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  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
Nat Lipstadt
read his stuff
https://hellopoetry.com/r-2/

n.b. nowadays I write here only in praise of others,
as the rewards are far greater than any of the meager
stuff I got  laying around.

a poem for his summer soul-stice
<>


self-confessed to the priest, we us, both, meeting
in the confess-******, wee needy for a solid projectile
purging, me, cause, I’m a plagiarist of inspiration

**** it every time a ce r tain poet writes,
its a sock to my multi faceted square sided~head,
discoloring my eye shadow, my maskara crazy running,
frustration, admiration, mortar and pestle pounded

into a white powder of unadulterated adultery with a
frothy topping of a jealousy muse laughing face, at me,
cappuccino made from bitter herbs and pink sea salt.

in eight lines the man accomplishes
what would take me eight, eight full
poems, even then, not coming close

still failing to retake his brevity skills,
his summer solstice way of seeing,
by keeping the dark away,
by inviting the dark in,
making it under duress,
spill the beans of his life’s
ironies, some hellish,
some not, all well kept,
in Georgia granite stoney face.

the softest steeling of words that irritates
me into a fine frenzy... what’s the use,
point made, in how he undresses
the eyes
into just outright gasping,

and that is the only
permissible comment emoji.


______

r

Her verse
I need to taste the salt
of her soliloquy
be drunk on the sobriety
of her verse
those words she writes
behind my eyelids
makes me want
to crawl inside her skin
and listen to her heartbeat.
https://hellopoetry.com/r-2/

*************

Postscript:
as a poet, knee’d & head bent, asking you Lord,
would it have soiled a vast eternal plan,
to throw some kosher salt, on mes écrits,

let a soliloquy make my case, my summer
soul-on-ice, hangover from the drunken sobriety
that stays, retained, the sense of loss remains
long after he has left my screen, and I’m

wondering if he gets him poems from that
old yellow dog, if true, no fair, but o.k., I’ll
take it right, any way, I can, **** it. and you.
  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
ogdiddynash
many women do yoga.
many men do ***.

women prefer,
ah, never mind,
you know how that ends!

No?

If we draw a
Venn diagram,
one circle, yoga,
the other, ***,

in the middle,  
overlapping sector,
is the
Venn Zen Intersextion
well I’m chuckling and I WAS paying attention in 10th grade Math

google search Venn Diagram Templates. Very Erogenous!
  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
Andrew Crawford
Morning frost
lays crystal sheets,
steaming in
the early heat.

Autumn breathing
steep release,
surrendering
last leafy green;
final piece
of creaking tree
won't let go
so easily.

Achieved by
a tease of
frigid degrees,
reason's razor
sharp, now cleaves
between stability
besieged by treason
and terminal
velocity agreed,
competing speed
descending free;
earthen dirt
eagerly pleas
and receives;
turbulently earning
unpredictability,
it careens.

A final sigh,
falling relief,
I hold my breath,
freeze expectantly;
winter seized
as seasons leave
seed buried
somewhere
six feet deep
beneath dry bones
and brittle debris,
lost in all
of eden's weeds,
covered in
a snowflake sea,
icy geometry impedes.

Heart, a beat,
syllable speaks,
rhythm repeats
infrequently;
silence broken
for a moment,
it meekly greets
and peaks,
exhausting extreme
expediently;
though gravity
its greedy thief,
time denies
my soul to keep;
not dying yet
in faded defeat,
mortality has
still not ceased;
just enough
life left to lead.

Still hope to be
and blessedly believe-
a flame to flicker
in the breeze
when you need
the light to carve
through dark to see,
if only ever our meeting
but fleeting and
happening briefly.

Dark circles
and a ******
of crows' feet creased,
show me deprived
of sleep, fatigued
on the eve of
dreams, leaping;
as the sun sets
in the west weeping,
reflects again,
blinding iris
rising east,
horizon breached
again eventually;
coronary arteries
won't concede
until this vessel
bleeds empty.
EDIT: I might be expressive but I'm not a very prideful person (probably to a fault) but I'm especially happy with how this one turned out (honestly I would even say I'm really proud). I can never tell if the rhyme/structure is too distracting for people because I read over it so much myself, but I'm really happy with it just for me.

EDIT 2: Sorry, I'm gonna use a sun, promise it's not vanity, my stuff just doesn't get much visibility on here (not that I care about my monkey brain hitting the dopamine button with internet points, it's just nice to be heard, otherwise why write, right?)...

I know it sounds weird but I feel like the voice I write with comes from outside of myself, like I'm compelled to say what comes out without consciously thinking about it so much... the method I use to write is unconventional... I'll start out with a word or turn of phrase in mind knowing what I want to express or show with the poem, then I'll find all the rhymes I can using words that generally fit, then I shape them into what I want to say.

