Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Nat Lipstadt Apr 20
a little

r,

that's all I have,
a hook upon to hang my spirits,
hoping these pre~sleep morbidiities
be by gravity,  
sleep drained, and my
heart restored to wholeness

<>

a tiny single letter separating,
us from them,
it is a handhold, a lifeline,
grasping something for all of us
to hold onto for balance,,
when thinking bout the
hurt we exert,
rendering me near inert:

what we do,
what we let happen,
permit, allow 
 the world to afflict our

children

gasp at the horrors, inflicted,
grasp the enormity of all of it,
curse my brain for this self inflicted pain,
the most vulnerable exposed
to our failures to protect
them from infections
inward and outward<
desirous of infecting

and you claim
"did your best"
with reddened gilded~guilt edged letters
a  illegitimized excuse.
knowing you cannot protect them from the
evils already contained
within,
and the without,
so well hidden,
the bullying torturers,
who are their parents
who go unpunished!

who cares
whose the guit moreover,
all needy for a No, no, No!
the visiuons implanted in my brain,
beg sleep to banish them
from under my drooping eyelids,
but the lightning screams overheard,
infect my eyes,
and the sleep slowed
from
my hopeless prayers of remorse, restitution,
laying bed flat, supplicating
anyone who hears this total body cri,
and no one answers
for the guilt is widespread, broadly shared,
anyone who is parenting,
knows,
the answer will not be forthcoming
and forgiveness will not be granted
by yourself
to yourself
from yourself
for forgiveness
for this
one on the list of multicipity of sins
committed,
is not attainable...

and to sleep,
bit by an asp.
who delivers a certain kind of respite,
perchance, not to dream,
is my only hope...

Saturday,
2/19/25
10:00PM
Nat Lipstadt Apr 22
Can you imagine?


"nat, this is like a phoenix reborn. i always love your work"

>A human writes this to me:
and

these are the first words conscious
of a new day,
awakened and thunderclapped
to read the
these s-elected words
on a now superfied~stupified
glorious Spring day<

I am besotted,
bowled, bowed over
all my bones are mushed,
liquified
these
elected & conjoined
particles, bytes, integers,
a handful of molecules of
uttered, undreamed of
words<

>and now, I am sated<
by this unexpected
whereandhow,
whatandwhy


giving
thanks enough to this world
with/for/by
my peculiar love of
words, and the humans
with whom I share
with and by them,
and for them!


<>


6:18AM
nyc
4-17-2025
Nat Lipstadt Apr 22
Here, of course, is New York CIty,
soon enough, my innate 4000 year old
internalized migratory patterns signal,
remind, now be time need to flee to mine
own Walden Pond, no pond, but a wide
bay upon a small river that feeds the
Great Atlantic, and silence & solitude
with assists from animals, the trees,
lovely breezes, the overlord, overloved
sun, will restoreth my soul, when I walk
beside green pastures and forests on country
unpaved rounds, and the poems hang from
the breezes, ripe for the love of a grasping~plucking:

A great reveal though, currently:

Though my soulful body be over 100 miles as the
crow flies from there, here, where I
was/born/bred/educated/nativized/citified/raised/lowered/ be buried/
and yet reside,
the mayhem vibrant+indigenous+unique
to Isle of Manhattan, where the streets cannot never be
clean enough, always, my eyes cloud over at the 10,000
acts of knindness, rudeness, unimagiable beauty, and sadly,
random violence on every street corner, surrounded by broad
ways, temples of arrogant prideful structures of Tower of Babel
ginormity, all pointing up at Him, asking pointlessly, patiently
for an answer that never comes, to
Why Here, Dearest God?

on this Algonquin island, with Indian trails *still
extant,
trapped tween two diatomic, fast flowing rivers, do we masses
yearning to be free, live here, a man writes (see below) about
the walks he takes upon it paved banks for soul restoration
and new infusions and certification of the answers you've always, |already have known:

every walkabout
in its own way, is a
gray, grayed, concretized
green pasture unique,
topped off with a combinatory
poem and symphony,
that 90% restoreth my soul,
each art, conducted uniquely,
each in its
own particular,  
genetic birth sac,
nourished by the
atmospheric placenta


in the B.C. (Before Covid)
there was a joy at a city's
restoration, excitation,
after many decades of
wilful neglect; Covid
made many flee to
verified green pastures
hundreds of milkes away;
most have now returned,
like the Hudson and the East River,
their/these tides reverse, what goes North,
changes direction, naked to eye visible

