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  Jun 2020 Nat Lipstadt
ogdiddynash
you write of dismembered leaves,
pains too sweet,
using incontrovertible idiocies like
quiet rain, droplets shining like sunlight,
edible goodbye cheerios,
tastes that burn eyelids colored in
blood stained mustard yellow,
the gladness of sadness,
reversible rivers flowing heavenwards,

really?

dechambered hearts, ventricular mysteries,
brains wearing wooly sport jacket helmets
and others, more weirder too,
wonderfully inexplicable,
other jimmy olsonian beauties,
non-lexical non-commonsensical
ecumenical hysterical
chemical verbal reactionaries,
and then you wonder why,

PEOPLE ******* HATE POETRY?
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2020
(lost 13% of my baby)


the littlest one turned three in May,
haven’t seen her in the flesh since March,
parents inform, all gone,
they’ll be disappearing
to another state,
all of July, gonzo.

I say
go forth safely, that’s great.

redefining social distancing.

measured not in feet,
or even by Sara B.’s
borrowed ‘many the miles,’
but in longer specificities:

maturities,
weeks and months,
parts of years,
parts of lives,
March, April,
May, June,
now July.

five months.

counted them on one hand,
many times,
at 3:00am
cause I could not believe
the summing of my subtraction

somehow disappeared,
from our calendars
these monthly ** markings,
months wiped clean permanently.

did a quick calculation.
we’ve lost 13% of her
entire life,
can’t be regained.

her first:
big girl bed,
playing first video game,  
another birthday party,
candles extinguished by
a single big girl blowing,
dancing, dancing, and more,
driving her scooter in the apartment,
like only a mad woman can,
(stuffed animal riding the handlebars,)
blowing pretend Zooming belly kisses
on her button,
hiding neath the dining room table,
her laughing uproariously,
with never a “stop poppy.”

13%.
a specific amount,
a poem irretrievable,
a blood loss, that
can’t be transfused,
plasma irreplaceable,
containing antibodies
to a specific virus
Sorrow Unique-19

nah,
nothing  
it got nothing
to do with that new forehead
furrow, that slow-suddenly appeared.

nah.

“just, these are the days...”^
^Van Morrison “These Are the Days

These are the days of the endless summer
These are the days, the time is now
There is no past, there's only future
There's only here, there's only now...

These are the days now that we must savor
And we must enjoy as we can
These are the days that will last forever
You've got to hold them in your heart.
  Jun 2020 Nat Lipstadt
Tom Waiting
uptown train

a rare sighting, a shiny dime,,
in a city where clothesworn-grime,
an unshed waning gray, a skin coloring,
stony faces always chewing, enduring

in tunnels neath rivers of streets,
there is no moon, so little hope,
nightly somebody’s thinking,
somebody’s baby,
I’ll be, tonight,
someday, maybe

who will see them
as they are,
willI I, will I,
before they’ve gone too far,
roadies, touring to nowhere, disciples,
nose-led by a vision,
daring, but archetypal

there are no gardens,
but plenty secrets,
all planted,
that will never planet bloom,
seeds raised to die,
in watered sorrows drown,
embryos stillborn,
passed to daughters down

the trains go uptown
to shiny places,
to uptown people,
washed, shiny faces,
bedecked with futures,
hope, their jewel,
but not for them,
the downtime people

five pm, afternoon dying
into night bleeding,
the subway noises,
the perfumed stink, all,
goes unnoticed by senses dulled, unfulfilled,
day goes down,
another, and another,

colored pained refrain, why do we bother?
inspired by:

Outside another yellow moon
Has punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
I'm shining like a new dime
The downtown trains are full
With all those Brooklyn girls
They try so hard to break out of their little worlds
Well, you wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that will ever capture your heart
They're just thorns without the rose
Be careful of them in the dark
Oh if I was the one
You chose to be your only one
Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now?
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night it's just the same
You leave me lonely, now
I know your window and I know it's late
I know your stairs and your doorway
I walk down your street and past your gate
I stand by the light at the four-way
You watch them as the fall
Oh baby, they all have heart attacks
They stay at the carnival
But they'll never win you back
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night it's just the same
Oh, baby
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
All of my dreams just fall like rain
Oh, baby, on a downtown train
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night, every night it's just the same
Oh, baby
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
All of my dreams just fall like rain
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
On a downtown train
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Tom Waits
  Jun 2020 Nat Lipstadt
Marshal Gebbie
Where in the world is the sanctity kept, when the truth seeps away to a lie, how can it be that a few furtive puffs, separates the low from the high?
Can you promise, in honesty Sir, that a black man can make like a white, or that whites make adjustments to be like a black, knowing difference indelibly bites?
Protest pedantically puffs up the crowd, though most go along for the larks, but the whole world contuses in radical rage because cops use their dentures like sharks?
Blue the shade of endless sky, black the shade of pitch but green's reserved for envy, friend, when trading with the rich.
How then the love that all kids wear, is as shallow as mist in the air...and their Kardashian cravings make millions for some, but leave most in utter despair?
What's with the content she rattles around, on the average day in her head, for the blood that she bleeds obscurely deceives, even though it's a bright shade of red?
Sacrifice counts in a family way, though a marriage may fast disappear, when the glue dissipates then the thing that rates, is that  maintenance payments are dear?
Where are the leaders to show us the way, how can we possibly see, when obsession and greed are compounding to bleed...Can this really be happening to me?
Surely goodness and mercy shall furnish the way...Now aint that the teaching of Church... or should we confess that it's all such a mess, that we're, now ******* bricks in the lurch?
Maybe the sun will shine today, maybe it will rain, but the one thing you can bet on, pal ....it'll, definitely, come with pain!

M.
10 June 2020
Sittin n' grizzlin in the rain.
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