Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
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?
Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense involuntarily triggers experiences in another sense. This means that people with synesthesia may see colors when they hear music, taste shapes when they read words, or feel textures when they smell certain scents. It is a rare and unique phenomenon that affects about 2-4% of the population. Synesthesia is not a disease or a mental disorder, and it does not interfere with daily life

would sell my soul
cheap very cheap
to have this kinetic
blessing

think of the life
of love’s illusions
you could sketch,
the intersection
of all the senses
in one glorious
syntax
speaking of the
synthesis
of perfection moments

to decorate ordinary existence
for others

to be a human filtering
kaleidoscope
this poet’s word~world enthralling,
mesmerizing

imagine a love poem
erupting,
the sound and the fury,
the volcanic coloring heat
upon your flushed cheeks,
the symphony of
tiny erupting pinpricks


when first you
kiss
the great love of
your life


For everyone to
understand,
persuasively share,
the exact ecstatic crystallization
of that single second as well as you…
2/23/25
it’s fuzzling (fuzzy n’ puzzling)
this pizza emoji broad based, across
all ages, ubiquitous and beloved to
all, universality

it’s meaningful to the otherwise
meaningless noise that  emotional
connoisseur connotations that replace
what used to be called conversation

so this Valentine’s Day, my beloved
will receive her exyrs thin crust mozzarella
plain, (I pay more for less!) replacing her dalliance trials with various margarita pizzas

The kids, with greater appreciation for
the creative sudy of pizza design have
some crazy notions that are toothy shocking
to reveal herein publicly

the weighty concerns of the underlying
true meaning of this caricature is beyond
my ken, I’ll wiggle away gracefully and
please please an extra cheese variation
with barbecue sauce?

P. S. YES, yes, this indeed is an
only love poem of course
~Especially For our own poet, Immortality~

we all dream for a few seconds,
mostly when we are younger,
like, say, s e v e n t e e n, that
something, we might be~come,
known for, perhaps even believing
our names|our poems might be read,
a hundred and one years on…


periodic, episodic,doesn’t last long,
though it
does get repeated every
now and then, and  then again,
each time, the notion disappears
faster, sure, better things to dream
about, better hopes more closely
held, tangible tasting, envisioning,
deserving for intensely scheming,
using that double edged

s~word,
realistic,
and even, in the
planning, schemin’ dreamin’
always a nagging fearin’
can
they really
could come true


others fantasize,
, that class of crazy dreamers,
standing at an airport gate,
hear a call out your name,
and someone will,
from behind, tap you on the
shoulder and asks, shyly


hey, you wouldn’t be that person
who writes
poetry on HP?


unlikely of course, odds against,
whoa,
even worse
than winning a lottery jackpot prize

but then again, surprise always
favors biting you on,
well, them tender places,
and a day comes,
when  a younger poet, amazes, takes the time,
makes the effort to look up your older
writs, languishing in bits of bytes on an
unknown server, aged  graying from
relentless time,
and the absence of eyes,
being read, thereby re~realized,
revitalized,
visualized, inhaling light+ air,
away wiping
the dust and webs of  suffered mortality
and, that silly notion escapes it grave,
and you writer, run into an encounter
with an old fantasy, resurrected and
you too reread that old poem, issuing s
voluble ****!, not half bad, and restoring
that momentary potent potentiality of
it
surviving past the beyond date of expiry,
and then, another is read, & another,
swallowing a pill stronger
than a a Doctors’s best gurss forecast
of 20 more years you’ll live,
for an actualized prophecy now
is tangent tangible,
like mouth to mouth-resuscitation
and you, unusually,
think once more about tomorrow,
exhaling the headyatmosphere
of a rainy forest,
well appreciating, laughing at the future,
for here, she has shared but penned
but twenty four original poems,

me,
thousands open and disguised, and my newly formed grin is now for her,
for now my breath and its baggage of a fantasy, may
be coming her
reality realized?


and I will surely still be an
avid cheerleader
for her, for you, a
devoted
follower-in-absentia
though we have yet to meet,
lay on the physicality of eyes,
a glancing, a throughly examining
scanning of nose to toes, a torso
previewing b e c a u s e

for this not a line or boundary
to be crossed but a fission
fusion that requires completion,
a rhyming sequence that needs
a thumbs up certification, a kiss
to make us smile, then laugh out
so loudly, we  she'ded tears  at our
mutual foolishness of being worried
we might ruin a fabulous confection,
our mutuality of insight like, when you
open an unread novel that came highly
recommended and not only did it not
disappoint, we agree thst it should be
commemorated as a poem extraordinaire,
by Appointment by Her Majesty, the
Queen, the arbiter of quality and good taste,
a woman of common sense and what tastes
good, like we do, and each of us whispers,
a silently unspoken Hallelujah, sealed with
a impassioned kissing of each others
fingers
and an
Amen
She,
voracious reader, nearly a book a day,
she loves Rushdie, Ishiguro, E. Stout,
and so many, many more, a daily add
to an ever growing list of auteurs, all
venerable and venerated, my little bits
pale, don’t even qualify to compare,
so what’s a poet to say, or feel, beside
tears in his eyes, so hereby withdraws his
awarded accolade, HGF,
His Greatest Fan

now that there is a vacancy, looking for
fufillment, now that there is a hollowed
hallow plus a clogged artery, side by side,
both within,

even
an officialized fossilized a
doctor declaration of “chronic heart failure”

who knew docs still diagnosed love sickness?

loss of love could manifest
itself so decisively physically,
and yet I blame her not, and
thank her for the inspiration,
for all the poems birthed in
her presence, and what swill
will /may follow will never be as good,
for memories inevitable yellowing,
discoloration infestation inevitable,
earn my pallor palest poverty
and like a used car, good enough
for daily trips to the office, but not
for cross country trips,

and perhaps
that means,
only smaller,  
somewhat
used up,
and  e v e n
not only,
only love poetry

open to direction
road trip to
Sweet Sorrow Land
Surrender.  
Lose. Give in.

chance it all.
throw caution
against the wall,
watch its greasy
sliding downwards,
at first resisting gravity,
and then submitting to
the power, the Overwhelming
hopefulness
of love

yes, winning is a dangerous feeling.

