A message heart delivered by a musing troubadour
left footprints upon a well weathered rivers’ rocky shoal

the lazy days of the summer’s simmering
ethereal breezes lazily waft astir

Unknown distance ‘tween yonder skies azure;
thoughts of nebulous distances fearlessly ignored to be sure,
connectedness sown and deference’s soar from high above,
yet beyond vast breadth afar the great divide

His brimful heart in hand fulfills passersby thirst

needing love here, hearts on sleeves sincere,
wellspring sensibilities handed out willingly here
voids filled by word of quill …
right now is the known needed time

Glasses half empty suffused to their half full brims;
do unto others you will reap just what ye sow,
a poet beyond the bounds of his own demure,
bearing immense understanding

The quintessential essence of family love
drips from heart like heavens rain,
testifies the heart's purpose for being

A poet’s voice speaks in soul’s timeless tongues
unknown breaths from another understanding realm
too deep for words;
yet the word sayer struggles to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees.

~

The Twist

This poem was not written by me.
It was written almost four years ago,
lying fallow in some passing cloud.

Writ for me by someone effervescently more talented than I,
and one of the poets whose quality of work, and command of our shared language is something to which all of us should aspire.

I post it now as yet another homage to the true author.

For in reading it, never was a poem was far more clearly,
an unwitting self-portrait.

It was written on August 21st, 2013
by Harlon Rivers

by Nat Lipstadt

for Harlon, the brimful poet of Oregon*

I am

a wanna be city boy,
pretend-poet, weighty troubled this day,
by misdirected words
sent my way by a  country troubadour

he, a poem penned,
a reflecting pool, a two way mirror,
deserving of reversing,
of homagin' the sender
much better than the recipient

now
I ken better distance 'tween artist and art,
I, a workingman's daily dallying in craft
complex with the brutish tools of a forgettable vocab,
my works deservedly lost,
in the water-falling of the
endless also-rans

non-nebulous distances
between skies of
Oregon country blue

and
the worldly worn asphalt grayed words
of a graying man aging,
in plainest English,  let clarity speak,

one of us at birth,
god gifted,
not I,
one of us, for his tongue, like Moses-stung
with a hot coal of language's divinity

blessings, the keenest of nature,
where they divide, how they intersect,
his brimful heart in our eyes
fulfills the passerby's thirst  for revelations,
small shards of shared sensibilities

my voids filled by words of his quill

"to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees"

This was written April 15, 2017
for Harlon Rivers
for Nat Lipstadt

~


so obvious the mistake
the ordered disorganization

the summation of a man's life
in an ampersand -
a logogram connection
tween two words,  
finally, properly sequenced

error then trial, then error then trial

perception - my life is an endless trial
punctuated and worsened,
periodically pierced
by errors
made of your own free (not really) choosing

"whenever confronted by a fork in my road,
I always chose wrongly"

and aye, here's the rub
the same mistake made repeatedly

example prime:
falling in love is just another way of saying
gonna end badly

and you constant cravenly confess
to yourself the ending unbecoming cause
you can read the handwriting on the wall
for your specialty is


*only love poetry for dummies

the perfect poem*         A flawless poem
eats its siblings


did not know this.          *a flawless poem
chose to disbelieve.        if such there were,
                                           will always be
overconfident.                 the next one
three years back,
wrote a piece,                   my poor soul,
called it "flawless,"          my rag tag heart,
sensing, knowing,           has no censor,
that was an,                      so careless,reckless,
unobtainable condition. as if words were but
                                           frivolous treasures
loved it so,                        easy spent, easy get
pinned to my chest,
funny, loved me back,    if only, how I wish
if ever such thing            could harvest my best
could ever be.           with golden cutlery excise
                                       the single flawless poem,
sumbitch.                     I know in my possess
knew it but didn't.      lay down this hand
                                       so weary    
accept there was,        from cupping tears,
any itch that couldn't be satisfied at king last
be scratched                 so much so
into oblivion.                that my casket lowered,
                             hands in repose companioned
three years back,          clutching his best
on top of the world,     easing his rest,
chose not to believe      a paper record
that life is cyclical,         to join his ash,
and i would always.      his flawless poem,
have in my posses,        at long last
more and more.        
perfect poems.                 11/13/14

now my poems,
flawed.
like me.

4/8/16

I The Hard Part
~ be a good friend

II The Easy Part
~ write what you feel