So the population too, two way >flowing<
returnees and departees, always churning
the city's populace; here is a story of a man
who escapes but always returns, whose spirits
tidal wave flow from the sheltered sanctuary
to the madcap foment of a city in perpetuity,
revising its demeanor; from both flows do I
draw the water that feeds my words, and each
poem, differentiated, by the accent of my local

this is a city poem, born and bred, from my very
old head, which was birthed in a hospital by its
central park, and will see my ashes scattered within
its con~fines

(see notes for the story of another New Yorker who walks)
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=44&emc=edit_ur_20250417&instance_id=152734&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=new-york-today&paid_regi=0&productCode=UR&regi_id=17556971&segment_id=196172&sendId=196172&uri=nyt://newsletter/4f1c8476-a85a-5781-912f-f1741fc9811a&user_id=0e2bfe72b2cf96f30ceaa6e616d59ce6
Nat Lipstadt Apr 19
night/night
time/time
night overheats
                         wet awake, damp is the status:
mystery no more, familiarity brings unsurprise,
the machine issues environmental sounds,
cool air, deep cover, setup ~ perfect
wake up soaked/mystified/drizzled unhappy/awake to change/
meaning comes
                         /pieces of randome thoughts/movie trailer bite sized/

these are:
                sweating words/eager for realization/escape needy/impatiented
                by foible human/who needs sleep? is the unasked question...

dress for winter, may I? in May?????/!!!!!     /!\
                              ~change to summery
                                 "ACTIVE WEAR" at-tire<>
                                   skin expose<>  
                                     
  AM I NOT ACTIVE?
                              thus this oddity poem/product of sweat/
                              provides cooling panting/dog?
  am I a dog?
                              that would be nice!
                              sadly or nat~not, a human
                          o         verfilled / o        verflowing
                            tale telling from evrey pore/ Alcatraz                 escape/  recaptured/twisted  
                                                  d a m p
                             became a poem/d a m p is me
                             becoming/ reducing/emitting/inquiring/
                             enquiring/
                             aligned
will this be my last poem?

sweating with/from/AND
all the way over to............................................................Ant­icipation...
Avril 2025/18
300~330/am|AM
BAH HUMBUG
Nat Lipstadt Apr 15
when the time is best described as
"the morning muddled middle"

for it is the middle of the night,
and yet,
we have crossed over the midnight divide,
the new day is well commenced,  
but the prevailing dark sky says,
not quite yet!

this journey,
from the bed to the head,
is an abbreviated 20 steps,
you fall out of one,
unable to recall,
hours of vivid dreams,
now only scraps of script,
visions, whipped into the void
of the current blanket of a
night cosseting silence

in return for this
adventure travelogue,
you are granted free access to the top of your skull,
where apparently,
a new set, a fresh combo,
has been delivered, not by Amazon
not by messenger, not by the USPS,
but by your own,
fermenting, fermenting, formidable,
yawning
brain cells
and a poem appears,
wholly holy complete
space, typed and neat,
and falls from your lips,
filtered by your eyes
with no hesitation,
"and not a trace of farewell

and this miracle,
is no miracle at all,
for it is routinized,
a daily occurrence,
the mystery of it
long gone,
The How,
dissipated, disappeared,
and delivered unto
You

your obligation, your need,
your urgent pungent
purging,
is strifeless,
and you owe
but you have no idea
to whom or what
to thank for this
bestowing

is this poem a stowaway?
or did it pay for its passage,
in cash, by credit card,
or barter ?

if by barter,
what did I surrender?
what item or thing of great value did I trade
for this permissive missive
that was created
for the soul purpose,
of being shared?

it's birth was painless,
the cutting of the cord,
was never felt!

and within minutes,
it went from birth to babe,
child to adolescent,
young adult to middle aged,
to now,
a senior senile senatorial
presents itself fully formed,
weaned wise and wizened
and served to you
on white porcelain dishes,
with black cutlery

so fresh, so hot, so new,
that you are the first
or perhaps the last,
even the only
to ever taste it…

I ask for your forgiveness,
though invited
on this journey to this meal
and it's many courses
and its mirrored ball of
disco discourses,
it is signaling,
like a wise fool frantically waving,
enough!
telling you that you
have arrived
at an ending,
that we each name,
Our Destination


so be it
so be it
so it be

now a shared property

<>
            

  NML


April 15, 2025

labor commenced
at 2:27 AM
and the poem~baby
with all its limbs, all its senses,
was delivered to you,
its adaptive & adoptive
parents
at 3:22 AM

so good night, good day
and good luck!
Nat Lipstadt Apr 13
>crumbled, rumbled, street survivors,
paper scraps that took the rage abuse rap,
dead love notes, bills red with overdues,
these pre-poems have traveled wind currents
some in from Jersey, some hailing Minnesota,
ain't never see one that crossed the Atlantic,
but reckon it is not a theoretical impossibilty

