Jas: Favorites

Oct 2020 Jas

reaching...for the tender part of the night

Oct 2020 Jas

Nat Lipstadt

reaching...for the tender part of the night

~for the wild child, daughter, wife, mother~

I am drifting into the tender part of the night, when deceit is pointless, and I argue with conviction within myself that in our lives that it will never be too late, but I know I contradict my prior musing...somewhere between the fact that time is a wasting commodity, precocious and precious, lives this idea within, that there is nothing that cannot be navigated, recompensed, even forgiven...

the argument goes on, the tide of battle switching back and forth, and for now I must be satisfied with the meagerness of I can’t give up, be at ease by acknowledging defeat, not just yet, and the fast arrival of a clean slate is a chance, a draw, a ticket to ride, and,

reaching

is a wonderful idea, full of compromise, out and in, extra effort, and tomorrow I may yet teach one of us, even myself, by reaching inside of what churns within, and then have the perfect words you require, for a desperate need, and a comforting that comes forth easily

#lipstadt #reaching #tenderpartofthenight

Apr 2018 Jas

Recently

Apr 2018 Jas

Kyler

Recently

Recently, I became the luckiest boy in the world.
That’s because, recently, the prettiest girl in the world took me back.
Because, a while ago, I told the prettiest girl in the world I didn’t love her anymore.
But all that changed, recently.

Recently, we’ve been growing close.
Spending time together, as a boy and a girl.
We really have been enjoying each other, recently.

Recently, I have felt something inside of me.
Something powerful and consuming.
Recently, this thing has started to grow.
And recently, I found out what it was.

It is love that I had never felt before.
Love unlike the first love I had for the world’s prettiest girl or any other girl I’ve ever known.

But recently, the most beautiful girl in the world stopped making me feel like the luckiest boy in the world.
We still talk, smile, and laugh.
But as of recently, things have changed.

As this powerful thing in my body has continued to grow, there has been an absence of anything in her body.
An absence in her mind, and worst of all, her heart.

So recently, I asked her why something that was ready to burst inside of me was nowhere to be found in her.
She didn’t know. She was scared. I was scared.
So finally, my thing burst. She held her breath as it washed over her.

Recently, I’ve been thinking.
This thing we call love is a fickle thing.
Sometimes it is so easy to explain and feel and understand.
Sometimes, it escapes description.

Recently, my thing has been escaping description and comprehension.
I don’t know what to do with a thing that needs another thing to feel complete, but the other thing is missing. Unrequited.
I don’t know what to do with myself.
But that’s just of recently.

#love #romance #emotion #angst #young #boy #girl #relationships

Apr 2018 Jas

the three r’s (one last one for r)

Apr 2018 Jas

Nat Lipstadt

the three r’s (one last one for r)

~one more for the r man~

almost Monday
and its weighty five day oppressive lead poisoning on the horizon,
is but a thirsty thirty six minutes away from its fortified Sumter, first shot to be fired at midnight, how we love to mark the commencement of hostilities and killing

but I am already wounded, a casualty of having spent evening with pleading, pleasing timer eating, reading of your work,
r

the sounds of inestimable admiration and infectious jealousy
make this old man eager to discard a lifetimes work and
begin fresh, but only as a copyist of you,
r

I know you’re thinking "what in the hell is he blubbering about?"

so I willingly will my confessional offering in the dark of the
holy bedroom; for you make me eat my words, and
spit them out as wastage, in dumbfounding humility

god you and yours, make me frail and blessed that I stumbled
upon your abbreviations of the human life,
r

shut up and accept my three r’s
reading ‘riting and rising
up to sing hymns of praise
for a man with a historical perspective and
whose few occasionals
are carved in the granite bench
of what makes my life
worthy of load bearing;

more than bearable,
all are soul-enlightened by
baring our humility, our admiration

11:24pm 4/15/18
nyc

read the poet r;
and
https://artsofthought.com/2018/04/17/inside-a-poets-mind-an-interview-with-poet-and-archeologist-rick-r-richardson/

