Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,
 liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
                    then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart
~for she who knows herself, best..
maybe~

Humans are renowned
for mucking up progress,
two steps forward,
three back, meaning,
net net; we move forward
but we often forget to cherish,
what too easy gets swept away,
as non~progressive, old fashiond

in this hands-free environment,
a very fey useful place to inhabit, let
us nonetheless, in a new age of
unrelenting increased sun
variant higher temperatures,
(which no one can deny)
curl our fingers about a
PSD,
a Personal Shade Device
(or a ParaSolD)
and as the mind roams,
let us consider a
PTD,
a personal tongue depressor,
a sort of mini-speech delayer
of say 3 seconds, giving our
overloaded brain a momentary
pause before speaking an
emotional epithet, a pause to
reconsider, with variable lengths,
adjustable to heart rate, BP, etc.,
when sensors (censors) register
driving, pulling triggers,
and ***
being triggered,
or to borrow a phrase from the
advertising icons,
'The pause that refreshes"

Mmm...
Make a Moment into a Minute,
before we whack a rude dude
with our parasol(d)...

just another ridiculous insight @3:53am

<>

Note the Word
ParaSolD has been
TM
"These days
I'll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them"
Jackson Browne

<>

these days,
you can come by tween
the mostly soft warming cracking of Dawn,
and the early born-ing of
the first peek of a full grown
but yet
sleepy sunrise,

you'll find me siting on a
asshard dock,
two seagulls staring at the
human interloper,
alone with the threads in my
hardened head,
beating time in casual rhyme,
because that's what poets do,
to warm up their
tongues & toes,
clear their eyes
and
sniffling nose,
their partly opened,
party closed,
throats, eyes and
give up, sacrifice
the longest list of little lies,
that makes (forces) us to get up  in the undimming earlies,
when it's just me, the gulls,
& the minnows poking around,

the fluke,
smarter but not wiser,
further out in deep water,
waiting to be caught

and
the cool blood barely flows,
until the rising orb warms
our fragility,
and we review the stories old,
that make us cold at night promising ourselves that
today you'll do that thing(s)
you've been putting off for years,

"Don't confront me with my failures"
Jackson pleads, but I concede,
thinking tell me them
one
mo' time,
make me unrighteous,
make me whole,
then take me,
holy displayed fully,

and the
first poem of the day,
will be my
confession total,
without reservation
and yet muse on
honor
something I thought I knew,
but needing a
closer examination
it might've been
dishonor
that was what
I was truly
knew
<>
Sunrise
July 5
'25
sitting on the dock
by the bay,
would I

lay down with a lie?
Cannot be done.
Absent those two d e v i c e s,
We wither die

I present you a poem
with no and(s) or the(s)

hear your mind going
but, but, but....

END
this a definite article
about the disease known as
coordinating
conjunction~vitis
a decent night's sleep,
my body to keep,
early light invades the
blinking eyesight, and
an indeterminate sky,
yet offers us an
either/or,
heads or tails,
success or fails,
what will the gods
offer us all humans,
to select, elect for this
anniversary of our
country's formation?

the slow rising sun
over the North Fork
will soon provide its
decision/incision for
our nation tumultuous,
turbulent, course direction

it appears that the silent
dawning will give us yet
another chance, a morning's
golden hour, with that irradiating
light that bathes us with visionary,
equality of light, light of equality,
but
last night's thunderstorms leave
us the detritus of savagery of
thunderous rains that came
with fury, reflecting our confusion
and the danger shoals that appear
with no warning, yet reminds us,
once more,
one more time,
even in troubling days,
of the blessings
of opportunity
that each day,
each unique sunrise
provides us choices,
and
skies have now spoken:
the early warming rays are
reminding hints that a new day
owns equal opportunities to
make our country beautiful
for spacious skies and
amber waves, of
water and light,
if we choose wisely, rightly...

July 4th
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
2025
Nat Lipstadt Jun 29
I have never been to Alabama, or…
<>
I have never been to Alabama,
or where
Immortality
reigns supreme,
but I am told here and there
nooks and looks of poetry
reside abide and
ENLIVE,
And sadness is banished,
loneliness impossible,
&
Loveliness abounds,

And every poem
Gets a sun,
Becomes a star,
And every poem,
Is immortalized

And those who choose
to compose, selves to expose,
become angels protecting all who write poetry in their hearts,
but
who cannot nor,
dare to share
<>
but
they share with them...
who in turn
share to all
the confidence of
Comfort
[1] though I have been to Georgia, where are angels I have met, and regularly converse and reverse poems of love and respect
Nat Lipstadt Jun 27
~for M.C.C. ~
who sang me to sleep,
when my soul begged me for
sweet release,
just was lucky, I guess

"Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway"


