Nat Lipstadt

Jul 2020

sundial iris

هر دو بی فرزند هستیم (متفاوت)/we are both childless (differently)

هر دو بی فرزند هستیم (متفاوت)/we are both childless, differently
——————————————————————————

let us not ask each other or god

the why, just how life worked out

and maybe by a choice unconfessed

~

yet we both lie.

~

you possess thousands of offspring,

tend to their every need, breast feed

them water, special nutrients, stroking

their leaves, worry about their viruses,

you, dying just, a little, when, one rooted

looks up and says, “I am dying mother,

thank you for your love.”

~

my ***** produced two men,

each now, differentially,

lost, lost to me, and daily

privately, in word and wet,

weep my losses, for what

is a man who had children,

but goes down into his grave

gray haired, with none in

attendance to refill the soil

that his grave grayed body

requires to

hide his wasted,

childless

life.

#sundial #both #childless #differently

Jul 2020

Tom Salter

My Dearest Listener.

Will you sit with me in March?
And wait for the haze to pass. Let us sit
By
The abandoned bandstand and upon the
Trimmed patch of grass
Where you once bravely
Asked,

‘Where ought we stare when the postman
Stands by the door and
Lingers there for far too long?’

I digress.
And I digress.
Conversations are empty lately, they
Have taken the form of the streets;
Empty but filled with crass souls, wandering
For a place to buy sea shells.
Seemingly an innocent task and yet so pointless
To ordinary folk.
I hope.
And I hope
That these men, these hollow skulled men, find
Delight in the barren streets,
Like a treat
After a numb month’s labour.
I speak.
And I speak.
‘Hold me to these streets, where men once worked
By the arching lamp post and the
Abandoned home of the
Holy ghost.’

Will you come and walk in May?
When the birds
Scramble on the park floor
As if to bluntly say
We are rather dull and
Dire in the way
We walk and
Play.

I am aching and grey.
And I am aching and grey.
Do a man a favour, and
Refrain - please
Do not stay.

Let my hair turn dry and grey, and
Let my
Age fade away. Please
Do not stay.
I have talked with the doctor, and they
Often say
That I will be
Okay for today and perhaps
Tomorrow I will not. Alas!
All people will
Decay. And
Minds never stay
The same type of sane.
Hearts
Will often sway and sway.
And death yields no delay, it comes
When it ends, and starts
When it comes. Whether
Young or almost done.
The fun will cease, often
On that empty street
Where crass men wander, or
By the postman who
Happily lingers.

Will you embrace me in November?
Where my limbs are weak, and limber.
Where the bandstand singer has
Moved on to some place bigger.
Will you let me go in December?
Say yes, and please
Remember, that we both surrendered.
Let us spend this time
In slumber, so we can find some kind
Of splendour once the streets
Begin to busy again.

#aging #death #dying #oldage #old

Nat Lipstadt Jul 2020

Hazy Day, Hazardous Thoughts, No Candy, Hallelujahs

Hazy Day
————-

rose at 3:30am, anticipating an aria of glorious
thoughts needy of capture, encryption, preservation,
three hours later, an empty vessel rides high on the empty
white screen waters of the Bay of Zero, fed by Nada River,
emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, where microscopic is ordinary,
my, my, not~noteworthy contribution, noted for its worthlessness.

delivered the coffee at 7:00am, put on the music,
climbed onto a fresh sheeted mattress, yawning, yearning,
seeking to recover the lost hours and instantly tumbler-in,
inundating random notions, hazardous thoughts,
dispatched to keep me awake, as I trajectory into sleepyville,
each one an angel, coming down Jacob’s ladder for to wrestle
me home, even as the daylight reveled~reveals that a newborn
baby, will be new hot, dangerous, burning hazy day.

                                                    <!>

Hazardous Thoughts
—————————-


“It is easier to give love than to accept it.” (Walter W Hoelbling)

Walter, Walter, what an accursed blessing you’ve given me!

This simple declarative is a racking, wrecking, symphonic
synopsis of this man’s life, crying out for une écriture monumental,
that somewhere in a hidden recess has commenced composition,
know not the where or when of it, but the why is a tightening noose,
squeezing my brain, choking my neck, impounding the heart beating,
because with succinct brevity betrayed out loud, my essential secret.

