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Nat Lipstadt Apr 2018
<~>

~for Andrew Garfield~


how they march!

with studied
practiced
cadence

a riddle:

how many Angels,
in America,
can stand on the
head of a pin?


legions

dressed in wine
stained colored uniforms,
how they advance!

with studied
practiced
damning
randomness

how many?


lesions.


<•>

4/26/18
1:30am
this one woke me up,
fully formed,
asking only for a scribe to record it.  
saw Angels in America on 4/21/18.  
Neil Simon Theater , NYC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_in_America
  Apr 2018 Nat Lipstadt
Riq Schwartz
It's so hard to compete
with well shaped human form.
My lines are all bulky,
uneven, and lumpy.
I've no ******* to caress,
no hips and no rear.
That is, I do have them,
but you'll not find them here.
It's so hard to compete
sipping long slurps of mead,
somewhat sweet, something biting,
when shots come much quicker,
they get you there
down the line
move along
spending time
wisely. I
have to take mine.
I can't rush this.
You must understand.
I'm a poet. I hold these words
tight in my hands.
I release them, but slowly,
like time's grains of sand.
There's no **** here,
just titles.
No models, just writers.
Our words are our craft.
We drink, we expire.
If photos are worth just one thousand words each,
then I am the camera
with the film out of reach.
I struggle with knowing that I'll never get the coverage other artists do. I married a photographer, and I won't presume that their work is easy. Mine is difficult to interact with, though. I demand time, I demand attention, I demand thought. This is okay; this is even good. I need to demand the same level of attention to my writing that I expect from a reader, even if it won't get as many <3's as the next GIF over.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2018
<•>
4/10/18 10:55pm ~ 4/22/18 2:02 am

Introduction

a simpler than plain fact,  
deserving reflection beyond the obvious,
containing obverse emotional mine field sonar arrays
floating on an ocean unhidden,
listening for the ocean's bleeping hid-dens,
before surrendering to its ****-sinking power of time/gravity
the better life elsewhere is always someone’s misery


<•>
confetti is just tomorrow’s garbage

someone stood on lower Broadway at 5am
watching the sanitation men sweeping up the aftermath of a super bowl  victor’s celebration, with broom heads borrowed from giants’ moustaches

passage of a single thought,
that the victorious celebrated on the parade should
a posteriori be required to participate
in this flip-side experience as
‘active cleaner uppers,’
re-enacting the famous Persian Sufi adage,

“this is too shall pass”

someone whispers we have blessed lives,
rich in the experiential, free of the dragging boredom
of the daily draining of making it, head well above of the
humanizing periodic regularizing water dunkin’ reminder
of just
or

“we too shall pass”

so even the confetti honorees must have too someone whose
life to aspire, the top of the heap, in chained food chain world

assaying perfection and the luck thereof,
picture perfect lives cannot withstand tsunamis of
waves eroding their shapes, wearing boundaries down,
do not forget the invisible invitation from the riptide
just beneath the calm surgical surficial surfacing disguises

if you face my book, will find in a later chapter prior
the fine sorry lines, the pierced titanium bulletproof vest,
the divorces of mistakes remade, the haunted envisioning,
the obligatory items that keep you awake, those awesome
responsibilities that take many small bites of a soul’s coverlet
that cannot be removed isolated jailed or desperate destroyed

confetti rained interspersed with droplets of sand grains,
this man of constant tomorrows, hopeful Mondays, bad Fridays,
is a man of constant sorrows,
pictures and poems life celebrating a never allowed to forget
lucky runs out like the string from packages saved
when no more packages arrive

when the packages no longer get delivered
oh that started years ago, when came the bile instead
of the blood’s replacement clotting factors

passing is a sometime thing
sometime is a most imprecisely defined terminus
sometime means that today’s confetti is a day away
as resurrected garbage
but nonetheless,
you are forever responsible for the cleanup


a picture worth a thousand words
but in me lives
tens of ten thousands words,
including

“this is too shall pass”

<•>
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2467058/writers-block-kick-the-editor-out-of-the-room/
finally finished fin
  Apr 2018 Nat Lipstadt
Sally A Bayan
?????????

Time is not flying
the evening hours are so slow, inching by
and spent tossing and turning
my restless mind roams dark avenues
my restless feet roam the bed,
left...right...then back, over and over.
the bed, that was my hammock....no longer sways
a promise of peaceful slumber, flies away,
???????
new and strange images
start to trail me...they're heavy tassels,
tagging on the  hemlines of my mind,
seeking to connect...to be known
???????
this late hour, i recall
a forked road, not far from a winding road,
from afar, a child admires a white castle
high as the clouds, its windows, foggy,
its high fence, mossy...on its front lawn
is a treehouse, perched...resting like a bird
inside a very old tree, leaning to its left side,
with a long set of steps...all painted white.
just below the white steps are gathered,
doyens of poetry...seated in their own chosen
corners...tacit, yet, empowered by their brilliant minds
the tips of their feathered pens, smoothly sliding on
paper......strange, that they're waving at me,
why, they could be dead!
???????
i must be dreaming...my muse is showing
me paths, i would think twice of treading
???????
a quartered moon selfishly glows
unsettles even more, my murky thoughts...
yet....my pressing thumb is on my journals
i must heed.........the need.
???????
"o' my elusive unknown poem,
kindly show me...lead me to your home
let my pen give light to your dim path
give second wind to my weary mind and heart,
deny, even a bit of a space......for wrath,

help me, push me...my efforts musn't cease
show me your face...we'll both have peace."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~
~
Sally  

