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Nat Lipstadt Jan 2018
the sun’s veins  

a unique thot, it's magi source:

naǧí  


my poem-joy instant-isthmus arises
and asks that I  
cross, connect,  
write of the sun’s veins that we will be forever unable
to see


but the veins will  heat yours - and it is not shared blood it warms,
it is poem joy
<•>


a warmth organism that leaves one gasping wrestling
for words  
so weakly I am grasping the connection
that snakes across
globes

and the poem joy that has no end, no boundaries  -
that full fills me

And I say,
thank you
6:25am
  Jan 2018 Nat Lipstadt
girl diffused
Here's what I'll collect of us:
1. Your hand holding my nine year old one,
2. small and uncertain
3. small and growing
4. You waking up before the rest of the world
5. The sound of you raking fallen brittle palm fronds and leaves
6. Feeding the dogs
7. Turning the cornmeal for them in the massive ***
8. Your rare smiles
9. The smell of Old Spice
10. Filling the shopping cart with whatever I wanted
11. My too-tiny hands clasping about the cart and pushing it along with you
12. Us scouring the aisles for Eggo's waffles and my favorite brand of banana chips
13. My nine year old self sitting on your lap while you dozed off
14. Our conversations about politics and the current state of the world
15. Our long conversations
16. Our long conversations about your youth
17. Me hearing your story about how you cared for yourself from 15 years old for the 105th time
18. Me never getting tired of hearing about that story
19. Your rare smiles reaching your eyes
20. The softness of your hair as I stroke your head now
21. Sitting by your bedside and being comforted by your soft breath as you sleep
22. Sitting by your bedside remembering my childhood with you
23. The long summers in your house with grandma and my cousin
24. The long summers in your house on the island
25. The long summers back home--back in your home country
26. Your hand holding my nine year old one,
27. small and uncertain
28. small and growing
29. You waking up before the rest of the world
30. You going to sleep after everyone else
31. Your hand holding mine.
32.   Your breath.
33.   The softness and steadiness of your breath.
A list poem dedicated to my 90-year-old grandfather as he battles prostate cancer. I love him and respect him with all my heart. There are so many other memories that I will cherish and hold onto, like most recently, my trip with him to Niagara Falls. These are just a few that I can fondly recall from childhood. He's essentially the father I never had.
  Jan 2018 Nat Lipstadt
Jasper
Love is letting them wear your fuzzy socks because their feet are cold.
Love is going to get ice cream at 3:00 in the morning because they had a craving for a hot fudge sundae.
Love is making sure all of the blanket are even before you get into bed because they can't sleep if they're not.
Love is sleeping with the fan on even though you hate the noise.
Love is watching the same TV show with them even though they've watched it a million times.
Love is falling asleep to the sound of their snoring.
Love is waking up to their messy hair and naked face and still thinking they're the most beautiful person in the world.
Love is when being with that person feels like coming home.
Love is being someone's home.
  Jan 2018 Nat Lipstadt
lmnsinner
Of you, I am certain


can it snow if the skies are cloudless blue?

will I kiss tomorrow the person sitting bus opposite,
who now gifts me love at first sight?

can my children’s children love me more for who I am,
and not just for who I am?

knowing does true love have an uncertain beginning and a certain end?

would I recognize peace of mind if I ever so blessed, had it in my possess?

if the sun never returned, is happiness possible?

can a broken heart mend itself without new love?

Of all these, I am uncertain. Of you, I am certain!

will this scrip of letters be beloved or overlooked and forgotten?

will the day come sooner when self-rising,
my eyes will be pleased at no new scar ‘discovery.’
my ears hear no snap crackle or pop, and
my blood, pre-warmed, by a lover’s attentions,
to happy coffee cooling and a poem-done at my feet?

will my flaws be healed, scars laser erased, my muddled past,
fall obedient to a blue skies, a white full moon embrace, yours?

will today be the day, two feet identical, left and right banished,
ten new colors invented and rainbow added, and sad illegal?

will I awake somewhere over the rainbow one day,
dreams coming true, troubles melted, way up high?

*
Of all these, I am uncertain. Of you, I am certain!
***
  Jan 2018 Nat Lipstadt
Kitbag of Words
an incredible incite (the ruthless volatility of words)

~for L.B.~

the only place of solitaire solitude in the city accompanies me
like a faithful country dog that doesn’t know better to be afraid,
of moving cars, sleepless night terrors and unscripted “dreams”

where image and words say come “follow me” with ruthlessness and no cloying come hither looks and
see and take and recall with perfect midnight blue sky clarity for

the incredible incite of credible insight

surfacing unexpectedly in a intemperate pool of slushy snow,
that will be an ice storm of painful confrontations with naked
inner truths standing outside in sunny sub zero playground

there is great risk.  volatility gone wild. when the speed
governor is removed and you live at 100 mph on local streets,
when the merest slight of an accidental incidental touch
transforms into an incite incident and hell is the threat
that you will not die today and your own words will ruthless
pull from the nerve places where sensible and sensual cannot
coexist and this write this script is a poetical insight inside, an
incredible incite and what your spilling is spaghetti sauce blood
when you left your brain on broil, instead of the faking daily of
slow simmering ineffectual intellectual words that just don’t
cut the crap. your addiction complete, you cannot live without
the incredible incite, the ruthless volatility of words,
otherwise why rough write what you see
in the blind
beyond the blind


1/6/18 5:03am
Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 5
“I took great pains to study and ’tis poetical
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2018
he rises early, well before the premature, minutest hints of early dawn,
cradling tenderized words, from a silent marinating mind withdrawn,
some spices harvested from the soil's mortality of daily strife, others,
manna gifts of wild floral tenderness, plucked from Eve's tree of life

neither gardener nor chef, the fruits of his labor, are product of
a mothers mind's silent back labor, emerging with no notice or invitation, spilt from lips unmoving, eyes shuttered, fingers ungloved
ministering a Temple sacrifice of plain psalms authored but un-titled

some spark ignition causes a key reversal, from motionless to motion,
moving with no in-between, words simmering, from seeds unknown,
the dishe's integrity questioned, but it births itself, uncaring, eagerly, willing copied from cavern decorations of rude, wall drawings

almost fully formed, though untasted and undigested, a savant smell
provokes a leap from placid prone, to upright and seated upon the
throne of his writing desk, can one* *divine a recipe from odor alone,
thus claiming authorship of an untitled dish, one that can't be recreated?


sets it down before you uncovered, with a lustrous screen of silk damask,
plated on Royal Worcester fine bone china, yet, without any utensils,
asking you to ken this work,
*eat this poem, with bare hands,
love it as if it was your own first born,
consumed/consuming
a strange but familiar spirit
12/29/17 2:28am ~ 3:50am  bed to desk to bed
  Jan 2018 Nat Lipstadt
Left Foot Poet
2am Friends

winter has set the boundage, bars of chill, escape-urge killers,
self-imprisoned by our ruthless timidity, that both comforts yet,
worse violates our truthful, unwanted inadmissible-neediness by
purging the touches and the knowing kindage, this then,
this preface, your reminding of-as-of-yet untouched,
half-invitational, half-regret, half-cursed, whole red need for
2am friends
to fill the void that poems can n’ere fill

1/1/18
spoken while standing on one left foot.
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