I definitely don't believe 'it's my calling' or anything supernatural/religious, but it feels like it's the closest thing to channeling/tapping into some sort of spiritual essence/communion (even though I can't logically allow myself to believe in any sort of literal divine energy, that's just the closest I can equate)... and it feels like i write for the same reason the birds sing and the grass is green 🤷‍♂️ I know to anyone else it's just poetry (and any art is subjective, who cares about poetry in 2020?! 😆), I could never delude myself into thinking it's any more than it is even on a personal level (my mother is schizoafffective  based around religious delusions that developed from a personality disorder and it's genetic, ill likely always have particular barriers against it myself, unfortunately), nor is it any sort of mania... it's just certainly nice having that sort of outlet (I would even argue necessary to a degree) even if it doesn't amount to much.
  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
Nat Lipstadt
Eden’s Weeds (Andrew Crawford)


“seed buried somewhere six feet deep beneath dry bones
and brittle debris, lost in all of eden's weeds” Andrew Crawford

<><>><>
you tripped exploring mine own eden's weeds,
more precisely, tripped me up, your poring over,
my one hundred year old poems, flawed, by
many spilled tears, aged old, for and over them,
and now, once again, je vous réponds s'il vous plait

this poem planned, title chosen, well before you
exercised my memories, disinterring by your fingers,
(surprise!} but the content you also now provided,
@ ten to midnight, your privacy invasion, a very fine
sleep deprivation excuse to compose one more time

who knows, perhaps this next one could be ”flawless”^
not likely though, flawless never found amidst the weeds
though in Eden chances are, chances are, not impossible,
for that’s the place where slow, simple songs get replayed,
celebrating lovers of life, its pleasant harmonies, go figure

over, over again, like a rolling stone, until friction finally wins,
yes ”my own chosen speed”^ is a-slowing, direction home, finally,
the mosses occluding new words and combinations, concealed,
like a moss, got no roots, birthed by shedding spores airborne,
my new old poems, plucked from air, words passing by in phrases

your phrase,
eden’s weeds,
hit my irises,
insisting it deserved,
instant cognition,
two words,
demanding special education,
accolade recognition,
perhaps if I
stick around,
for a few more poems,
I’ll learn to write
as beautiful as you.
  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
lmnsinner
<>

“Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?
Have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?”


Song of Myself (1892 version) by Walt Whitman

                                                      ­      §§§

A night of reckoning, calculations repeated-checked, sums divided,
did I use too many, or not enough, words to be understood, verbiage eloquent,
did daytime reveal my poetic meanings, or double-occlude it’s essence?

I have reckon’d Manhattan Isle, circumnavigated its riverbed boundaries, a younger me, by kayak rounded it, from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Battery, 14,500 acres give or take, a lifeatime to complete a dead reckoning, an unfinished full configuring.

but haven’t reckon’d that Earth and I will be entwined/entombed in each other’s arms, until such time, one of us or both, will be reduced to cosmic dust, our pride, our poems, will be equally unimportant and irrelevant, I reckon.

in retrospective rear view perspective, come to understand that we spend every moment of our lives, reckoning, determine the odds of which fork we will take, laugh out loud, for each moment, a poem  is titled, the resultant, a poem - who needs a muse, you’ve got choices!

So, yes, Walt, the questing  answers you’ve requested:
Aye, yes, yup, but no to pride, for pride and poetry in one sentence is
a death sentence at multiple levels, pride, poetry, ego, suicide,...sins,
so better no proud for it is the entree, the invitation to fall-fail...

                                                   ­      §§§§§


12:03AM  Frieday
May 15th
my deadline missed,
but what is three minutes,
but empty pride...
Manhattan Island
  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
lmnsinner
she just shakes her head

she meets me on the street-corner, me from work, she from dance,
in the grayling dusk of a thank god it’s a freedom Friday night,
I greet her with words semi-adventurous -

“come with me, few errands to run, keep me in good company”

to the candy store we go for to purchase my weekend eve
lottery tickets and blow-pop lollipops, just in case some
kids appear, a surprise omen as they come
trick-or-treating just before Thanksgiving


the Bangladeshi candyman calls out a long prayer
in his native Bangla

she asks “what’s that he’s saying?”

“Oh, just wishing us a pleasant Sabbath and
may his gods smile upon our good lottery fortune”

she just shakes her head, from side to side

emerging from the store, walking home in the
now doubly ***** darkly dusk,
a set of white teeth from a passing shadow-man says to me
“you’re home late and have a great weekend,”

she asks, “who is that?”

“why,” I reply, “that is our very own personal postal carrier’

she says:
“he delivers mail to ten thousand people all in buildings tall,
yet knows your name, your face,
where you buy your lottery tickets,
your coming and going hours,
how came that to be”

but waits not for an answer
she just shakes her head, from side to side

I show her my secret entrance to our apartment house,
the fast route to collect our mail, dry cleaning in one fell swoop
a secret door, secret elevator taking us directly to our apartment

a secret elevator which is under the direction of
Bimal from Nepal,
who I greet in Nepalese, (my tutor)
I, asking after Brian and Bryce, his 100% American boys

now she says nothing, but before our door, as I go key digging,
she just shakes her head, from side to side

later she says:

“let’s order in, apprise me of  your expertise,
some exotic fare from Manhattans First Avenue,
known for its aphrodisiacal powers
afterwards,
you must tell me each dishes name,
in its tongue’s nativity,
but much, much later,”

and as she speaks, grinning,
she sticks out her tongue,
while she just shakes her head,
but this time,

up
and
down
11/17/18
nyc
mostly a true story, mostly
  Jun 2020 Still Crazy
Mark Upright
my father had a
sense of humor,
and high hopes
for his first born son.

almost named me
Short ‘n Sweet,
cause that is how
most like life.

thot about calling me,
*******,
cause that is what
most deserve to be told.

but he didn’t want
no blowback, so he he
stuck me with this name,
Mark Upright.

all I gotta say is this
and it’s short & sweet:

Dad, take note,

*******,

my *******,

for you, see it,

marked upright.
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