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  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
Still Crazy
"Who am I? I'm a poet."**


from “La Bohème” by Giacomo Puccini libretto

~~~


"My business? Writing.

How do I live? I live.

In my happy poverty
I squander like a prince,
my poems and songs of love.

In hopes and dreams
and castles-in-the-air,
I'm a millionaire in spirit"
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
Still Crazy
I don't ask your permission
to make a fool of myself,
tell you publicly
what my near, dear ones
have almost no clue

my mental torment,
headache-constant,
imperial and impervious
poetry, pills, therapy,
caring words
don't pay my kind of bills

a man has a job.
Feed you family.
Protect and serve.

do  it well,
there is no acceptable excuse.
none.

was supposed to be easing on down,
slipping under.

come so far, my soul is old.
my tired is w/o definition.
the legs, knotted shoulders,
body aging faster than I can write.
the doctors only give me
if's and unless's,
contingencies in order
to die a little slower

warped, reversal of causality,
the older I get,
the more mouths to feed.
tough, this unexpected situation,
a nine lives time survivor,
do it again?

defraud myself,
living like I can afford
to write,
with courageous reckless abandon,
when earnest is deadly
and Lady Luck gave me the finger.

simply amazing.
eyes, constantly tearing,
nobody notices.

Do not ! Like this poem,
don't.
hate weak,
been strong so long.
this well, just got dregs left,
drudgery ain't potable, or even
worth drinking.

need nothing,
for myself, need nothing.
not one object on this planet
want to posses or be possessed by.

Monday wrestle with strife,
star in my reality show once again.
now, deny reality.

Do not!
Like this poem,
don't.
hate weak,
been strong so long.

my voice is stilled,
it's poverty exposed,
ashamed of every word I ever wrote.

hush me not, for tis true,
write on for an audience of one,
on but one subject,
a life, mine,
yet, still unmastered,
after decades of trying.

poverty exposed,
a life unmasked
for what it is worth,
or not.
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
onlylovepoetry
she knows. I'm sure she knows.

every day of the week,
I'm there for her, so to speak.
my order consistent, my appearance reliably persistent.
her compatriots behind the counter
even made up a name for me and my order!

"senor dos cubanos, por favor,"

i wait till she is free, always, before ordering.
they all sly smile at the foolish old man,
who requires only a certain young lady from Cuba,
to make his daily shots, just so, so fussy he.

please! no sugar needed,
her demure mouth,
sweet plenty.  

they know.  i'm sure they all know.

the olive complexion,
the hair pulled back so tight,
beneath a ridiculous uniform hat,
the slender frame radiating pride
all of which she wears so well,  
with a modest hint of self made pride.  

working her way up in America.

two coffees, extra milk, in a plastic bag
to travel with me, back to my imprisoning day desk.

she hands me the bag oh so carefully.
our fingers touch.  our fingers much touch,
with the oft, quick but sensitive precision
of a baton passing
in an Olympic relay race.  
she smiles.  always.  

it's ridiculous.   i'm ridiculous.  who cares.  
that one contactual second is a gift,
the thrill is not gone.*

and that is why he writes
only love poetry
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
lmnsinner
the expulsion of emotions,
the absence thereof
bastardized emigre's forevermore,
no anger, no hate,
no debating love,

even the
commonplace
the merely perfunctory,
costless meaningless,
electrical like,
a banal banner of
a thumbs up

all exposed temperaments
lobe removed
the throbbing, pulsing,
expelled, expulsing
sayonara
not even
neutral-

nah, i'm neutered
emotions splayed?
no, spayed,
incapable of reproducing

this epitaph,
this writ
composed in a
unconscious blink,
an ill unconsidered moment
writ with tinged regret
to seal the deal

don't feel a thing  which is why.  
I
write
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
ogdiddynash
every each born in fluid of the belly of belief*

~

every each,
born in fluid
of the belly of belief,
surrounded by unique amniotic liquid

one-of-a-kind mixology combination
flavors of a thousand prior drinks,
love makings
of ancestral strangers

what were they thinking
                                        
if they were thinking

every each
will be a poet warrior

son or daughter,
doctors or ******,
judges or criminals,
survivors or end-of-liners?

matters not,
each and every,
both or either

which God will they worship
if to one they do concede,
what etching will they mark
on the mental earth
that all will have passed through and shared,
and
perforce,
ultimately concede?

i cannot write code
because belief seems unbelievable
and I leave a brutal mark upon the earth surface by refusing to procreate




1/22/17
  Mar 2017 Nat Lipstadt
onlylovepoetry
the fool in love, or the fool
who pines for it?*

have I not sat at the King's table,
for decades of eons, eons of millennia,
the mealy taste of the poverty of loneliness,
made the sweetbitter
and the meaningless
blander still
full surrendering to slow starvation of my
humanity

denied the rise and set,
the watch and the calendar,
the sundial inoperable,
masters of none,
there are distinguishing marks
upon this victim,
who no longer recalls refusing
love

just another dusty bust
of a man tough as
plaster

the mask of
going it alone
so well adhering
no longer masked
but his first skin

unlike him,
love poems
waterfall self-destructing,
suicide by self-erosion
and thereby
an everlasting guarantee
the answer be
he
who pines
and dies a little bit
daily
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