraculous
conception
1/21/25
(1) look it up...

Diatom Lace on the East River - Stacy Levy
www.stacylevy.com › projects › diatom-lace-on-the-east-river
3/29/25
Ye olde Yo-***, advises get thee to a nunnery of trees, leaves of sunlight scorched sunrises and sunsets to clear the cobwebs and recall more fully the good stuff,  like in Oregun,

allow it to resonant via ****** shots of temporal, but seasonal natural harmony, a more regulat visitor of the upcoming comes of good weather and the life by the water, on a tiny islansd, long lazy days, and a lessening of the
mental haze-ing

punctuating life with long walks and teardrops of tears, poetry suggestives, will be dropping from icy white cumulus every day clouds, moving to uncover the elaborate and running trills of colutara words lurking within, no more the blaring horns of trafficked sounds of First Ave., trucks fighting to de-liver-er the urgencies of consumption (a most excellent disease) and the potpourri symphony of marching bands blaring of ambulances, fire trucks, and the EXTRAordinary impatience of horn blaring taxis up and down York Ave., dropping off patients 24-7 at a laundry list of  "specialized" Hospitals with "views of the river in every room"

I miss the quietude noises of summer breezes tickling minds, trees frothing a
cappucino sun heated breeze to stir the blush and rush of words forming faster than the mind can absorb;

alas, alas, this same mind can never fully squeeze out the sins of memories of winter's travails and yet, the mere suggestion of my old friends embracing me, sun, wind, green landscapes, sea and land animals coming to greet the human interlopers makes me all stirred up, like watching white milk in black coffee spread its cooling affection and lightening the black; aerate and mixing the perptual continuum of my ever slowly chilling bloodstream streaming to mind
                               and I sigh, for many reasons...but in my heart, I am, and remain, forever a summer man...
aerate and mix and I sigh, for many reasons...

Absent brain surgery, the mind wanders following the sun's trajectory, wither?
1/27/25
grew up near the atlantic ocean, and on my bike I would disappear for a whole day,
and the kid was suntanned and blond, and free to be an explorer of everything; and that is why I am forever a summer man
what do I deserve,
more importantly,
what do I know and,
owe you?
(or do I?)

I owe myself
resolution
which comes from
resolutnesss,
which is in scarcity
when cloudy is your visionary,
when your awake,
remaining that way,
no matter how may times you
blink,
ot wipe away the
teary

a firm desire to
see it to the end,
which will come,
could be sooner or later,
with courage, it will be the

former,

I don't forsee the storiedbook fin~ale
that is popularized,
but the
surety of uncertainty
much of my own making,
that is what I deserve,
just my
just dessert
3/25 no excuses
“If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.”

Margaret Thatcher

<>

right your writ,
to the high
est

standard of
your satisfaction

when they tell you,
get topical, or even worse
AIM TO PLEASE,
be hip, never gray,
or to grab the edge
with just one hand
to prove if you need
that forced bravery is
a falsehood of youth

tell them flat out to
take that red marker,
to shove it up their
scholarly *******

you’ll know pretty quickly
those who’ll line up beside ya,
not behind ya, and jump in
front, they don’t desire your
liking, and nor it, do they deserve

it cuts both ways, both ends are
not the means, ‘cept means to a
unsatisfactory ending, dishonorable

ah, yes to thine
owned* self be true...
Oct 12, 2024 from my draft fil
"A yummy granola of uneven stanzas, metaphors and similes, meditations, and confessions."

<>

this is I’m told
the how of how
I script,
I like granola though not
necessarily my premieur choix,
unless I’m breakfast buffet’ing
in Switzerland

and the all white mountains urge me
to climb aboard

I do not quatrain or cinqtrain,
my plan of attack is
****** and parry, defeat the
white enemy of empty,
with love my soul delivers
that which is rapidly transiting,
decomposing in my lobes,
awaiting perhaps reassembly and
reanimating in a new combination

employ the employees of writing
with liberty for all and
allegiance to none,
and the wild child within calls the shot
and asks only one question:
what do I deserve,
more importantly,
what do I know and owe you?
I asked a woman to change her curls to forever straight,
and offered $50,000 (a sum on my mind that day after a
rough day trading), to maintain said style in perpetuity

she has accomodated me now for over a decade+, but
every every, every now and every then, She pulls me
closer than close, whispers 50K~ok!, and hits me with a
hip swaying pow, her physio~verbal cueball reminder,
that poets must always pay their debts, and even forever
too,
has its poetic limitations
a twisty verbiage, but stop!
it is not cutesy or frivolous,
buy an awed respect,
for that fact;
the complexity of the monumental
is the sum of:
the bricks, the letters,
the words, the lines, the stanza and
of course, the spaces in between
that makes simple so ****
complex
2-18-25
7d · 69
noise complaints
The number of noise complaints in the City of New York exceeded 750,000.
<•>

that
does not
include the
shrieks and screams of the
unfriended,, unloved, overwhelmed sad l~onelys
that
have the courtesy
uncommon
to add
their cries of the heart
that are best stated, sung &
satiated & sated

s i l e n t ly
“Mariners should alter plans to avoid these hazardous conditions. Remain in port, seek safe harbor, alter course, and/or secure the vessel for hazardous conditions.“
<•>
these governmental agencies
a veritable,, gala of cords of words,
have an urgency that is an
unintended poetry capture


the hazards of life
and their associated cruelty
oft brings out
the very finest of the best of us,
lurking in the innerest depths
we studiously avoid
lest we be embarrassed or
tearfully fulfilled


Remain in port!
(venture forth to save a life,
even your own)

Seek safe harbor!
(secure your internal best)

Alter course!
(there isn’t a single path,
that doesn’t consist of
thousands of minute
course corrections)

