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is

the trying is the finding out of the unique
all about,
losing battles to find yourself a
war-won victor and a long term loser,
making the process new, requiring expensive
for the event custom made expertise trainers,
re-acquired to shoot your foot straight
and laugh about it when you do it
again and again

for the relearning love is the crown jew-el,
that jesters rob from their kingly masters,
nothing more precious
pride in love is the fall season preceding
Canadian winters,
always thinking you know better
this time

you cannot learn from love,
cause it’s twice, two times,
never the same,
the all over modifying
past lessons, so, ain’t no prologue,
the body is the wafers
sometimes vanilla,
sometimes chocolate

and the epilogue is 100%
poem~songs that I love writing
and hate remembering
or is it the other way round?
the soul never dies
  May 2020 Nat Lipstadt
Where Shelter
the anonymous who keep us fed,
allowing us to stay in shelter, hide in bed,
while they masked and gloved,
go about keeping us safe and living

with no glory, the invisible,
the shelf stockers,
the wipe-downers,
of our collective spaces,
disinfecting when we
are home in our heads, while
their families worry~wait

we are the indebted,
so our collective can prosper,
no one calls them heroes,
but we would be at greatest, fatalist risk,
if not for the burdens they accept,
for they deliver
us.

so I when I ask nowadays, where is shelter,
the answer is, it is on the way, it is in their hands,
being delivered!
in NYC we are able to survive only because of this army
Nat Lipstadt May 2020
~for the mothers, and for her~

§§§


this utterance emits itself, without poetic supervision,
like so many of its predecessors, a passing remark
transmogrifies to an exercise of praise, of humility, love

this is for her, of the nameless arms of forces that fasten
safety pins to our clothes, reminder to us that we are
loved and to come home safely so she, the little ship may rest easy

she, a homing boat, in a small slip resting, preferring
no changeover  to a mighty and powerful dreadnought sent to do
a search & rescue mission for young ones, babes who lose their way

but we know the truth, the heart of the matter, this one, writ,
for her and her and her and her and you, the countless ones,
mighty armada of the mothers, God’s flesh and blood, a steeled navy

they suffer whatever it takes, but never defeat, for they know,
the heart engine fires never cease, never forget, indeed the word
never not in their lexicon, only forever and forevermore

§§§§§

Mon May 4
9:42
in anno autem coronavirus plaga/ in the first year of the plague
from the heart of the epicenter / ex corde in epicenter
Nat Lipstadt May 2020
~for the (young) fathers~

Sunday.

An ordinary Sunday, with blue sky accoutrements.
They say, mostly sunny, with a high temperature of 75 Fahrenheit.
The children in the ever-shrinking bed shout Yay! Gesundheit!
when they hear me say Fahrenheit, ensues laughter belly originaheit!

The mother sleeps drowsily through the morning event planning,
content that as Mother’s day nears, she’ll wait for breakfast in bed,
but until then let’s all pretend she is sleeping late with three kids
decorating the plateau where their notional was celebrated+conceived.

The father reviews the day which has been quite full, even though
not yet Nine O’clock has to make an appearance. Last nights dishes
washed and shelved, breakfast made, puppy fed, hard boiled eggs peeled, muffins with Frenchified pear mermelade have magical disappeared!

His coffee needs a rehearsal reheating, but never mind, lukewarm will
be just fine, for the warmth of an ordinary exquisite Sunday suffuses
his chest, and the breathing heat of a mess of bodies roiling and rolling
is so more than sufficient, he whispers ‘thank you’ to no one in particular.


Sun May 3
Nat Lipstadt May 2020
———
“called alveoli, where blood and air are separated by such thin membranes that oxygen and carbon dioxide can pass into and out of the bloodstream, respectively. Between them, the lungs have somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred million alveoli.

Severe COVID-19 causes many of them to either collapse or fill with fluid. The virus attacks the cells lining the alveoli; our overactive immune systems, in trying to fight the virus, may be damaging them as well.
The result is that not enough oxygen gets into the blood.”

                                                        ­          
§§§

we forget to marvel at the finery of our bodies,
the microscopic interactions, the minute particulates intersecting,
the multiplicity of languages of each limb, each system, multilingual,
the beauty of all this communicative combinatory,
that enables the gossamer threads
that make the ordinary a repetitive miracle, understanding both the
wonder of our instinctual, our five senses, and their finite limitations

we tendency focus on the visible,
the skin, our excretions,,
accepting even normative, please go away, periodic pain,
but the exceptional,
that states loudly,
what you cannot see can ****,
we ignore until the last minute

hopeful that the clues that are maybe contained,
re the tearing of the fabric of six hundred million
sacs you were unaware you possessed,
can be rewoven, the palpitations your fear be calmed,
the chest muscles quaking, the gasping for molecules
of oxygen can be ventilated, just like the truth that too,
needs a good and a proper airing, without the artifices tubular

now that you are fully conscious of the unseen beauty upon
which each depends, and the masks we wear proudly lest others
we infect, greater irony that we mustn’t pollute our atmosphere,
perhaps, will it make you question the supposed certainties
we sarcastically,
say we know for sure

and respect the uncertainties by which we live and breathe,
the poetry of the body internal,
every second an exercise in risk taking, the miracle of each moment
a blessed privilege, not being conscious that our physical subsistence
is a near thing, depending on thinnest membranes unseen,
not fooling ourselves that we are each a human god,
an Oz, great and powerful,
who hides behind a curtain.

§§§§
Sat May2
in primo autem anno plaga coronavirus
  May 2020 Nat Lipstadt
Bus Poet Stop
“for when the mind has no solution to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement, the poet’s desperation equals theirs”

The Bus Poet Stop “The Glass Shackles” ^

                                              <|>

~this one for Eliot York, who gave us a great gift - opportunity~

                                               §§§

The mandated city buses are largely denuded of passengers,
so the drivers, peruse the enriched, enforced silenced life of the
streetscape, and as they pass, call-out a fisherman’s plaintive wailing,
“here we are, where are you, do we exist?” Too few nibble “I am!”

Bus Poet Stops, stumbles on an older writ, now seemingly prophetic,
once again, he is back, living in a glass shackled confinement,
his 16th floor perch, besmirched, the mirthless empty outside well matched by the isolation inside him, a new kind of shackling bereft.

For these glass shackles are not new, but different, the glass is poorly blown, cloudy, pockmarked with air bubbles entrapped, useless
for fresh breathing, many containing a question mark, some ask
what, others when/where shelter, all, harsh pleading tones, why me?

“For when the mind has no solution” poet wrote in twenty eighteen,
unaware that this predictive value would return to rent & render mean,
his composure, no longer a savior, now he weeps copiously for thee,
those that he, in prior life, came to save, now too, another faceless face.

no, no!

Your writing saves self, and a thousand more, you infiltrate, penetrate     our conjoined quiet, giving name to each of our unsalted tears, no fear poems that make us say, Merry, Merry to us all; God bless us, every one! Bus Poet head-hung, shamed, pained, looks away, mask-covers-gratitude.

Rough and tumbling times, we discount ourselves blameless, but voices
say time for gifting varietals of solace mysterious, this! is your business!
words, instruct to touch, to transport us on a poet’s bus to Delirious,
enable arrival+survival to destiny’s destination, “for all, a good night!”
^ https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2575579/the-glass-shackles/

Fri May 1
twenty twenty

in anno autem coronavirus plaga
3:00pm
from NYC, the. epicenter
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