Sometimes you gotta go all-in,
slide those chips, slow across
the green felt poker table.


Prefer thoughtful consideration,
a preponderance of favorable yeses,
longer than the maybes and the last list
of occasional, dangerously
self defeating mmmms,
and the exciting  unknowns
needy of unlocking
places you’ve never been,
lairs of dark uncovered by
fresh first time daylight

when the smile criss crossing
the body entire, a chilled fire,
when sensibility strives to
overcome the senses,
it is a checkered flag of yellow
cards to floor fallen,
let them be

slow breathing, check your
heart rate, blood pressure,
do not give the results to
a sympathetic cardiologist,
if results are higher than
normal
because you are,
good.

you know the rest,
all in, all in,
surrender to
beat of I am
am in,
all in

and sprite~write an only true love poem
send to but one,
yourself,
signed

yours truly*

P. S.  And never forget,
that you learn best,
you learn the most
from all your failures.
Sun 11/26 am
1/26/25
in the b.t
nyc
genuine

so many ordinary bees in our vocab hive,
workers, important, but rarely seen,
some never, or rarely trotted out,
no-fresh air, we just must be too too, too
busy, busy

had occasion to employ said titular
queen word recently, a love story
that strummed a chord of the
randomness of good love,
genuine slipped out unexpectedly,
this word, a crowning modifier to a
love poem herein written

truly a word not used too often,
perhaps because we live in a time
when it is a quality rare, though
much celebrated, like so much,
has becomes a debated talking point

but genuine is not hard to be
uncovered, it has a warmth heater
generator internal, a signal signal,
that is hard to be disguised or
mistaken

but our sensitivities are dulled,
easily misled, by the shouting and
the latent bitterness that runs through
the veins of our ordinary conversations,
making it more difficult to believe our
five sensory discernments, to what is,
and what is not,

but love, perhaps, is a genuine genetic,
at a cellular level quality that has evolved over millennia, so easier to spot, it’s heated hot, and awhy a love story should be the focus causation of my happiness, that it
yet thrives, and functions and supplies
we humans, a chance to see, to believe,
that genuine yet exists, inward and
unwarped, within we ordinaries
for a.v.

MLK  Day 2025
on a stage, guitars strumming a tune that
can only be hummed, for it has no verses
the songwriters, their tongues entwined,
joined as one, they can speak no words

but the crowd roars its favor,, sheds its de light, stomping and whooping it up, making
all the necessary noises, of two tongues, yes’m, entwining

kinda like a kissing, a little of hissing too,,
got its own rhythm, even the noises rhyming,
a rock n roll ballad with country western
mixed in, some say it sounds like Joan Baez
singing **** Jagger, or an Avett Brothers
serenade

words need tongues for formaytion,
tongues needed to speak, but absent
a common language,tongues do what
tongues do best,
intertwining, combining, licking,
making love noises that requires
two to be
heard
fulfilling
taste of two
blending
and we
though
silent
pronounce
ourselves
as one,
the loveliest
unspoken
vocabulary
entombed to die together.,

prisoner utters these words to
their lover~companion,
who has joined him freely, and
that conceptual, hardly casual,
resonates, pinging my sonar
brain long after the famous
opera concludes, leading me
unforced to the writing table…

Saturday 2:1l:25 9:27AM

now, after having lived and
loved for well over 25,000 days,
there is much data to review
much of it corrupt & corrupted,
and of course, it must be done
man-u-ally (manually), and
will require filtering to edit
out the natural edits that the
fog of war, time, and the innate
human desire to improve one’s
recorded history, I conclude;

Not only have I loved others
desperately,

beyond reason and sensibility,
but more than once,
more than twice,
more than my
faltering courage dare confess…

remembering the physical manifestations, is almost eerily too easy,
to recall the angst, physicality
of loving too well,
heart chested pain worthy of a doctor visit,
desperate hunger feeding on/off
of depression costuming as dreary sadness,
but so overtaking that I am the
cliche of the human berefetted of
all energy, except for periodic moaning,
visitors refused, sleeplessness my
only steady companion

writing worse poetry
than this,
dialing, hanging up, repeatedly,
paths crossing in hallways,
and breaking me down to
aching breaking pieces

later,
when all grownup,
deserted wife and children
for the restoration of another
woman’s love,
but dragged down by
actions & inactions,
she wearied of my agoniste
and left me to
treble tremble when the weight
of the load, they/I
put right on me

now, sipping my morning 3-cuppa of
Caribbean brown beans,
my fresh eyes tearing,
my internal tearing
myself up/down,
half in mocking, half in sympathy
for the lost soul once was,
no longer desperate
but nonetheless joyous that
more than once I was mired
in a state so encompassing
and compressing,
was overruled overrun
overcome
with the gain and the pain
of loving desperately
and happy contented
that it shall not happily happen again,
for my poor heart already repaired
by a heart surgeon,
but with damage left from
life’s and loving’s accidents and accumulations, muscles weakened,
parts clogged with memories
beyond repair,
if loving desperately should come back
one last time,
winking, he’s thinking, ha,
for last licks,

*!it would be in a closing act sorta way,
a great fitting fitful accomplishment to die,
one last time, desperately in love!
Next page