Secure the vessel!
(the first commandment,
your primary obligatory
to your first, the us, the rest)

for the most hazardous conditions
you’ll face,
are your own self-imposed
roadblocks and diversions,
overcome these is the hardest,
but success is freeing in a way
that makes you love this
ephemeral, always refining
de~fining yet obtainable potion
of
honest/to/goodness

true freedom

addendum
———-
discard, ignore
be wary of
those who fallback
on icebergs of curses
sandbag of ice Shoals
beneath the water surface
and when  they,
reduced to bile infected  
falling back on vulgarities and curses,
this the mist removal
line should never crook
or cross
Let them sink below the waterline for their talent is compromised, and they fail to understand and comprehend that poetry is intended to inspire
the commonality
that blends this potpourri of
im ourinternational collective who
value the collective spirit that informs our poetry

oh yeah
“**** my dck”
fouls this temperate commune
of politesse architecture here,
wounding us all

give us no more these

badwordsoffensive*
worse, tools of the
poorly pathetic thumb of the inarticulate,
in one so talented
2/18/25
a slip and fall, busted up face,
an ambulance ride, cute young
docs, a his and her, in a busy ER
always apologizing for causing
any pain, and now again, in
another waiting room for the
specialist surgeon to,

make reperfect what was imperfect
naturally, seasoned and aged,
a face lovely and decanted,
a nice blush, though she looks now
a fresh mugging victim

and here I am, thinking about
all the waiting rooms in a long
life that I’ve called home, a temporal
temple abode, for waiting, praying
and now surmising and now, even for
composing

let’s not talk of bland, pastel colors
way past the over limit of blandness,
acoustic tile ceilings water stained,
and “leatherette”  furniture,
that no else ever wanted in their
life, all sent off to die in the classical,
traditional rooms for waiting

births, deaths, diagnoses, verdicts
delivered, way stops on a traveling
life
a statement, a viewpoint directive, a casual formailty,
it says much about you, but is most telling, that, you,
took the time to debate how you wished to be percieved,
by the masses of humanity, as
  tucked of untucked?


for by it, you communicate your chosen philosopy of life
7d · 91
Rebelent
~ for bulletcookie, who taught me a knew word~

you might guess the meaning,
no need to dictionate,
but by way of explique, what the hell,
may you always be,
Rebelent
“stanza” like “camera”, in Italian,
means room,

the stanza is a room, avail&able
for any purpose,
but I understand it best as a storage place,
to be rented, renovated, refurbished and
redecorated, a part of your building,
and even, eventually, demolished…

the poetry is not lost on me, though I feel
foolish for my illiteracy, the last to know,
the obvious symmetry of a perfect latent metaphorical meta physicality…

then, for a stanza to run free is an
impossibility, for what purpose is it
containment functionality if it were
to run forever, failing to demarcate
needed boundaries, open to the outdoors
of air and light, allowing its contents
to escape freely…

or worse
go on endlessly…

so I reconfigure my entirety as mansion,
each poem a dwelling unit, each stanza,
a room there in, purposed, and oft connected
to an adjacent adjoining neighbor, througjh
an empty spacing, a camera if you will, to
vision a connective conjunction, a separate tissue bit of similar original cells
2/18/25
Nat Lipstadt Mar 23
of a poetic life,
better yet,
of a life within
poetry,
is but
my microdot-millisecondmoment

it is illusion-less,
devoid of blustery
dreams, but for
the self satisfying
in touch with my
deepest innards,

where flows laughter
(at one self) goes up
from my raucous laughter,
spreading up to my northern star of a
laugh-lined furrowed forehead

and download flows tears of self recognition, disparity, and despair, tinged and singed by sorrow and pity, for and bye my endless deprecation and depreciation of the the light and little life I have
"accomplished"

so be it ~
not even a flash in the pan,
Not even a water's short-lived morning twinkle

less than a secondary sighting of a stars on/off flashing,

as short as a shortness of breath,
unconsciously counting the fewer steps l
eft near my death than thee

blink! And will we miss each other's transition composition from living to eternity, never to be forgotten, and never to be remembered

this is peace, and acceptance that the pieces of me,
shall not be re-glued or re-assembled, and that is how
it be sowed and sown and reaper~ed
Nat Lipstadt Mar 21
~When the top of my head is taken off~


<>

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
I know that is poetry.” — Emily Dickinson

<~>
I know and recognize this moment, accompanied by rapid heartbeat, sky high blood pressure,
palpitating chest, shortness of breath,
and
the fire of creativity,
and the burning of beauty upon my brain and soul


I have read
I have listened,
I have spoken,
Beautous Words
I have written,
myself a few,
and even though,

The top of my head has been blown off,
It is only to permit the letters of the alphabet
that caused this commotion, to rise heaven~wards~them~words,
so they may float unto you, posthaste,
with all delivered snd deliberate speed,

Why,
that sound knocking you to the ground?
that's your white blood cells cheerily welcoming,
even engorging, absorbing now an original part of you,
until such time that it is your turn,
for your head to explode, and pass said letters,
words and alphabets onto
another

11am
10 Mars 25
n
Nat Lipstadt Mar 21
how I got here, what to do,
frozen like a banana, brown,
curved in a bad posture, and
melting aint an available cure

every turn defeats me, too many choices
leads me into more drowing in uncertainty,
the new~ow!~now~word of external tumult,
that wraps me me bound in a blankety submission

talk to walls white and their answers come
pre~whitewashed, reverb off my skin, and
the echo chambers of my heart resist only
because they're already 98% clogged and

very choosy 'bout which truths got left
out
or newbies get let
in
sad sack sanctum
Friday 2/21/25
Nat Lipstadt Mar 21
a major feat, considering I managed to continue a meagered existence,
the prehumous perilous voyage, with many signs and symbols pointing
in reverse, negatory signs & symbols, readings of a launchpad failure, bode
poorly for my current trajctory, and a crash landing probability is assayed
at >1.00,  bas and the statistical fat tail portion of my curvaceous expectancies, extended bye the body count of my toes & fingers, so this mean & minor feat, is indeed, is no feat at all and worse here it is Friday, end of the week, and my sparring partner, Life, who knocked me down repeatedly is demanding a rematch of our outoutmatching, and I will agree if the ten count is abbreviated to maybe a five count, and mysteriously falling down, well, qualifies!
                                   yeah made it to Wed-nes-day which is a wierd name for a weekday, lacking the poetical syntax and symmetry of a Fried~day, which connotes the end of the byzantine workweek, and my goose is still
under cooked; so that wraps up & rates an almost full green emoji checkmark beside my 3,884th week

and I know, you know exactly what this tidbit means, donch ya!
Nat Lipstadt Mar 19
the wordplay is **** serious,
fools curse us, attacking empathy
for its sensuous to their BS pretensions,
their hypertension sophistry compounds their

selling them selves  as a holy sphere,
begging for attention and the approval
appetizers of meaningless internet
bacchanal celebrating