                                                     <!>

Every night I sleep with a woman and a man; the woman, you need
not know, nameless is what you shall call her, but the man, instantly
recognizable as just Leonard, descendant of the priests in the Temple. Me and the baffled King composing our hallelujahs.

                                                      <!>

Art doesn’t not imitate life. It plagiarizes, embellishes, improves, with
tinkered recombinant DNA, shamelessly swiped, for which we forgive the audacity of its thievery, for with each attempt comes a Confession, remorse, nobody cares, whatever. Art supersedes, supplanting and superimposing, by grafting new branches upon old works, even occasionally improving what was once brilliantly original.

                                                      <!>

Note to self: Do not forget to wake ‘n take the garbage, the recycling, and the corrugated cardboard and all previous poems to the Town Dump, before they stink up the garage. Post Office, Pharmacy for local weekly newspaper, no candy.

                                                     <!>

Dozy, sleepy. Sarcastic “great.”  I’ll never remember this poem;
**** these hazardous thoughts on a hot, dangerous, burning,
innocent hazy day.

note to self: dreamt yesterday in the early morn;, composed in the afternoon, listening to Jonas Kaufmann, edited, posted at 3:30 AM Friday listening to Kris Kristofferson and Janis Joplin.
3:35AM Fri Jul 24.

the precedent predecessor:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3096449/every-poem-is-a-test-of-character/

#lipstadt #hazy #day #hazardous #thoughts #no #candy #hallelujahs

Jul 2020

Path Humble

Asked and Answered: from where does inspiration come from?

~for Dante Rocio, who shares visions~

-from where does inspiration come from?

from
intimacy with the inanimate,
the population of objects,
coarse, beauteous that provoke,
the museums, the gutter, the worn,
the just unrealized, imagined,
from
learning to speak hearts
to speak the heart language

from
from animated blood, eyes, taste buds,
when you pass thru the molecules of me,
by contact real or imagined,
desperation, satisfaction organic,

from
where do these questions arise,
the answers as well,
they are tangible, yet intangible,
even

from,
a notion indistinct,
an untraceable path,
hidden routers,
deflecting reflecting,
even a current direct,
invisible to the naked

from where?

a fair question,
answers, unreliable,
for in the forming,
the froming
is always
transfigured,
distorted

June 2014

sourced
from

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/947359/from/

#pathhumble #inspiration #from #asked #answered

Nat Lipstadt Jul 2020

When The Reciprocal of Thank You is I Love You

1               thank you
—-   =     —————
X              I love you

Teach: Solve For X

X is 1, thank you =  I love you

if you are lucky, lucky to be adjudged trustworthy,
someone’s ******* inside insights freely given,
unexpected with no disclaimer, no red stop sign,
“danger ahead,” after all, you inquired sincerely

you caught out breathless, the big data absorption
rate is exceeded, but you understand this tidal wave,
formed thousands of miles away, you and your silly
notions of ‘learning from love,’ aye, were the trigger!

you understand this gale force long in the forming,
the unleashing a cleansing, a self-tallying evaluation,
a crooked trail of struggle, optimism, recovery, both
a reliving and a relieving, and an entree to relief living

and you, fancy shaman, you wordysmith, understand,
you’ve been appointed a trustee of someone’s heart,
can only best muster is an ineloquent encompassing
“thank you,”^
acknowledging a bond you’ve granted, a bond accepted

and overwhelmed by this Rubicon crossing invitation,
you can’t yet blather, pry, think small, just acknowledge
this gunshot across the bow landed squarely tween eyes,
sensing, hoping that this simple response was pitch perfect

minutes later, you receive a summary judgment, to wit
an entirely unexpected
“I love you,”
a declarative, simple equation, understanding that it’s
a spontaneous gush, with no judgment, no risk, pure
acceptance is purely sufficient, that it comes with an
overwhelmingly baked-in affection for,
you, fool,
for just being there, for asking, for learning,  eyes tearing, if
you, fool,
have love within you, then you should give it, give it,
give it

