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Nat Lipstadt Dec 2019
~for my poet friends who will understand exactly
the nature of our ailment/adventure~

it begins when once poem titled,
which, a first clue, nothing more, a mumbled prophesy,
an arrow to duration & direction home but unknown,
a one-way stop sign neatly lettered in the
smallest sized letters with the disclaimer above

you sojourn to an uncultivated land, not sown.

you travel to places “finding out what you
don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out,”
no guide, no well trodden path, no cultural prescribed woke diktats,
you are,
taken unwilling more than you lead, where endings
surprising, unforeseen, return tickets never offered for sale

pick words, more likely,
they pick you,
the only constant your rapid metabolism,
a winter snow blow, swirling churning, even midst
the most languid, sultry southern summer day

mind the mind.
mind the ground frozen until a tiny tickle trickle verse
becomes a full-on ground melt, wet and soggy,
******* you into a
rice-rock-hard pellet-poem thriving,
you observe your own drowning in a
6 inch deep wet paddy

the bottom line,
the net net, summary judgment
you commenced with urgent hesitancy for the
risks are great now, pen dagger chest pointed,
you, ******, in crosshairs, your own graven idol image

having found out what you
don’t want to know,
having found out what you
don’t want to find out

find myself weeping,
fists holding my head,
communing with floorboards oak hardened,
groaning acknowledging,
this, this, THIS


this discovering, uncovering,
this is
why I write,
this is
why I dare not write anymore!





12/13/2019
so-me-times the compulsion is greater than the fear
  Dec 2019 Nat Lipstadt
Path Humble
for she who loved me vainly

vainly
in a way that produced the result she undesired,
my response harsh and swift,
her fan-tasy has no place on serious battlefields

those poem are battlefronts mine,
that are the numbered chapters in
My Revelations

still, she still reads my poetry

think on it, it’s confusing,
my unkind cut that came from deep anger,
it was outed but not for her, because of her
but for me

for to love
permission must be asked and both
given

and the line is wavy but 100% solid.

but reading my poetry, is that a violation as well?

my poems are me inside out.


but if you look in me deepest,
forgiveness is there,
not seeking contact,
but hate
is inconsistent
with walking a
path humble
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2019
yes, only the paper will listen when
called upon
for what is a clean sheet but only our reflection
human

it:
crinkles
wrinkles
folds and bends
yellows with old age,
can always be changed
and always constant if unaltered

it:
speaks in words
embraced with lip kisses
can be cherished
can be destroyed
ashes to ashes
just like a human

print this poem:
place it in your everyday purse
of all things valued, kept upon
your person, close by
for comfort
for reflection
amidst the haste

the paper preserves:
your glory
your memory
your secreted confessions,
an exposure of your nakedness
your innermost outermost

the paper is skin:
can be scarred
held close by
shelved to be avoided
shed cells, store cells,
can be blood stained
can keep lipstick witness
dry tears, elicit tears

when we pass:
we leave behind
progeny
objects of valuable
meaningful to our unique
and papers

papers:
of legitimacy
of illegitimacy
of recollections
future predictions
remnants scraps
full books
our product
on this earth

the paper always listens,
patiently awaits our impatience
our truest friend, confidante
who can be confidently be trusted to
reveal our confidences

the clean sheet listens
as we part with thoughts
that can only be entrusted
to ourselves, our limbs
our entirety castoff
our entirety sustained


3:47am 11/29/19
  Nov 2019 Nat Lipstadt
Sjr1000
She passed out
between the Game Makers
At
The Rancheria's casino
I was playing Bonus Deuces Wild
She was playing a penny a line

Hitting five of a kind on the first play in the continuum
She acknowledged my luck
Then lay her head down between the machines
as if looking for something
She could not find

Time passed
Banging along
Credits up and credits down
I asked her if she needed help
She was comatose
Remembered it far later
Her bottom gum was pink,
Where her teeth
Should have been

We laid her down
I held her head
I forgot 17 years of CPR training
I remembered it later

Her breath would stop
Then sputter back to life
Life trying to find away

Help arrived after a while
Disorganized for a while
and ill prepared
for an establishment frequented with old people and another addict
They
worked hard at it
got the hang of it
brought her back to life several times

It didn't matter
Emily dressed in black leotards
Balancing a drink tray
told me about her a while later
She had been alone
grieving,
an anyuerism
She died.