I invite you in,
where depths surface
asking you to scratch deeper
than the shallows of egoism shoals

long labored to persaude with caution,
careful disclaimers, when you enter
our first encounter, that first most
dangerous embrace, asking you
to tag along inside insights
my intent plain, secrets
displayed with increasing
the leveling tween twice
an armful of hugs

this criticism disturbs my calm,
and so I repeat twice:

grant us the write to share, in our humanity

**grant us the write to share, in our humanity
2/23/25
Nat Lipstadt Mar 19
the morning
chores,
a chorus,

a litany,
a recital,
of old, worn
words
familiar
well worn
ungloved
fists of firsts

a deep drink
of 11.5 ounces
of a cold spring
water shocking
in~vigor~ates

rebalancing a
sleep induced
deficit

a gloried yawn,
an exhalation
of the overnight
staleness, an
expulsion of
stale residue
residuals,
leftovers
of a prior
life, dismissed,
yet clinging
to your body

in vain
desirous
to be
remained
part of
the landscape
of your
plain

as part of
your
grandfatherly
accumulations

but there’s
only so much
room
in your
container,
and all
your liquidities
must be replaced

that takes space
for the
fresh withholdings

so.
drink deep,
replace the
fluids unique
that operate
your systems

and all the
rest
will flow,
stream easy
5:27am March
Nat Lipstadt Mar 19
AJean-Paul Sartre:
If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company

<>

stumbled upon while reading a movie review,
this almost a proverbial phrase provoking,
even stoking,

as we hold it up to the light,
twisting, turning the words,
as if it was a
kaleidoscope of diamonds,
looking at the fractured reflections,
for a better comprehension

we,
of two minds:
be-love and be-rued
this s l o w e d turning of our solitary solution
under the microscope ,
for critiquing
the two headed hydra
that has served us  well and poorly

you, dear reader, understand perfectly,
the utility and the inutility of aloneness,
the surge creativity that comes
from no distractions,
other than our internal attractions

which when
one interrupted by the company of,
insertion of a different catalogue
a holder of human foibles,
differentiating, threatening, upsetting,
and sometimes soothing,
always enervating,
unlike the soothe of solitude

either can overwhelm,
either can worse,
underwhelm
but
the crossover. when the contrast is
pointy and sharp,
raises an irritating questioning
like the cracking, dry skin, of
places where we do not put
moisturizing cream
for fear of feeling failure

each to their own,
the enjoy/unjoy of voices
claiming a  permanent correctness
of their viewpoint
  wringing in with
a legal pad of
pluses and minuses
listing side to dide,
but never adding up
to 💯
Nat Lipstadt Mar 19
your
audience of holy
voyagers and voyeurs
(yeah,yeah; all’em ain’t that holy)

really,
exactly
whooo
read, reads
them reddish reeds
you wrote?

ok
now here this:
check each identifiable
in and out,
twice de minimumize

who and where
your paths crossed,
take their scripts
under your very first cheap kid microscope,
read them close,
find the warts, acne, their
true distended identity
(oops, natty)
dissect, bisect,
hell,
vivisect
their rhythms ruthlessly
with the greatest of gentility,
learn their think
smell their stink
assign them a color
and determine the height
of the footstool pedestal
they could be eligible
to be placed or trod upon

to the work,
go do the work,
assay the the intangible,
ascertaining the physical
and the mental
of the neuronal tissue dandelion
connectivity
to determine what is this
mutual attraction

and if they live thousands of miles away
start planning your journey right away!
they are your blood
they are your family
they are your rib
and they keep you company
in the garden of Eden
(Applelites only)

how likely they are a long lost sibling
you never knew you had

depending on your temperament,
offer to marry them
if they’re orphans, adopt them!
bring them e v e n
closer than an enemy

legitimize the organize,
stick out a hand,
all the rest
will follow
naturally
2/25/25
941am
Nat Lipstadt Mar 12
stray thought: hard earned wisdom

is there any other kind?

the easy come ~ easy go kind,
kinda never quite sticks around
long enough to make an
indentation like facts, kinda like
factuals memorized for a school test,
gone so quick you never truly
had them to keep, beyond the
inevitable ending by a bell
ringing

true learning means the earning,
the earning is hard, painful, oft,
gained usually at greatly
but not~too~cheap a cost
which makes sense,
long,
or even short, 
knowing, comprehending, & remembering

can created to be
savored, favored, and welcomed
each time from the recesses it
comes unconsciously summoned

no one more surprised
than you!
at the value of
a memory precision tooled,
ready, willing and able,
to be re~loved when
the heart doth summon

like the face of the one who got away....
Mars 2 2025
Nat Lipstadt Mar 11
another night’s ocean liner passage, now
sunrise bookmarked, by prayer hailed,
when wet cheeks express emotional
humanity and a tissue better be handy

too many times this is how the day
greets me, and I, it, wetted and vetted
to have made it as far as one more,
having lived you in me, me in you,
an exchange of tonguing word
kisses,
that break me into pieces of
consolations

it’s embarrassing an elder man
weeps for no reason other than
words have swept him overboard,
crazy love this fascinating addiction
to a new morning’s addition  composition
incision on a plain soul indistinguishable
amidst the mist of millions of others
who rise up beside, aside, reside within
and his breached heart, even strangers,
complete the neuronal connection
that demands his years of years upon
awaking to the grinning fawning dawn
mooning him with pure white light that
wrecks him open, rents his disposition,
an inquisition of words intrusively intruding
causing wept tears fully formed energizing
emerging, songs of words that you give
him as a question to be loved, for finding
the answers multiple is a penultimate thrill,
confirming this wetness that he lives to
be loved, give love, and breaks h a p p i l y
into pieces of/if contented peace

and thus summed, the day’s obligations
seem less daunting, and with some
luck and bulk coffee ingestion, there
will be solutions to anything
and then
he types,

and this one,
done!