3:53 PM
Tue. Jul 21
Twenty Twenty

^ the actual response was:
gonna absorb it
gonna sleep on it
gonna write on it,
then we will talk about it...
and most importantly,
thank you

#lipstadt #reciprocal #thankyouiloveyou #teach #shaman #wordysmith

Jul 2020

poet-on-the-roof

My Heart is Drenched in Why

My Heart is Drenched in Why’s

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

climb to my listening post,
poet-on-the-roof, willing every step,
climb way up to the top of the stairs,
entrance marked POETRY, courtesy
of the bldg. super, an olden friend,
a concerned citizen, humorist, human,
somedays nurse to his corona haloed tenants.

the view of the ******, not laudatory, visible in a 360 degree perspective is of city grunched, scrunched, covered in
in silent spoke poems, overused views, words that don’t change
a thing, for my heart sees only dimly, being that my disheartened
vision is drenched, diminished, disabled by and in why’s.

ask seer~super what rhymes with why, smiling, an instantaneous poetry helper, having created, an officiel expert, as in everything, reply’s “why, why most famously rhymes with, why, everyone knows is try!”

so I try, three times, try, try, try again to puzzle
why, my heart is drenched in magenta,
who has willed this, not I, my distilled voice,
wants, does roof shout, but try as I might,
the reverb of unanswered is the slap of more
drenching, quiet silencing, and the weightiness
of too many weightless words returned stamped
“no forwarding address, and we know not why.”

#poetontheroof #heart #drenched #why #poem2 #whys

Nat Lipstadt Jul 2020

In Their Own Words: “All I’ve ever learned from love is....”

In Their Own Words:

“All I’ve ever learned from love is....”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So come, my friends, be not afraid.  We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made.  In love we disappear.  Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door,  there’s no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for.                                     Leonard Cohen

All I've learned from love that it appears on its own timetable,
and, all I've learned from love is, it is the purpose. Harlon Rivers

“is crazy and this is infinite and ever so sobering wondrous possible"
Medusa

It is a paradox of two people - in debit to one another though each may never realise;
and neither one of whom would ever consider recalling the debt. Gideon

A headlong charge into a vast unknown that promises fufillment of every lacy, perfumed dream, but may instead deliver wrenching wounds that only another love can heal. Lori Jones McCaffery

every fantastic mistake I ever really made! Drunk in shallow bar light with a woman of my wicked dreams who laughed as loud as me at our shared ****** jokes we both got. We loved for awhile and then wandered and still loved forever as we found other dim bars with more wicked dreams.                                        gray dot (unknown)

All I have learned from love is to give more than one receives unconditionally.                                                K Balachandran

"love is the great equalizer: ignoring age, race, education, wealth, religion, disability, and sanity... simultaneously capable of lifting all to the highest highs and dragging all into the deepest depths. In love there is no pride or ego." forgotten

that just beyond is a hidden trail, where a magical river of the purest water flows free. Here and only here, my heart can be revived, and my mind is stilled by the silence I find. Love’s call is gentle. Joey

“that love is as love does.”
victoria

All I ever learned from love is the meaning of the word, "unconditional!”.           SE Reimer

Sometimes we fall in love, and sometimes love falls on us.
Stephen E. Yocum

it is gentle rage, come like sun through clouds, to feed parched earth....one word to set life a tingle, the first smile of a golden
boy's day.  The last caress before sleep, the letting go of a dying
friends hand and the gathering together of companions for food
and laughter, love comes in many guises, has many faces and is
lifeblood to the soul hiding within.                   betterdays

where the beginnings end and the ends begin.    Elizabeth J.

