Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
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!
Dom Mar 18
Another gray hair?
Oh well.
Guess I’m silvering
One step closer to being a timber wolf
And I still adore the night
Howling at the moon, dancing with the stars
Seeing how the lights attract
I’m a moth to the neon
Listen to the hum as we drift
Up and down the city trails.

One more day,
Here it comes,
Aches may pain
But I’m super, man
When the rays shine on
Can’t complain, when everything is stellar.

Out of this world and into whatever may come,
Face it on with one step forward
The chapter’s closing and a new book opens
What will I write, who will I be?
What is to come? What will we see?
Take it as it comes, inspired by inspiring
Wisdom is burning, so sit by the fire
Watch the memories play in a flicker
Stay for the s’mores and a beer

It’s gonna be one helluva year.
Accepting that I'm reaching middle age this year, and seeing as an opportunity to live the next half as fully as I can, while holding onto the wisdom of everything I learned along the way.
Dom Mar 6
They never said
Growing old would mean
The loss of everything
That made you, you
When the past haunts
And the mirror steals youth
It’s all encompassing.

And I remember when
But I’m so far from then
And the laughs and cries
Echo to a silent goodbye
When all has given way

Well I guess there’s still today…

And I remember when,
The rain didn’t pierce the skin
And nothing could harm,
No, nothing could enter in
These parapets built so high
That none could vault to breach
But now the walls tumble over
And I’m disposed to the siege

And I remember when,
But I’m so far from then
Oh bring me back to yesterday
So I can face today.

Take me home one more time,
To the days locked away in a haze
Listening to my favorite bands
Louder than concert speakers
Pounding my chest with bass drum tweakers
I’m hopelessly lost in this modern world
Where autonomy is monotonous
And I can’t see the vision I once had
When did I go blind?

One more ride into the past,
I’ll promise to make it last
If only you’d take me back,
And let me lie here awhile

Oh well, I guess there’s still today…

But I remember when.
Turning 40 this year, been in and out of deep introspection and reflection. I’m both scared and excited to enter the next half of my life…
Jeremy Betts Nov 2024
Trying to find shades of myself
In the simple black and white
Trying to wade out in the middle
Of a basic wrong and right
Maybe I will or maybe I won't
But maybe I just might
I want to live in the twilight
There's too much darkness in the light

©2024
Jeremy Betts Jul 2024
Is there inherent good in people?
Who's to say,
Nothing is that simple
With little to no meaningful example sample
One's left to guess what to shed and what's essential
For those not raised to be capable
Those who struggle with both an internal and external battle
Or wound up with a broken porcelain bone handle,
It's hard to shake the fragile label
And always surprising who is willing to use it as ammo
There is good, there is evil
Most linger somewhere near the middle
Remember though,
It's not that simple

©2024
Zywa Jan 2024
Between star and night,

between black skin and white skin --


our fire is burning.
Poem "Yúya Karrabúra" ("Fire is Burning", 2015, Alice Eather)

Collection "SoulSenseSun"
M Aug 2023
I think
I am starting to see
perceptions
I see that I do love israel
eventhough
it has taught me some hard lessons
but they were lessons that I needed to see
sometimes life must break you
in order to grow you
I love how the people care about each other
in times of need
how people smile at you on the street
how old israeli grandmothers
will treat you as their own
how we treat each other as family for good or bad
how life is authentic here
and how we don't bullsht each other
life is refreshing crazy and intense here
and there are things that I hate
and that things that I can't stand
but there are also so many beautiful things here
how people love their family here
how there are so many animals here
how we live in a beautiful country
with so many beautiful beaches
towns rivers streams
nature spots
and laughter of chidren
sparkling throughout the air.
How walking down the street
I hear arabic hebrew russian and sometimes english as well.
How despite how the world portays us
we work together in peace
and especially where I live in Israel
we all live in peace
how in times of trouble we get together
to protest we don't just stand by
and allow things to go on,
how we are so strong
how we hold each other when we cry,
how we care about one another
how we yell at each other
one minute
and the next we are laughing together!
This is my home
Israel and Palestine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ05DVEE1JE
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
those of us in the middle muddle,

do not know from sides, boundary lines,
drawn by others, right-sided, left-leaning,
mean nothing to us, who seek something solid
upon to rest, when the clarity others profess,
more than evades us, even escapes us, and
the muddles of life seem to require simplest,
middling answers that are unacceptably refused
by grail seekers whose cause for cause, means
cause to cost others regardless, for regard for
the middle is disdained, by two-sided posts,
the know nothings, and the know betters

irony of irony, the rigidity of imposition makes
me more adrift, more aimless, and the task of
meandering through seems almost holy, for the
obstacles of society, requirements of modern life,
are so damning, wild expectations superimposed,
truths not just hard to find, almost indiscernible,
so I lay my pen down hard, awaiting for the
whatever-while, for to return, to go walking with
only the simplest grids to guide, meanderings in
general directions, ahead, always ahead, keep moving,
keep touching and when optimism returns,

I shall be relieved
once more,
I shall be released
once again,

good words will be caught,
released, returned back
into the atmosphere so
they will grow in size by
the very act of sharing



undated
————————————————-


Everyone must leave something behind
when he dies, my grandfather said.
A child or a book or a painting or a house or
a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.
It doesn't matter what you do, he said,
  so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.  The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime. ~Ray Bradbury

(Book: Fahrenheit 451)
Zywa May 2023
The sand wants to be

here, or on the other side --


not in the middle.
The hourglass as a symbol for bipolarity

Novel "Ik ben er niet" ("I'm not there", 2020, Lize Spit), page 331

Collection "Shelter"
Next page