<>
6:49am
march 2 Sun Day
two zero two 5
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2
~for Jonathan Larson (2)~
~~~~
where poets dare to tread
knowing the jeopardy to
themselves when their truths
are outed by the light shedding
come the morning’s birthing,
my ending unwritten,
the methodology unknown
(1)
<•>
the tabulations final sum
identified by a =  
couplet doublet line
underlining, undermining,
tho the sign indeterminate,
pos or neg,
worse yet maybe,
zero sun-shiny outed,
well,
rue-sighing
must be one of but just
them three tri-bipolar optionalities

the script unwrit
the possibilities vast,
alone nursing home,
an empty dull
barely furnished,
studio apartment
an unnoticed blah, blah blah;
that’s ok

there will be no vast array,
conclave of family & friends,
his stateless status
formed by a choice reenforced by time,
a man chose a solitary tilt,
till it
was a deathly rigid reality factual,
free willed
~~
the irony sweetbitter,:
he who loved love
sometimes writing wrinkles
of only love poetry
but was
stumped
by its consequences continual
&
stumbled
in and out, deep or not at all ,
but only periodic,
alternating decades from
age ninteen

his leavings will be
minimal,
his trail,
dusted under,
and his sense of wonderment
at the atomic elemental
extant and yet undiscovered,
is where will live his
only wisps of his whispers,
heard  ‘pon the backs
of rushing to nowhere
guest gusts of
canyon winds
of his york;
city of naissance

do not protest
nor deviate with debate,
the future unpredictable
and yet curved hewn from,
made from straight block stone
of absolute clarity
of speckled Barre gray granite
~~
mistake this not
for bewailing,
catlike caterwauling,
ever even the bitters,
of short-lived
the in~between now
and resting place finale
indeterminate,
~~
but follow a path of words,
an Appalachian Trial
roving  through forest & civilization,
multiple states,
safe and dangerous
worldly, wormwood wordfuls
all jumble uttered simultaneous

<>
so we dare to ask out loud,
will I die in dignity,
the answer a stale prequel
question obvious answered
in his heritage-styled genes,
with another wink
of a question;

what is dignity?
~~
alone, surrounded by
no one,
matters not,
headstone irrelevant
for this good morning
of cherishing
words and tunes,
adding a line
here and there,
is dignity enough,
and this,
well known to him,
within his collapsing vein's depths,

so the answer
smooth planed and plain:

This,
this is dignity
one more time,
one more winding
spiraling downwards
uplifting
poem


and a
never ending~never the less
&
nevermore
forevermore
satisfactory
answer
(1)
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4994818/nat-your-own-chosen-speed-can-you-guess/

(2)
Lyrics by Jonathan Larson
“Will I/ Life Support

Will I?
Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?

Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?

Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?

Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?

Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?



Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Nat Lipstadt Mar 1
you left with no signal,
flying high, eagled eyed,
peering down at
all the towns
you passed over,
blue through burning
but never stopping, stilling
to listen but not hearing
those other throbbing tunes
playing in back of black rooms

oh, how you concealing
the ambiguous depths,
of ***** deals squealing,
the mess of contradictions
you can’t help revealing,
leaving rust, dimming dust
full in on the chokehold
of others hands upon my heart

still
your hearts are throbbing
in synchronization to
the river flowing of my
words needy & begging
for a timely releasing by,
in anticipation of ending
the sun’s confinement
on the other side of the
dark perimeter of the planet

where poets dare to tread
knowing the jeopardy to
themselves when their truths
are outed by the light shedding
come the morning’s birthing

11:44pm
2/28/25

can you guess what movie I watched last?
Nat Lipstadt Feb 25
~ for Rob Rutledge -
@ 6:15am
~~~~~
we all are living, reading and writing,
paycheck to paycheck
even if by happenstance, our bellies full,

for the white sheets we lay our words
down and upon, our supporters of
ids and egos of egg shell thin lifes
are the bare emptied shelves
of our unending, still ongoing
pandemic pandemonium,
razing times
of eroding joys

the sheets are blank, but our souls
wearied, helmed and whelmed
by the unending of the unexpected
that demands, orders and commands,
no matter what
pour it out blasting
unleashing the rage
compelled, compiled,
completely compulsing
we
selves ordered to compose

giving form and firmament
to our vaporous innards,
releasing new oxygen from
the tides inside and without,
clashing ideas, irregular notions
that demand we poets responsible
for reconciliation and auditing for
human truths

we awake barren but weighty,
the emotions are rustling in the
now daily, common,
mighty metors of gusts of higher winds,
spreading fire and measles to spite,
not despite
our fragile failings & flailings

oh goodness and grace,
let that be the colors of
our skin, our face,
essay on, sashay with a
swinging motion,
yes, rhyme and rhythm

and deliver us with words
so soft, they shatter the
gloomy desperation of
what confronts our entirety,
when the terrors of our
sleeping dreams cannot be
differentiated from the
sad eyed waking
ones

so write, and right,
these troubled times,
when trolls, dragons
and yet unnamed monsters
seek to take away our
tiny green planet, watered,
seeded and plentiful fruited
plains enough to satisfy us all

if we are so emboldened to choose
all of us over our lonely selfish selfs
6:15am
Tuesday
close by
the Ides of March
(1)some words recently received and rescreted
Feb 24 · 1.0k
the poem within…
Nat Lipstadt Feb 24
To:  Patty m. and Steve,
cc:   Q

Re: what’s a mediocre man to do,

(freshly mind washed by the
requisite hours of deep sleep,
that washed away the webs
and dreads of yesterday’s
factoids, lactoids, and brain plaques(

so he can perchance, begin again,

(with fresh slate, white chalk screeching
on a freshly sponged whiteboard
~
(or blackboard when he rues the
upcoming with dreaded calendar
notifications notarized notations of
dead lines)


You see Stevie,
this piety poetry piercing of the soul,

(is a daily face washing, soul scrubbing
of two spies (MadMe vs  Metwo) both madder ‘n hell that life has ***-signed him a nother bothersome empty day with the curse
of justifying his existence)

oh yeah baby,
it’s a contest, a contest within,

(and i am appointed and  disappointed to be
the Sec’y of the Interior who has the key to
the broom closet, and is/in charge of his
own corners cleanup, and besides a broom,
he ain't got no tools but stale words and he’s gotta figure out nice smelling new combos to
justifying his occupying his
siloed-sole-soully space place)

in the uni(as in sole, one)verse

universe verse, get it?
445am Monday Monday
Feb 23 · 834
Poets never bow
Nat Lipstadt Feb 23
Dearest Patty m.,

we admire, admit to raw nailed jealousy
when we read the works superior
with the greatest worn scruffy complementary compliment
a poet
can give to
another scribe

How I wish I had written that,
those very words!


confessing before the world
with our own humility
at the daily dawning of
realization that
morning brings freshness and
insights needy for release and
aborning and the trace of humiliation
that we’ve all  ready
been breached bested
by others,
once again…