The burial of fear and all we’ve ever known In hope for a new flourishment.    Dante Rocio

that life flows in abundance of peace, harmony and balance when I
surrender to live in love.                                                                Cné

that love assuages hurt and heals the wounded...it rings with melody
and dances to the heavens.  It’s the divine giving over of body and mind;  it's mystic transcendence an overwhelming feeling of pure ecstasy.                                                                                      patty m

that love is a dunghill, and I'm a crow that stands on it and caws.
                                                                                      Thomas W Case

Acceptance.  Acceptance of myself and of the ones I love.
                                                                                              Kelly Rose

It is easier to give love than to accept it.         Walter W Hoelbling

was what I learned from her...Love is above, beyond what we all wish, we had to touch the sun, the moon, the stars; everything we have.                                                                            Temporal Fugue

that it is unique; it makes the softest body, hard, and softens the hardest heart.                                                                poetontheroof

Our hearts tied but I don't know how.                       Anonymous

Love has the ability to surpass life. Even though you are gone I still can’t stop loving you. “Love leaves more behind than death ever takes away. “ -unknown.                                        Love Storytelling

to never go searching for it. That's it, I guess.                      Aparna

has been gleamed through the sacrifice and service of a few extraordinary souls.  For true love is borne of sacrifice, and
it compels us to serve.  Without those elements, it cannot exist.
                                                                 J Klein and Sons Pen Parish

it requires curiosity to truly uncover; it is an emotion
that makes us uniquely human.                                        Angelique

that sometimes it hurts and sometimes it thrills, but
love that kills your pain is always worth the dying for.                 r

it is a gift from God, most precious and not to be abused or taken
for granted.                                                          South by Southwest

how to hurt.                                                           Andrew Crawford

is that, it comes like lightning...it jolts, it makes, or breaks a future;
it hangs around, no matter what, if it's meant to be...yours...
all i've learned from love made me a tree, with fruits
with a blend of sour and honeyed truths, it is heaven...
when bared, shared... reciprocated.                            Sally A Bayan

that it is hard and it hurts but we cannot live without it... there is no storybook endings. You take the good and bad and make it what you need.                                                                                 Melissa S.

The burial of fear and all we’ve ever known
In hope for a new flourishment. Dante Rocio

that I can’t, won’t, don’t want to ever live life without Love! ♥️ Feeling Love Sparks everyday forever and always ♥️ Loving Love Glass Slipper Girl

to accept it when it is given, to share it when it is felt, to cherish it because it is a gift and that whether it hurts or it heals, it is far better to have experienced it than to not have.                                  BLT

that love is...forever studied; gravity, it is akin to the sense of gravity;
it can never be explained, felt, or experienced, but never grasped in ones hand.                                                                          wordvango

that if you have it, you should give it.                                  amanda

how to turn up my face and surrender to the rain.
                                                                      Clementine Valerie Black

that God is love expressed by Jesus, and I'm my best when I imitate Christ.   Christos Victor

the most over analyzed, overwrought word that remains after thousands of years, completely
inexplicable.                                                                onlylovepoetry

it's a strength and weakness, ecstasy and agony, a belief and fear (of losing), emotional contradictions yet so intrinsically precious to be worth living and dying for.                          Pradip Chattopadhyay

the emptiness of smothering empathy for all that lives, feels and needs.  It's to bear eternal suffering...                                   Traveler

red.                                                                                                     Fog

to give, far outweighs the take.                                        Mike Hauser

that it lifts open our minds' eyes, overturns our fears in this vast expanse of the unknown - it etherally reveals our connection
Melody

how deep is my ignorance.                                              Joel M Frye

that love has nothing to do with ***. It has everything to do with sick kids at 3am and holding back your friends hair when she pukes in the gutter crying over some ******* who just dumped her. It's selfless.
                                                                                                        Acme

nothing compared to what I've learned from pain.                 v V v

the things I’ve never learned.                                               M-E

that is the cancer and the cure; the detour and the straight line; proof of reincarnation and death everlasting; the intersection where extreme selflessness and selfishness meet, becoming indistinguishable; it’s shapeless, nearly invisible, and yet known to everyone; a verb, a noun, a conjunction between and a preposition to a beginning and a dead end.
                                                                                           Nat Lipstadt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thanks to all the participants, so far...(see the note below)

This is an open, living poem; anyone should feel free to message me to add, amend, or delete; just message me directly; won’t modify if you just comment.

one more thing don’t ask me to add an old poem that is only tangentially related: write a max of two or three sentences that
clearly and directly responds to the title...

format is.deliberately sloppy, just like the subject
matter.

and the original version (2017)

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2187204/all-ive-learned-from-love-for-leonard/

#their #words #all #learned #love #lipstadt