My CPR
wouldn't have mattered

But before I left that afternoon
I told Security
I didn't mean to be crass or crude
Or
sacrilegious.

But could he please push the button
To get my ticket
I had money in that machine

He said to me
I guess we're all lucky today

I know what he means
heading out the doors
To the sun and the winds.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2019
~for betterdays, and all Aussies~


the fires massifs all around, the smokes surrounds,
the house invaded with closed-out-of-college students,
mother and father who are similarly workless, a fire bounty,
all this a treat to an nine year old (no school) boy and his dog

newly self-appointed ringleader, the little boy,
in his fire heaven, with a gang to command, to entertain,
some adults, silly college students, who don’t know “no,”
when he says this is the game we are playing next

this vignette, is not a Manhattan variety^
but an insight story heard, unwitnessed, but of
those who tell the tale, unwittingly, of finding small joys
amidst sky-full clouds, all grayed bunting of burning stink

few wiser than my old, tired and smokey clouded eyes,
though, one yet detects those who are truly not lost,
those who are found, and those who will find them all,
and lead them to the safest places inside themselves

and my heart and brain, at last in unison,
forgives the restless adults who with grownup worries,
yet can! just barely detect those mini joy-rivulets among the whiffs
of destruction and bravery, losses and new hands extended

So I ask, Mum, what game shall we play next?

Perhaps, Noah’s Ark?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/11/21/massive-bush-fires-horrendous-heat-worsening-drought-plague-australia-summer-nears/

^ search Manhattan Vignettes in the HP Search Box
  Nov 2019 Nat Lipstadt
hannah b
i am a hypocrite

for a long time i wanted that word tattooed
somewhere on my body and i still do,
i think.

i cherish my ability to value the
wellbeing of others above my own…
that’s not why i do it
but that’s how it seems, isn’t it?

doesn’t my own lack of motivation
seem so **** selfless?

hypocrites only run into trouble
when they make it obvious.
for some reason, not heading your
own advice makes people very
upset with you.

i do it because
when the fall leaves break
off the trees and there’s
crimson on the sidewalk,
crimson dripping from the palms
of our hands…

well, the winner would be
whoever threw the first punch.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2019
~for Wyett Yocum~

nowadays, we slice and dice ourselves
by gender, race, and any thin wafer division
by which the human persona can be identified,
as if we were tattooing our ****** identity
on the wrist of your societal recognition scales

all in order to say,  Hey!

this is who I am,
this! is why
I am special unique, very very
deserving of your accoladed admiration

so the newly acquired phrase,
there is no brag in that boy
leaps and bounds, coming to rest on my wide eyes white,
now part of my lexicon, there, where my vocabulary stored,
for its very contradictory contrariness
demands the realized anti-hero,
the natural quietude of
the aw shucks, that we used to value, people,
above all

nearing the end of my days, my vast
knowledge of words and people grows smaller
by leaps and bounds, for finer refinement and focus,
vastly diminishes and distinguishes but a handful
of verbal grains, seeds, a few is all that’s needed,
kernels, that when deep planted, well watered,
a gift nurtured by nature’s simplest greater gifts
regifted us human exmplars

there is kind.
there is honor.
there is selflessness, character, service
and a very, very few more.

some new, just today, recently obtained,
the very title of this late night reflection!

a fine spun summary depiction of modesty,
a trait so rare, it’s existence now under appreciated,
and so very hot-not, au courant, fashionable, woks or lit,
hardly deemed valuable in the me-matters age

so crumple up this minor essay, store and stick it
among your mementos, and other keepsakes,
let it not be seen, avoid confusing the young man of whom
it was spoken and herein recorded, but this prize! this poem!
this award without proclamation or gold statuette or degree,
will, a secret well kept, by those who raised him, recognizing,
that their own mirrored imaged is quietly well reflected,
his inherited invaluable, distinguished modesty,
product of his pedigree



Nov. 10, 2029
12:44am
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