BUT
we do not bow!
no courtly arm sweeping,
back bent, at best
a nod of a head
then

privately
we gasp, rent our clothes,
throw the body flat to the floor,

observing seven days of mourning
reserved
for when we morning moan,
daylight groan and loan out our
croissant moon mooing cries to
bemused muses
in the clouds supervising,
as tears of, an admixture of,
an elixir of joy, compassion
and thus refreshed by someone’s
new infant’d christening
we *****. we resurrect, gamble,
throwing ourselves complete like dice,
in to a roll of
stunned stupor of high inspiration
and then make out best work
ever yet

but never do we bow, scrape,
bend the knee, maybe the head,
we mourn our lesser failings
and smile as we flash words
from our eyes,
stored in our mindsets,
our, my best, will
always be yielded up
next
——
addendum
———
seven years ago
in a separate guise,
he ssid it differently
maybe better?
:<•>

epilogue

read my face
incapable of,
deprivation
but how now silent
bow my head to Will
for teaching the way of words
traced upon
a fool or a king's tongue,
two too human,
so that poet may ken
his senses keener,
all for the better,
for the betterment of all
Nat Lipstadt Feb 22
(whimsy - playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor)


——
recent events, minor tumults, additive,
the summing up of wearing,
a slip and fall, financial reverses,
communiques misunderstood,
clanking pipes resounding against
a sonorous soundless soulful sleep, and
the
unrest of disinterest in essaying
thoughts into words into creativity

a far far cry from singing of the whimsy
in life that teases and delights, replaced
by a weariness from the whiners,
who craftily abuse, with deft badly
prosed propaganda propositions,
seeking solace in solitude + add-an-all-inability to forsee the goodness in people,
delimiting desire to inspire, why then
compose when so decidedly decomposing?

lay the ownership of pen-man-ship down
until dealt an inside straight, eyedrops
that open wide, dilate into a wider perspective, a kinder me, and the
patience of a patient awaiting a
healing vaccine against the flu
of whining. so awfully communicable,

will read Whitman, Frost, and those
revolutionary Persians who ken the
revivification of spirit, return from a
there as a refugee
to a refreshed refuge
of here
                            nml

Addendum
———
the chill in the body that’s so
invasive, resisting two sweaters,
a coat named “The De~icer,”
over heavy sweats,
the interior is

frostbitten
Feb 20 · 165
The courage to encourage
Nat Lipstadt Feb 20
The courage to encourage
(‘tis no accident the overlapping
of these two words)
<•>
tilling the fields of beautifully
and freshly seeded words,
gift wrapped in the essays
of the experimenting,
carefully and carelessly toe dipping
in the tooling of shapes and paintings sourced from a mere handful of
twenty six water colors,

in fresh water streaming waterfalls of:
knew
new eyes
new words
newly hewn
combinations

all
upon the early morn bluey sketch,
against a noisy background of a new day’s
first blushing

when the rested brain is so, so
receptive to newness,
itself a word of a
délicieuse lovely phonic
mouth treat

at 6:35an
on an ordinary Thursday

and now an
extraordinary Thursday,
when my inbox of old eyes
is delighted
and crinkly smiling
at the enduring uncovering
of
daring,
earning while yearning,
poets eager to give us freely
the first fruits of
their  hybrid creations

makes an old man
weep new tears,
to accompany
him till the end
of the day,

each tear a diatom of lace upon
an endless river of,
well,
the everything,

a knitting of letters
flaring up with a robust,
Hey!

I am here,
I am aborning

so glad to make your acquaintance
    


                     nml
6:35am
February 20
of Twenty
Twenty  Five

and one reminds of a “new” ten year old:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1425812/oh-poet-be-ever-gentle-to-thy-words/
Nat Lipstadt Feb 18
give me-the bowie knife of repartee,
nothing more satisfying than the
quick stabbing, a good blood letting,
in your genteel face, no hellish
moderated pace, the energetic plunge
of a quick lunge into the woebegone,
long after you count the meter tempo’d
use fingers and toes, but needing to hold
your nose, to include that extra
grace note, that belies denies the harmony
the tules and rules of calling order
to control the roost,  sine-one
is a victim of a
down and virtuous ***** verbal slashing!

count my syllables, never,
let my stanzas run free,
like an African tiger,
with the goat of format
mounted in between his teeth,
bloodied and dripping dead,
the squealing of hyper innocente,
silent after cries of, kind sir,
me thinks thou protest too much!

we can squish and twist our holy words,
into formal tuxedos of cantankerous
arrowed arrogance,
but know this,
roses are read, them
violets, blue, have
turned millions of children to avert their
eyes from anything thereafter that was classified, notarized, canonized, sanctified
as the write rules of poetry

peals of pearls are born with parentage
of a lousy
grain of sand,
the words etched in the
lines upon my hand,
are lifelines of sidewalk cracks,
discarded candy wrappers,
the twisted ends cigarette butts,
used as proof that ash and dust are the
genetic source material of uncommon
great composition, given to those who
love the common touch of leaves of grass,
thstbeneath the heat of the sun that
exposes the nothingness of bitterness

know no one can run from the golden
visibility, of a sun, talent in pursuit of
egoism is a long road to a short history

yeah.
(faster than a speeding bullet)
boring…
Feb 17 · 5.4k
Good Words are Clickbait
Nat Lipstadt Feb 17
~my poet friends and friendly poets~

(written in anger, then sorrow,
tinged with regret, but in the end one
has no choice but to forgive and forget)

<•>

the ghood poet knows no boundaries,
lays down tracks of a New England
pond of nirvana,
or across Siberian froze wastelands,
another
salves the wounds of dying soldiers,
and gives away comfort to the dying
with the freeing oxygen of
comforting words

the world of self,
that thing we know best,
thus encouraged by the textbooks,
well,
to have at it, plays whacamole
with your  owned flirtatious emotions,
none too imperious or low down or
garbage dump *****, that yet
cannot be validated by exploratory
over-the-line words pithy

even the florid, tiresome nickel & dime ing
rhyming scheming crutches,
we so oft employ,
yields up stuff that ain’t half bad,
periodically,
though, the blunt of words well crafted
needs
no such delimiting amusing playthings
or imprisoning
I-am-amoebic-pen-tata-meter

take you inspiration from here and there,
the proverbial deep dark of the mind’s recessed corridors of
corrupted consciousness,
or, the
contrail whiffs of the steaming steaming of the contradictions of a
newborn first day’s contrast of-
the wet dew on toes cooling,
while the simultaneous sun warms all
the cheeks,
heats the blood with
a thanks-god-I’m-alive
overwhelmingly overall tickling,

or
not.