unpretty city streets, like a museum, collects 'em,
plenty of exhibition space, forlon, historically
orphaned, disbanded, whose paths all got confused,
some sweet, all beat, balled and thrown, no home,
no more, each a reveille, each humming taps, now,
all scented by strret odors, none pleasant, each was
in its prior life, the meat, the grist, the meal of what
was, coulda been, a poem that would have survived
yellowed in care, tender glanced, tucked in books,
safekept, but slipped away, victims of friction, fraction

look down, be unafraid, unravel them slow, careful,
abused, all these messengers all need a good home,
a box in a closet, a book of tenders, witnesses to what
they've seen, places they've been, hand held, tenderized
by words spiced, variegated, ink, pencil, typewritten, like
their prior human authors, all sizes, all shapes, some on
colored paper, a l l astrayed, accidental, purposed, details
and detritus, once deemed essemtial, important, necessary
and needed, even believed, but times change

you're stuck, brain ain't cooperating, tired of staring inside
your self's self, pull on a sweater, it's a chilly spring overcast air,
that don't natural warm, more naturally warn, be careful where,
you step, your next poem is laying right there, grab a few, take
more than a couple, this is like a school dance, try a few, until
you bank the right one in the till, the connection made, a kiss,
in secret stolen, and the drive, the forces, the perspiration urgency
leads to you desk, nook, granny's cranny, and the world of words
overflow like seagulls in a harbor, so many spilling, hard is the
choosing, but excited adrenaline, free basing, in your veins and
****, you gotta just write again, right now, add a ***** poem
back to its rightful place in a heart, upon eyes, tongue taste them
syllables, clap and laugh as they symmetrically form, subtle rhyming,
the sleeping seeds have sprouted, the brown brain loamy cells,
fertile and potent, energize, impregnate, and you just can't wait
to walk the streets, in search of many, many more

it's ok, you have permission to utter a whispery nearly silent
hallelujah<
April 13 2025  10;10am NYC
this cane to me sudden, slow and no intentend to  marry< no reason wht,
but the title hit me square, and sat down and spilled the beans, and left me quite
satisfied, almost a little purged
Nat Lipstadt Jun 7
**** shame it ain't taught in religious schools, hell, any school
that ain't politically correctable,
and the world doesnt protest that this ius not the 11th commandment, not cause it should be…but cause,
deserves to be

it's a hardscrabble life, like playing Chutes and Ladders,
you think you're climbing the ladder up, slow and steady,
when the chute trips you up, and down on your ****, to
just start all over again...
and once more, you wonder
if
this is worth it all...


down in the basement, some friendlies, pick you up,
even dust you off, take you to Start, even some with large
hands give freely a pat on the back small,
give a slight push of encouragement
to drown out your own shivering sighs of emotional excuses

here's the moral of the story;
you want world peace,
want, no anti-
anything that includes people, and truth can only be found,
marked down, in a charity thrift shop, marked "Bargain!" but
no one wants to buy any cheap
christmas "stuff" slightly
used

you start to think about grand
notions, big ideas, ways and methodologies that coud actually
effect change that migh affect people, and

**** you start wearing empathy
like a tattoo on your forehead
and hell, it attracts stared thst
circumventing into

smiles.  **** .
april 14 2025
Nat Lipstadt Apr 9
(~for Stella Marie, a newly arrived poet here at HP"
who asks, "when does a poem truly end?"~
)

She's off,
to a fancy, long gown, dinner dance, with her dancing partner,
a relationship that predates my arrival, my tired song reminder,
"but don't forget who's taking you home" has aged out from repetition,
and now she slips in beside me 'round midnight, and more often than not
so smooth, so silently, I wake up to early morn poetry writing time
and there she is, a Britbox ****** mystery dissolving on the tv screen,
earpoded and still miraculously,
deeply asleep

before she departs, poses for a final inspection,
demonstrating my wonderful
ability to adorn her gorgeous jewlery,
and sardonically modest, critique her with, an
"as expected,
you looking gorgeous"
which evokes her soft smile, at my soft edged compliment

but earlier, whine like a grown man on a diet (so pathetic).
there is nothing
sweet to eat for my apres dinner just(ice) dessert,
and leaving me chicken soup salty and
aggravated...she in a neutral tone,
a child practiced tone,
"go check the fresh fruit drawer, there is fresh fruit aplenty,"
and I, mentally comparing my desire for a raisin scone,
or vanilla butterscotch swirl,
to the taste bud reaction unfufilled,
find the clear plastic box of fresh blackberries,
like Leornard's tea,
that comes all  the way from Mexique,
and inelegantly stuff my face...