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
April 21, 2018
...started with a dream.....then scribbled...and scribbled...
I don't know if there is any sense in all these...pardon me, guys...
  Apr 2018 Nat Lipstadt
onlylovepoetry
zelle ma belle

(zelle is an interbank system for sending cash in an instant to someone else’s bank account)

sent her an unexpected $250,
at 4:00am, of course,
a check-plus for her life,
because she revel reviews her day at school,
as special person day, teaches them well, and
anointed, appointed unsolicited confirmation by them
“as part of our family”
how they crave her body, her touch, at scary movie parts,
her kitchens diner size menu,
her refusal to ever disappoint,
her candy drawer supreme,
her crayon color visions which they execute,
her zen sense of their moods,
and for me,
for calling them without hesitation
my grandchildren

indeed more here hers than mine
she asks me why the $$ and poet doesn’t lie
but thinks quick at 7:30 am while bed prone,
“you won Nana of the Day award”
the only (grandparent) on the floor with two kids in her lap,
for the magic show,
all the rest,
benched, chattingly adultry things


she thinks on it and says
“ok, I accept!”

p.s. also,  I have yet to inform her of the (my) elimination of a
crystal champagne flute while doing my manly cleanup  from Friday night lights dinner pink champagne celebrating  
le weekend’s arrival


olp
I don't find limiting myself with a title,
There are no boxes left for me to fit in,
Or burst out of....
I find it's excitingly horrifying to be,
This lost.
There's a similar difference between identity and persona,
I am what I am, am I?
What am I?
Do you think the men I have only half loved,
But stroked their meek egos of,
And the woman I have cowered at,
As they screamed my name,
Know what I am,
Is not who I am?
There is a solace to be found in being wanted;
Are you the one they fall to on a late night,
When they are alone and drunk?
What about when their beds are cold?
When they cannot see you because, they are blinded,
By their quest to find themselves more, and you,
And you,
My dear,
Oh my sweet you,
Who is no one in this world,
Are a literally stepping stone in under their feet,
As you wish to be a moon in their stars.
What they don't tell you,
About surviving trauma when your brain is developing,
Is that your world turns to opposites,
Chaos is home
Drugs are home
Hate is home
Fear, is home;
Here secreted beneath my pallid skin,
I try to find them all a home,
Knowing I'll never find mine.
If self care and therapy was literal exercise,
I could bench press all of you, and more,
And save you all;
My motivation to not be broken is stronger than my will to die,
And they'll never know that,
As they try to break me,
Over and over, and over,
And over again.
Everyone's broken.
No sorry, everyone has cracked edges,
Worn
Rusty
Mishandled a few times
Repainted
Cracked
Not broken, slightly damaged.
We, the ones filled with gilded light, and songbirds,
We know the ******* difference between depression,
And eternal internal sadness,
From not understanding love, to
Loving EVERYONE
From seeking solace in the extreme,
To running away from arms that seek to confine.
Where for art ******* thou?

We are not here for your pleasure.
But we are.
How could we be, but anything else?

I tired.
Sorry...
I tried.
Men.
Women.
Whisky.
*******.
Driving too fast.
Telling them.
Saving them.
Being everything.
Hating.
Fighting.
Drowning.
Breathing.
Exalting.
Cryi­ng.
Pain.
Pleasure.
Writing

This isn't a shopping list.
It's. Not a bucket list.
It's what we do to survive,
When you're born without love.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2018
think of your brain as the attic

For L.B.

where the keepsakes can be divided as follows:

A. “why the heck did I keep that”
with an inner smile,
knowing all the while,
exactly forsooth  but why never forsaken,
and which commemoration is  
one of your future
lady-poems-in-waiting

B.  “rest here, till your first time return"
is appreciated approved appropriate;
your place at the dining table
is set, and you, a new keepsake
are the guest of honor
both old friend, and newborn

there is no riding rush to gush upwards and out
but perhaps the anti-gravity  slow pull of
upward percolation

lucky are you in this,

for @4:20am.
my "attic" is the basement
and these  wild-eyed creatures come
sparked  and sparkling,
covered in creative juices
that like a nouveau beaujolais
must be drunk immediately
and demanding joie de vivre

this bursting Butz antic was first (ha!)
described as follows in terms
less poetical,
and more
apoplectical

“the best don’t even flow, they fall out of ya, rough and tumbling,
screaming did ya get that, are ya keeping up,
you can be the self-editing-I need-perfection  roadblock or the delivery guy,  
the one with the towel and the scissors,
who brings ya
a clean new baby, and/or a veggie pizza,
which ya gonna pick?”


alas the pizza store is shuttered
in the wee morning birth borning,
so I choose natural  La-Maze method for
birthing poems,
as my only option,

so says the
poet ****** @ 4:20am on 4/20/18
a good story knows when it is it moment
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