write with the tools you have, but keep
them well sharpened, with
insight and revelation,
exploring the rain’s windowed
navigable rivulets,
the musical tempos
of waves and their multi-mystical variations,
and the readers will come like
pilgrims to your  holy land,
wearied and yet so delightedly hopeful,
with tingling contrasting dictions,
to capture and release,
by shattering any
stale notions of adulation
will bring your
audience of holy voyagers and voyeurs
to imbibe so deeply your creativity for the quenching, and the
amen gasp escaping tween
their lips is just a simple holy,
gentling thank you

discard the bad words as ornery and
distracting, veiled in pomposity and
highfaluting, self-saluting, arrogance of
those deeming themselves critical thinkers,
who thrive in the low mud flats of
self-pretension and the reassurance
of a mirror’s reassurance

write straight from the heart,
fill our eyes with the
complexity of the simple
and
grant us the write to share,
in your humanity

craft the work
and
the work
will repay
so stealthily
by secretly
crafting you





                                   nml
3:43 am 2/16/25

p.s,always fixyour typos
Nat Lipstadt Feb 15
early morn (5:00am) scanning, scrolling,
unrehearsed searching and the question
appears in a “loves that got away” column,

(why do all these descriptors start eith S,
I think I know!)


and off on another self-effacing, investigative determination, a mental biopsy of another hopeless cause,
that results in poems too long

though the body and mind are rested,
with six hours of uninterrupted sleep,
and volumes of dreams,
the quest bags a burr in the bed,
(yes, rhymes with head)
but n o t h i n g pops in with a grin,
and a bell ring, stating presumptuously,
why that’s me
and the fault failure fear
in me
engorges

this  really distresses,
with & in a deep sense of awful,
how can I not recall this momentous
illustrative precious precision
proof of why life is worth living,
and worser still,
don’t I get to choose,
isn't this an interrogatory,
suitable for a pre-provided
Multiple Choice Answer?

a pause to collect myself from a
falling into a hole of nefarious negativity spiraling,
suddenly
recalling so many
kind and gentle touching brushes
of your comments re my poetry,
which provoked warm tears


^and one more tine,
poetry has saved
a life
^

5:37am Saturday 2-15-25
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/14/well/valentines-day-lost-love.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Nat Lipstadt Feb 14
Will met Fayte

walking down a
small town’s
Main Street,
and though
the love was
instantaneous,

the lawyers of each
recommended agin
signing each other's
pre nup, don’t give up,
your freedom Will,
said his pa’s grandpa’s,
what we will, it becomes,
so don’t be tempted to
be believing in Fayte,

or that it’s now or never,
other girls will becoming
down the turnpike,
and though it seems
like its been forever
you been waiting for
that right gal, you’re
being tempted
by the femme fatales,
it’s not too late,
for if you

will it
so it shall be,
you will get
le gal
ally
Feb 13 · 95
remedied
Nat Lipstadt Feb 13
10:14am 1-28-25

the word above is a most singular
in our lingual language

of the ailments many,
varied, variegated and
necessarily interconnected
so they all merge and blend
like a frothy cappuccino ,
a melding of ill
rather than a blending
of distilled ailments

the state of being remedied,
is hard to be measured
for it moves  
tes like a target,
minute to minute,
hour to hour,
drop to drop of time

what is remedied
year to year,
crossing centurial diversionary linear
artifice

those Marked as fully repaired,
handled, resolved with a crossing out
lineage honorific, can never be dismissed
or erased for sure,
for fully surety is intermediary

for the heart can break at any minute,
in any place, external, internal, and a
daily baby aspirin can’t prevent, only
lessen the unanticipated frequency

we are decaying units, and patches
upon patches hold us together until
the adhesives of remedies remind us
of their very own half~lives

why a band-aid is only
a band-aid and remedies are only
remedial
Feb 13 · 133
peak poetry
Nat Lipstadt Feb 13
peak poetry
comes so oft this final quarter of
two thousand twenty four,
and persists into the age of
two thousand twenty five

perhaps the urgency my yet signal
becoming another
fade~a~swaying?

bones sense the jig jog
getting closer to a
closing bow of
denouement,

nothing specific
but my seer,
my godmother fairy,
unsmiling ******,
yet brimming with
inside out insights
delivered
in my face
direct delivery
face slapping

from my
bathroom mirror
Mirror Mirror
On the Wall
Complaint Dept.

advises me with an
opening grimace

that the current is fastest beneath where
the biggest boulders congregate, and
surficial eddies mislead with an artistic
mild on the river top, what hides
beneath is more likely to drown
and swallowing you whole
when you’ve peaked
poetry
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Nat Lipstadt Feb 13
to
elicit the secrets of my senses, never to miss the little miracles, my impoverished ones might not intuit or recognize, though
they, si, very alive, for all have left me
new words

to ***** my existence into high gear emotive,
this, their very motive and together we are
in

in each other’s motion perpetual
whirling whorls
of worldwidewords
212an
2/13/25
Feb 13 · 689
In the Near Future
Nat Lipstadt Feb 13
a common enough expression,
lightly spoken, easily surrendered,
wishes become hopes or prayers,
depending on the gravity of urgency,
right, know that wishes are
gravity-resistance,
rising up to the atmosphere, where any
cruel, fate-focused, looking to be
amused, lousy lounging-around gods,
always cruising
for some real entertainment, might
snap
into action,
upending plans, ruining futures,
or tickling your fancy
with a run of fabulous luck,
by, due to, their fanciful footwork

in the near future:
I hope to live to serve tomorrow,
feel the
ingenuity of love’s aroma,
as fresh as a new morn born
fragrant croissant

in the near future :
I hope I hear
Rhaposdy in Blue
being played live
through an open window
and be joined by my fellow
sensualists in a spontaneous
street festival

in the near future:
I’m going to go on a slightly
oh so lightly
planned road trip,
domestic and international
to visit friends I have netted
in my butterfly catcher,
the human kind,
whose flowers of words I have
suckled the nectar thereof,
and thank them properly
with hugs, fresh fruit
and gifts that will
tickle their fancy
fanciful wordswork

and make it home,
a safe return
to those called family
and find them
happy healthy
and never complain ever again
about that
stupid grin
on my face
that just seems impossible to
erase
200am 2/13/25
Nat Lipstadt Feb 11
musing on memory and all that
re its capabilities, its utilities
and wondrous
abilities, to cover, recover, and
surprise surprise uncover the known
and unknown, what was, what is and
what there is to dis-cover, for memory
is a tricky ole *******, you recall what you never knew at all, forget the address where you lived twenty years ago, and don’t get me
started re telephone numbers
of
old lovers, who get got gone good away
and the combination of a subset of their
digits is likely to be on a discarded lottery
stub, that stubs your shoe too

cannot remember all the women I’ve ever kissed, but I remember the kiss, and that’s
a fair trade off

pretty bad at remembering, birthdays, anniversaries, but that’s because my electronics believe me of this obligation;
Not the obligation to buy a present,
On time, but the kindness keenness of
doing the action, is you an in Nate satisfaction, One gets, when crossing off a line item on your to do list

