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  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
Left Foot Poet
her morning pleasure occasionally actually exercised,
a substituted delight for gym-going work with Lulu exercised,
no man can, will ever, understand

the nature/nurture debate over,
in my mind resolved, nature, hands up and hands down

RR's^  query, is god dead,
no longer rumbles around in my head cause when he speaks,
I can't get a word in edgewise

what i did in the sixties, lost to time in memoriam,
especially some really bad poetry

but this gender differentiation
a matter that Aristotle dutifully, so wisely, philosophically avoided

there is no Socratic method rationality in what is just crazy insanely meiosis,
there is no comprehension of the essence of  elemental genetic division,
like the NY Mets,
ya just gotta believe, or just accept

but from the other side of the bed
comes a surly, dry rejoinder, a gelled spike

thanks to modern science,
why don't you come over to the
right side, maybe then,
you'll understand the true meaning
of pleasure

transgend your self,
show your willingness per the bible,
to be god's new and improved version of a human being


So,
a pretty little, light A-line,
with a summer floral pattern,
a size 12, (20? ***)
I,
will wear with great
human pride,
come June
see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_L._Rubenstein.

another Sixties thing.  but his daughter was my first summer love
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2017
Forest inquires:

How do you decide, choose your design, find its guise,
give it a face, surrender to the poem's own
vanity,
        and choose the poem's alignment?


                                                  an­ answer forms:

this alignment idea,
you think it simple,
everybody understands
what your inquiry means

alignment -  the appropriate relative position

we live in relative position to each other, our poems too, for they are but written synapses of our close captioned interactions, seemingly random, but assuredly not, as we invest in ourselves, seeking the mysterious appropriate answer
                                                                ­                        from the Theory of Poetic Relativity

                                                   ­             i love your question;                              hold it to my nostrils,          
                                             ­             smell the coffee aroma wake up blast inherent;
                                                                ­      
 kiss its robust childlike cheeks for the simple   soulfulness essential arousal;
for you see sir you have found
the appropriate position that relates us, our mindful words;

                                 answer no good, wholly insufficient?
                                        perfect.
                          as i close this quick cooked to perfection laboratory solution, take note

                              
                            ­                        the earth has moved
                                our hearts have beaten a measly thousand times
                                    time and space have appropriated our prior
                                          
relativity

when you return years hence this poem's shape will perforce have moved. for words are weathered flux constant and yet inherently unchanged except for the part of us that changes with every re-reading  

and what was


**right before has left and the center has moved again
Nat,

This is probably just an insane thing of mine, but I cannot stand the center aligned formatted poetry. I want to read the poetry, but why center? I want to know why it is center aligned? If it is a metaphor for how poetry could/should serve as a balancing point, a countervailing force for a point, perhaps I could understand...but so many poems center aligned, I don't know, I am probably missing something.

A right aligned poem? Perhaps I could understand, if the content was asking me to revolt, to revolutionize, to counter the status quo. But a centered poem? What does the alignment mean?

anyway, it has been a long time since I've been around, keep writing, hope you are well.

-forest
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2017
~for Joel M Frye~*

give me your blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the genome human

give me rough, toughened words,
wizened savvy by caress and punch

what use angels ethereal pinheaded,
inexperienced in the vocabulary of the maddening crowd

give me anger, rage, envy-jealousy,
the burnt ashes of the remainder of real

give me perspective of eyes facedown on concrete,
feel of flesh hands pounding the soft spots of the skull

In return for? What bargain struck?  What consideration exchanged?

for your blunt, stunted words,
I give you this:

the homage of inspiration
the honor of no questions asked

one day of my life
poured into your vase
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
Left Foot Poet
"my soul to keep"

this prayer
elegant, simple complexity,
comes me haunting,
every evening,
this notion,
a faint ghosting,
repeatedly reappearing
and nightly leaving,
disappointed,
from between my crumpled, sweaty bedsheets,
departing with a demanding unsatisfied, incessant,
coated with a diabolical, unfeigned challenge  -

write of me,
relentlessly commanding,
right me

only,
no notions,
come realized,
no poem body, resolved solutions,
are easy offered up

your inner voices,
fettered and deterred,
begging you,
screaming,
this one,
defer, defer,
for better days,
for better poets,
who require
no assembly instructions
cannot improve upon it

my distress, sensed;
the lady of  the house,
over the shoulder peering,
sees the moody poem title that
has self-selected to core this poet's core,
for endless torture,
raining down ruinous lamentation

she, ever softly spoken

"good man,
your soul,
your poems -
both mine to take
and
mine to keep

this title,
this poetic obligation
fulfillingly, fittingly,
my responsibility

mine to write
mine to keep
mine to right
mine to mine
for its
bejeweled contemplations

render easily unto me
what I have Caesarean seized,
pried lovingly and forcibly
from thee within

though seemingly rightfully thine,
title has passed,
legally, tenderly,
into your lover's arms

banish poet thine troubled assembled,
ensemble senses,
this particular poem's journey
and the soul that bears it,
released and relieved,
for now,
mine to take,
mine to keep,
and
thy soul,
in mine to dwell,
and
mine to complete"