been writin poetry since early morn, pre~sunrise, through first daylight,
and now eventide, she's off, the apartment gone quiet, as I munch on twelve blackberries I have extracted to ease my sweetness lacking

but blackberries are ****, ******, that won't quell my inner needs,
of course, the notion of twelve blackberries, says, mmmm, could
be a poem in there somewhere, and the muses whisper asides, clues,
hints and apparitions of trite not quite ripe  lines and verses that might
be apropos to a poem so ilked and milked (sorry), AND that word hits me
tween and behind my blue gray eyes,  

T A R T
----------
with its mulivariable shades of meaning,
which amuse. and I love,
but also accuse me of possibly be distracted intowriting
bad poetry,

and wonder how the tongue disassembles our food,
separating their essence into the varieties of taste sensations,
sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory

and reflect how wise these tiny tatse buds know
just how we humans sort people into categories that
mimic  
just how knowing, assess, categorize,
our fellows humans
along the same principles,

how can there not be a supreme intelligence,
that designed our bodies so similarly
and yet so differently,
and efficiently?

something if we thought about more,
might make us less inclined to blow each other up
with such genteel aplomb.

apologize for dragging you through this rambling essay,
but it came about when Stella Marie
asks, "when does a poem truly end?"


it ends here, when you captures the flows of the living currents
we surround ourselves with, reaching out to capture their
flowing parfume essences,
the sweet, the sour, the savory,
and connecting them to a larger envisioning,
which how we operate,
why we do not ignore spectacular sunrises, sunsets,
the "curve of a wrist"
how an ankle turns a leg into a finished sentence,
how tears confess true emotion and clarify,
even though they actually intefere with seeing,
and now its time to depart, end this long rhyme
about longing,
for something sweet
and the short answer is,
jumbling and humbling,
"you just know"
for she's back and read this poem,
and tartly replies directly,
and answers your question

                     nml
APRIL 8, 2025
9:53 PM
NEW YORK CITY
Eastern Standard time

please advise any typoes
Nat Lipstadt Apr 8
for she
<>
"I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.
I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end"

Rumi
<>

writ in a time, for when
there is never enough,
and yet,
always, waves of too much,
needy for
filling feeling fulfilling

We must learn,
be self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

ah the tender time is nonetheless
rightly and wrongly
rightly now,

for I have stumbled,
overheated, sweaty, from the night bed,
at 4.30am into another darkened toom,
and I have smacked~stumbled into
Rumi
and her

our paths continuously intersect,
in the same but
in different cities, continents,
and yet,
diffident, differing,
we silently choose
never to close those lady~last few miles
and tie the knot of
eyes, skin, lips
the instruments
that transmit thousands of
neuronal explosions that
seal the deal

so we write in poetry,
in silence broken by the gentility
of fingertips soundlessly
and yet,
boundlessly rocking,
explosively soundings of
tap tap tapping

my music mocks me,
it is definitively god interfering,
advising, conspiring,
wiring into my brain
better lyrics,
idealized notions,
exactly appropriate
and appreciated

with the lyrics urging me on,
and that we must be
self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

but my heart trembly refuses,
insightful informing
that now,
now! is
the moment to exchange
vows of words,
though un spoke,
they require
written completion
through
& though
apart, alone,
to finally out loud confess
what has always been known, only to each other,
to be
so real

and yet*,

we will never exchange
these sentiments
in out loud words

but though this be lacking,
it will never
diminish
their  ultimate
intimate
truthfulness

and I ask,
is this a poem?

surely
it is that, and
so much more,
an essay, a letter on
invisible NML stationary,
a heart carving in
an oaken barrelling of
ancient vintagery

and that interloper,
Him again,
eavesdropping
on this private communication,
insists that I draw deep
from her favorite
singer~songwriter,
words that say it better,
that for real seal the deal,
in the saddened perfection
of total, enwrapped,
silence:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

and
it is time
to finish this task,
it is exactly one hour,
no time at all,
to complete a love poem that
is/was complete,
even before its
composition
and yet,
is never to be be familiar with
the finality of
completion
<>

postscript:

I taste your private shed tears,
hear the howling sigh,
but most of all,
'tis the explosion of
a deep smiling creasing
your lips,
spreading in all directions
saying and stating:

at last, at last!
a lasting, a confessional to you god,
though,
a through and through
silent
jubilation
                                              ­             nml

April 8, 2025
530am
New  York  City
excerpted lyrics from Billy Joel and
Paul Sumon
Nat Lipstadt Mar 29
~ 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
Next page