<>
Been there, done that,
ritualized & compartmentalized
the essences of the routinized,
to measure the days of my life,

as small keepsakes,
charms and tokens on a bracelet,
jingle bo jangle,
when another be repeated,
the telling belling of
a ✅ of satisfying satisfaction,
<>
and I!ve been bone
marrowed & narrowed hell~married,
imprisoned until decisioned,
that no life was no life at all,
(take note! y'all y'all),
and I miss my dog's greetings,
and snoring while I'm wide awake,
always loved to drive too fast on  
back country narrow lanes,
in my suburban shrunk
small suv,
with radio blaring, no need for
trucking on the Truckee,
been there, done that..
<>
in the small ways,
in the
small places,
take my slow going days my way,
and not no need
to rent borrowed uninfluenc-ed content
cause I custom built it in,
easy like, five easy pieces,
learned to make daisy peaces,
of the bright nights melding
with life affirming hot sunlight
and there is no bad time,
with a cold blue~ribbon
in my left,
my right grasping two O'clock
on my heart and steering wheel,
driving freedom fine,
Chapin~ Carpenter
on the stereo dial,
no set time,
just anytime,
rain or shine
for me and my poems
to *** together,
like old time,
any fine rhyming time,

together we flashback
to the sweet Release
from jail in 2008
<>
and break out a new one and clap  it onto the clasp
my bracelet of charmed
keepsakes,
like memories of
my old dog, thinking
one more time,
just got lucky

6/27/25
Mary Chapin Carpenter Lyrics
"Girl And Her Dog"

Everyone asks when you're growing up
Who do you want to be
I never had an answer, couldn't figure out
Why I couldn't see
Myself as some future other
No one's partner no one's mother
No one's answer no one's lover
Nobody but me

But the older I get the more I see
That more by itself never worked for me
Keeping it simple as it can be
Walking along just him and me
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Songs in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway

A long time ago I got married once
Didn't take long to find
That the words I heard coming out of his mouth
Were not the truthful kind
I thought about moving to LA
Maybe upstate or the UK
Anywhere as long as it's far away
From what I left behind

And the older I get the more I'm sure
That more by itself never was a cure
Some days I've got nothing to show for except
Walking the dog and walking the floor
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway

In summer neighbors leave tomatoes
In fall dust coats your tires
Spring greens up every shadow
In December we lay a fire
I figure I'm finally old enough
To know who I want to be when I grow up
A girl and her dog riding in the truck
Wave as we're going by

Now the older I get the less I need
Just a good old dog underneath the trees
Keeping it simple as it can be
Fitting together like a puzzle piece
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Whistling for him while I'm looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway
Nat Lipstadt Jun 28
June 26, 2025
<>
a verily un~silly query,
for mine be already composed,
"A Flawless Poem", [1]
but
this doesn't beg the question,
as to what the answer
for you be;
and the 3:22am thoughts
are pouring over a tea bag of steeping darling Darjeeling
brain cells,
which sadly are not
resippable
and I fear are already long gone,
dissolved
but will be dragged back
from the irregular edges of
faint memories
for your
sipping them
later. letter by letter
<>
my slow dissolving, by a patient lengthy dismembering ,
this body's suite
of methodologies of self~distraction
to and from
its own destruction are numerous, varied,
well chronicled
<>
it is a dismembering of
disremembering,
a catalogue of life reviewed,
even occasionally revised,
for many are the memories
paining, and requiring
revisionist repainting;
an analog of a well thumbed catalogue, whose glue has tired and
the outlines faded,
as time and sad space
for you reach it's nigh
occlusions of conclusion,
reviewing, re-concluding
better outcomes than the actualities
<>
I see my ashes dissolution,
and into water traveling, well dispersed across continents,
their contents contented to
be filtered, but part and invisible parcel of a tinging invigorating particles of me,
will be shared to your body
for inspiration and even perhaps
reincarnation (mmmm);
me will be
tingling tinging the water
you
sip,
and old combinations of
new words will reemerge
from your fingertips and
silent scripts of
utterances
<>
thus,
we recompose the decomposed,
reassemble with a reassuring ease,
a last and ever lasting poem
anew,
and over and over
a once and first
timelessly
delivery
<>
this quaint notional of
passing conjoined words
through and over your lips
(ah ha!)
pleases me greatly,
though the lengthiness of
this creature goes on too long,
but @ 3:58am, length is a minor
to the adult need, to expound
every last kernel that is passing by,
for its inevitable retention and
ultimate
forgetting nonetheless
<>
iron of irony,
this is but a faint and impoverished recollection of
the harmonious words I heard in my head before they were etherized
<>
and a poor recapitulation of
their essences sensory density,
and yet, this revolution of
recapturing recall the question posed,
What if you only had one poem left, what would you write?

perhaps an extremely and extended
siren song of my exterior erosion,
my mind's muscle memory discarding its residue of residuals,
we call memories,
allowing our peculiar perceptions
to fade and yet,
find a way
to away to
you
for your
(wink)
reorigination
<>
As the Jewish King & Psalmist wrote
a thousand years ago,
there is nothing new under the sun,
but somewhere a poet
greets the sunrise
with newly inspired words,
as if it is a first birthing of
a great
and unexpected creation,
deserving of a last~ing

co~memoration!
inspired by "The Last Song of You"
by Pink
and
[1] ""A Flawless Poem"
---------
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4826089/a-flawless-poem/
prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,
 liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
                    then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart
lipstadt  reflections of self
Nat Lipstadt Jun 22
not  the prophylactic kind,
nor the rubber kiss road tire kind.

but the rubber of bodies
old and young,
tired and tense,
young and flexible
migrained, played & splayed,
pain paralyzed,
soothed by cherubic
fingertips
oiled with,
anointed by,
a-custom cream
of tenderizing aloe
and gentling, kind loving
quieting & shushing

tho mine own temples,
raging, feverish,
combobulating
as words spill as *******
and then

she
sleepy whines:
why did you stop rubbing me?


and for
a sleep deep,
she leaves
me,
going unanswered

but happily
nonetheless
boy be typing
**The End
Next page