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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 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 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 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
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
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