Apr 2018 Jas

a short poem

Apr 2018 Jas

Nat Lipstadt

a short poem

a short poem

<•>

kept women

my words are all kept women;
an old fashioned term
that has no currency today
but true for me

they but be the heart of my hearts,
when they leave my employ
keep them well, these yeowomen,
good fellows all,
for they will always be your
one true reciprocating lovers

keep ‘em

please

<•>

lie

how many gray April Saturdays are inventoried,
that we be bequeathed yet another this dull day of the 7th of the 4th month,
of errands and tax preparation and poem initiative-nationhood

the city backyard is a dulled green, energy ****** by one three too many nor’easters in March that  “Sherman-through-the-south”
came marching double time,
leaving the leaves, airport-delayed
and the spring poem planting, struggling

buy milk, lie and get a refund, do stuff and
don’t forfeit forget to
do laundry and
lie

write the longest short poem in history
that green-shots nature won’t provide,
so Me absinthe wills into existence

<•>

this English Woman

tomfoolery’d me continuously,
nature comes to her on knave-bended knees begging for
a verbal sword tap upon each shoulder for a knighting of a periodical glorious poem.

She provides.

Does woman live in a glen, upon the wetlands,
walk moors
in moons grasp,
or upon a table way in the back of the pub, drinking pints of imagination?

man will die disconnected for so many “reasons”
but if his passing precedes an answering to where,
wherever she locale composes,
man will haunt her residential terrain  happily

<•>

Seven Hours

the clock implies that the body sleet-slept, probed deep-dark for seven hours.
disbelieving, then recalling the dues Frodo-Friday eve paid:
three and half hours with two thousand others at the Opera,
hours of Placido Domingo,
extracts from the body
emotional  countenance,
homage to artistry exemplary;

the pharmacist denies having this drug among the sleep aids
so to the opera must return to earn my occasion occasional dreamland refreshment

a well worthy trade: innervation trust rest from enervation must

<•>

idiosyncratic

all my idiot life wanted to be
syncratic
unique something special different

then I realized that’s what
everyone wants and we are all idioticsyncratic

so much trying, exhausting life,
it’s wonderfully human and classically

idiotic

<•>

* Postfaces*

Postfaces are used in literary works so that non-pertinent information appears at the end, to not confuse the reader.

this very short poem was born, birthed, on a salty grey Saturday, April Seventh, Two Thousand and Eighteen,
precisely between
Eight and Nine O’clock Eastern Standard Time

The opera was Luisa Miller at the Metropolitan Opera,
Lincoln Center, New York City.

Everything Everybody is a factual fiction of your imagination.
Short Poems are copyright, copied write from the tissue of a man who is epistemologically incapacitated in a life incapable of writing a short poem, post facing forward.

(Too **** bad for you).

Feb 2018 Jas

people i lost last year (and how i lost them)

Feb 2018 Jas

haley

people i lost last year (and how i lost them)

i. the curly, green-haired
leo with the cry-baby tattoo
on her left calf; fish net stockings and
loud guitar playing and
menthol cigarettes. driving through
the park at 9 pm, ***** shots,
the white house with the a-frame roof,
hugs that made your heart feel as warm
as she did

crying as i left my room again to be
intertwined with a girl who did not love me, but i wanted to;
months pass, lonely car rides with
one-sided conversations and
seven years gone,
quiet disconnection
that made you feel as cold
as i did

ii. brown eyes, brown skin,
round glasses and chicago streetlights.
holding each other close on the subway
lakehouse parties in the beginning of spring and
pisces season and tarot readings and
soft kisses on the train.
holding hands at the aquarium,
sweet poetry and calm and
a sense of oneness that made you feel
important

hurt for the third time
a panic, a loss
i held their heart in my hands and
let it fall
harsh
unimportant
i still carry the guilt on my fingertips

iii. short hair. freckled cheeks, i
fell in love with the way the skin
crinkled around her eyes when she smiled.
an apartment, a home built
around our lips touching
wrapped in blankets on the couch,
dense smoke and her hand on my leg while she
drove. chinese food and
waking up against her chest and
laughing so hard
my ribs hurt

crashing. her anger withering away my
heartstrings; pain and
crying alone in the bathtub
moving away
drunk tears on the interstate
punching my thighs
in place of the way her
words made
me hurt

feeling extra lonely these days. they come and go.

#friendship #loss #lgbt #queer #lgbtq #free #verse #prose #grief