~
Nowe I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take
~
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
onlylovepoetry
~and for Harlan, who loved this one best~

"for tandem is the ever-changing, graying color of their fierce attached tenacity"

waking/walking in
careful pacing regular lock steps,
like new cadets, counting cadence,
in perfect silent, almost motionless,
except for the minuscule quivering of
slightly parted moving lips

these two elders,
still now plebes,
freshmen
but of a latter, graduated stage,
demonstrating robustly
the slow shuffle-along,
a well practiced dance conjured
'in tandem'

her arm, crooked in his,
his other hand,
in protective custody of a
knight's armored chain glove
encasing hers,
he, shuffling just,  
a precise, intended half-a-beat slower
lest she ever think
that she, ever be a drag upon him

hair, his,
threaded with daily,
new arriving grays,
proudly accepted
as the privilege of
graceful aging

hers,
disguised with periodic outings,
outings for the hidings of life's bookmarks,
conceding nothing ever to
time's lunatic desire to separate them

modest in dress,
styling hints of  pasts' elegant,
the man's hat defiant,
daringly jaunty angled,
a small scarf to handbag knotted,
matching his Windsor knotted tie

the passers-by, all smile,  
the signal charm of an
end game processional,
thinking so sweet,
yet mine eyes detect more,
something
hardy and radical

a fierce, fierce fierceness,
both fighters in the resistance,
armed with tandem tenacity,
ground given,
but only inches surrendered,
wounds resisted by
scar skin toughened
by the caress of ions bonding
under the pressure
of atomic level mutuality

worn out,
well past Purple Hearts,
no capitulation feared,
to the ever changing,
enemies' new disguises,
they,
a two person platoon,
each,
having the other's back

and I burst into tears on the street,
a train of out loud moans,
even groans emitted,
like a string of perfect pearls
breaking,
clattering on an asphalt terrain

weeping
not
from visions of the inevitable,
sighing
not
from the certitude of a
cycle's uptime ending


but jealous furious by this reminder delightful,
angry at myself, for having lost so many wasted years,
mine, the loss greatest, for absent was the
fierce tenacity of tandem
for my aussie prof:
you will know me well
by the color of
my happy brimming tears
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2017
this is an excerpt from a very long, (shudder) private poem about a dinner party with visiting friends, up from Memphis to celebrate their birthday in NYC.
Unplanned,  I gave them all gifts without hesitation from an unusual collection of mine that they were admiring.  
When questioning my unexpected generosity, by way of explanation, I jokingly said
"there is no room in my casket."

~

sweetly thanked for the unexpected gift,
the poet replies comically,
"there is no more room in his casket",
for even these, small trifles

later in the quietude of
late night contemplation,
comes a greater realization,
the truth was unseen
in his offhanded remark,
now, gives him pause and cause
to capture a greater  revelation

there is insufficient room indeed,
for accompanying the poet on his finale,
an uncharted encore voyage akin to
Tennyson's poem of
the famed voyage of Ulysses -

thoughts yet unthought,
a few thousand poems,
that time forbade completion,
all must yet reside beside and inside his soul,
timed-released escapees
from the real yet artificial limits of
physical deterioration

these,
be his boon companions in arms,
his banded-brothered company,
purposed for inspiration,
his lasting re-actualization

so plentiful, indeed,
there be no room in the casket,
for the merely beloved,
beautiful physical objets d'art,

they  too must give way
to the natural law of
"unto dust returned"
but poetry

*never dies
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
K Balachandran
He dreamt he was Sappho's trusted companion,
To whom she shared her love's poetic lessons.
And then came this moment of revelation;
He longed to be a woman and make love to her.
Things are not as they seem  at the outset,
That part of him madly in love with Sappho"s secrets
Didn't really know is it her body, soul or poetry
That made him go mad with an intoxicating pleasure.

The other part of him in love with himself  more,
Protested"I desire her like a man does a woman"
Love is insane often, it is hidden within the masks worn.
In every passionate love affair, is a river of fire to cross.
Love puts him in a dilemma,without any resolve at sight.
In a life ensconced in fantasy, he is steeped in a  love stupor
If ever he again wakes up, he'll try to make lasting peace,
Slosh in the poetic wine of Sappho and desire her all the more.
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