Sometimes the choices between remembering,
and being dismembering, when is definitely preferable to the other, and though you are not present, I hear your moaning softly
I know I know!

So take a moment to make sure all those critical dates to others, are in your calendar, electronic, and I recommend minimum one week ahead alerts; and one day before as a fail, safe

Do it now or fail to be safe
Nat Lipstadt Feb 9
if you know how to listen…see below


https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/11/27/game-plan
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/11/27/game-plan

Sent from my iPhone
Nat Lipstadt Feb 8
you awake, and your blood
it’s changed, wrong color,

which color matters not, just,
it isn’t what’s supposed to be,

the wound that wasn’t there yesterday,
won’t/isn't being healed, somethings wrong

you don’t need to admit the admission,
no supposition, the truth, it will out you

wearing the weariness in/on your eyes,
your forehead and anywhere it matters

even strangers double take, cross over the
street to avoid visiting your visage

sometimes it can’t be helped, enormity
seems insufficient to redress overwhelming

gonna give up this wretched writing gig,
recording date & time futile & unimportant

the everything everywhere every day is
well past  the Nevery, but specificity is not

yeah gonna take a breather, a whole season,
put aside the reasons, no more deep cuts

when the portico spaces shout, sorry ,closed,
in spades, but you don’t feel it or care

go off and cater to yourself, knowing in
advance, that work won’t advance you past

the point of return, who, you’re too wounded,
no forward, the past is clout clouded, rough

the word some is a totality, what you got,
is something else, & need another something

taking a break from fools and friends, at now,
ain't any difference, gonna lie down, yeah,

lie down or lie up
because


sometimes it helps
Nat Lipstadt Feb 8
it is without guile or guilt

more a minor shock & swoosh,

that the power to please oneself

comes so easily without interference,

new and the familiar, a mixture of

stand alone, but jumbled, mumbling &

partying in concert, inflation inflicted

words within, falling out onto personal

plains of skin of human vegetation, into

human orifices to be tongue-tasted, be

drunk by ears open for sensuality, be

touched, fondled, pressed and creased

for storing in the bank of memory, by

irrigation of eye droplets falling from

all human’s white sight~gatherers, by

nostrils flaring, reddened by waves

of excitations and pleasured anticipations,

whenever your new combinations of

words intermingle me, a step closer to

a being, drinking in additions whole,

achieving a holier than previous

experience
2– 7–25
Nat Lipstadt Feb 6
2/6/35 4:57pm

“and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.”
<•>

Let X
(mark the spot)
Let X
be what it seems
Let X
be the finale,
the answer it seems
to be,
not the necessary one
you wish it to be,
but what be

seemly

the sense of The End,
the final descent,
the last landing
(or perhaps the first takeoff)
let it be,
be a finale,

Let X
be the finale,

Let Be
the answer it seems to be

let be
(1) Wallace Stevens  from “The Emporer of Ice Cream”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_of_Ice-Cream
Nat Lipstadt Feb 5
September 2024

few love to sing our Anthem,
almost demanding an operatic
persona, a skilled voice, capable
of great range, but it is a story,
about one man’s imprisonment,
and that phrase:

”Through the perilous fight”

always reminds,
even in peace,
we are forever,
engaged in battle
to be a light among the
nations, a shining example,
and the perils thereof
when we err,
mistake the,
of course!
of
our truest course,
and go adrift

but!
look around,
many, not few,
placing their hand
over the heart,
words reciting,
that’s how I
know, we
yet, still,
want and pray
to be a great nation,
a light unto the world
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2
7:17am Sunday Feb 2, 2025

a phrase freely borrowed from
Thomas Jefferson, strikes the
face while being delivered by
Sunrise’s
first glinting, both  eye opening
thought and event, a duality
intersection of notions & sensations,

for the early start to a newborn
week, making one think; truly
think. accompanied by a softly
serenading concerto played piano,

young children
laughing wirh shrieking delight,
as they climb aboard their hazy
dozy parents’ wedding bed,
launching themselves with
rocket like force on stomachs
and groins, all groans & moans,
and in the solitude of his mind’s
quiet, he laughs as he ponders,
a concluding a single concept:

This, this, is the business of life
“making yourself what you are…”
a recovered memory stumble
Nat Lipstadt Feb 1
Fri, J 10 l, 2025    12:20 NYC
walking for flowers
                ~~~~
the steely irony is not bittersweet,
nor is it
white horseradish Passover stinging,
yes, the slow perfunctory defunctory,
measurable in cc’s and centimeters,
drip drop drippings frittered away by
the brains self-destruction of
cycling and recycling,
yes, and dying,
that occurs
all **** day long,
daily between the sunrise and sunset

Yet, here, right here, poetry words
somehow
fall freely,
no hesitation,
from brain to page,
no coitus-interrupt-us,
as if I was composing,
am decomposing,
mine own psalm

no need for proofs,
it was lying in wait for
sweet release,
a trigger pulled
to assemble &
stand and deliver the freely
given, albeit stolen goods

but in the ordinary course of human living,
I, fumble, stumble,
anger from my gut rumbles
up in actual screams of frustration
as the individual word sought is sight unseen
in a forest of hedgerows purposed
to interrupt free flowing
verbal animation, invading excitations

cannot remember
ten digits of mine own
cellphone number,
but the address of
my residence from early childhood
trips off the tongue, lightly and fantastically
and uselessly

the name of what’s their names
is a rock star
be a solid stone, large pebble,
s t u c k in my gourd,
or the little strength needed
in your fingertips ,
to grasp the individual coffee beans
you just dropped,
scattered over two rooms,

strength that arrived snd went,
and the cells of your body parts,
ask you
what’s going on, going wrong?

making lists is inoperative,
for the whereabouts
of said list is curiously
gone to the devils on my back,
cut out to
the dead cells that were once a warty grey,
now a withering deadening and
deafening, deadening, defeated
black hole
(******* in data for destruction)

seven generations of accumulations
erode,
chip chirped & chipped away now so oft,
onto those ***** city sidewalks
they fall and to dust,
to down ground, by steps of
passer-overs who care not a
whit,
what's that word that
rhymes to
writ?

it is imprisoned on
Devil’s Island with
what’s-his-name

took out the fixings to
make an antipasto salad,
placed all upon the counter ,
but couldn’t
locate the fig goat cheese, and
no it was not on my nigh-table,  
nor hid in the fridge,

grrr, that fridge that I fully emptied,
twice,
for twas sitting on the counter,
snickering
the very first item removed,
and also
to be
the first forgot

high to low, and reverse course,
having not left the abode!?!,
where is my watch,
so the hunt for the Red October smart watch awaiting
my lovely wrist,
is not to be found,
for it was well
hidden from searching eyes,
alr  eady on my wrist,
hiding upside down,
beneath my shirt cuff,
announcing publicly it’s
smarter than its
cuffed up
owner

admire a painting upon a wall,
but say nada to the world,
for the word mural
has evaporated, an
evaporated not no more
subjective Objective

I, intentionally
cut, rip off the pockets from every coat,
leaving in each but 
 one,
so I can be comforted
when wallet searching,
that endless patting repetitive
of pockets visible and hidden,
has now but a singular solution
thus,
may yield resultant missing object
sought and more quickly
found,
maybe

a thousand poem bits o’ honey
fully finished, or just a phrase,
needing a body, heart and head,
lie in a dank and dark
dungeoned file,
Former Memories

but the where when
and the critical tickle,
the why,
formation is still needed
for them to be despatched
to their fate,
unless it’s
“just because”
a better reasoning,
other than my
own guilty
diminishing capacity
is no longer in service

p.s let me save poor yocum
complaining this miss/ive
is too long,
SO there!
I’ve done it for him,
even though it is highly unlikely,
for that!
is the one thing
his memory
has proven
infallible...
Jan 31 · 145
Friday morning terrors
Nat Lipstadt Jan 31
A-awoke to a fear, succumbing,
The where and when, verities of my existence were gone, in absentia, les disparu,
Could not place the day nor name it,
Or prepare myself for  whatever
Were its unique responsibilities

I hate that you are thinking no biggie, consult your watch ~ your phone, go to another room, turn on the screens, the screen instantly in will advise, such they areprogrammed

I too thought, so I was programmed,
But not well enough, or my circuitry or software, we, are not up-to-date

Yes, this was a terrorizing, flailing in the dark,
Refusing to admit that I had lost myself,
No surety, no satisfaction, and the dark room
Suffocated or sedated any thoughts of reassurance

The resolution was swift, but not satisfactory,
For now, I am aware, that I can lose my sense
Of self, of place, the end of time and have become dependent on the artifice electronic mechanisms to keep me stable, like the
The corner of the night table

I tell you but no one else, keep my secret
Close, in case I should ashamedly trouble
You for the information I’ll been be needing

Unless you too suffer from this malady
Nat Lipstadt Jan 29
Dear Patty,

I have never met a child or a poem

born to live a free verse life,
willingly submit to patrician
powdered **** cheek horror at
the unconformity of escapading,
river rafting verbal tumulting,
never awoken needy to be yoked
by syllabic laws of brutalists,
jailed by autocratic diktats of meter,
or the iron confines of lines formatted,
imprisoned, once set free, they then opine-id
prithee prithee, prithee please sir
on
my license plating,
can I whine,
write free or die


bind me not by the rigid sharpies
of executed orders, or count the numbered
breaths tween my freedom riders,
escaping with grinning faces
shouting seen-u-around, and
don't forget to say
bye bye
to the tortuous
pretense of them
haiku hi hi hooliganisms,
and the amoebic
pentameter of a
speare chuckere
who was foolishly glad to trade
the kingdom of freedom
for a besaddled horse
led around by
the reign of ruthless rules


is this crystal-a-line clear
my dear?
Nat Lipstadt Jan 29
“The Weight of the Untold” (Pradip)
<•>
6:55am:  Jan 2 nine twenty twenty five

(read the comments first)

enveloped by the early mix
of morning’s hangover of dark
blue gray, window glints of a
sun playing peekaboo over the
yet there (!) Manhattan skyline,
the utter  “ness” of the stilled,
unwritten, unstirred, uncolored
dim of medium shadowy light,
the quietude is an actual thing,
a warming coverlet of cozy peace

am I not forcibly compelled to
write of the weight of white spaces,
Pradip pokes my curious anxiety,
as I question my own words, that
he tosses back to me, so so oft
he ****** the cells of my fingertips
to peek, to bleed, then peck letters
from within, to comprehend my
museum artifacts of words,
the weight of their panoply
of mystery

How, how can the white weight of
our seemingly empty spaces tween
words, carry this burden on its,
bony shoulders, can’t we just let them
be, like the breaths exhaled, the
disappearing exhaust of being human,

is it necessary to carry knowing knowledge,
of what needs no body, isn’t the inexplicable
better left unimagined, there be so much tolling troubles, let them be left masked, they’ll appear as embodied black letters, of-when, their discord is accorded their moment of due…no  more need to succumb prematurely
to this onerous lighter than air pressurized crushing atmosphere of reused oxygen

did I awake just to prove my existence, to offer up this combination of vocabulary of wondering, one more explication of the unknowns that are visible to the naked eyes, big, hard, factuals better left alone…and suddenly the morning light has arrived,

dear god,it will be a sun-filled sky,
and that weight, is modestly eased,
never fully erased, but you know,
I know, most of its occupants
even those
who won’t show their faces

And perhaps they should remain
hidden in the white spaces
between the letters and the words,

u.  n.  t.  o.  l.  d.
this dialogue never ceases or seizes;
every sentence parsed

Pradip Chattopadhyay › Sunday Scheming: “And his heart was known to none…”
“More is written in the "white spaces" than the words can tell. Possibly for those spaces, we are hardly known in life, carrying on with the weights of the untold”
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