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Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
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walking the feeble line
——————————

there is a name for what is witnessed nearly nightly,
common ****** and/or scientific, when I awake circa
3 AM,  and the entire sky is overhung with a stolid,
calmly, ponderous inverted ******~single, sky-filling cloud,
with  faint, ragged line of far distant of didactic, urban and natural light, an imagery what s presumably the end of the world insofar as far as the human mind can interpolate the faraway mystique, for our
modern eyes see but cannot necessarily comprehend  the enormity and the simultaneous limiting granularity of the night horizon,
when it is
just outside through the clear glass, this enormous fog that is indescribable, an overwhelming, inconceivable conception that our ancestors took for granted as a natural demarcation of everything physical,
of our world’s entirety.

3:47 AM when the semi-roused mind bids the entirety of me
to awaken, ascertain the mystery of the sky and the sounds of rushing water within the confines of the cottage, both
which have no earthly reason to be simple, self-explanatory.

the parallel of external state to body internal,
comes first to mind when I creakily stand,
to better understand
the grandeur vision seeing, and the noises
so localized hearing, that a time/body disorientation disorder
is the sole explanation for my disrupted feeble state of mind,
physical and mental, occupational hazarding
  of my confused existence.

are you still here?
are u coming along with me on this journey?

amazing, if yes is your cognitive reply!

is this a poem, an essay, a plaintive wail for a general infirmity
that is irreconcilable with facts and the imagery of a mobile
man, who yet dodders and toddles, when stumbling stiffly through the fodders, them open spaces of his mind, and his physicality,
both stumbling erratically like that sort of
out there, sort of not,
feeble line in the sky,
and the feeble line inside him of a shuffling old man he knows or recognizes not, hence the title of the poem, created in a millisecond of cellular cognition, whose explanation, exploration
and expiation of his existence needing some kind of sensible
interpretation.

edging past 4AM, WITH NO answer for anything clouding through the rivulets of the mind, he summons up the time
in memoriam summary of all men, for all essential existence,

it is what it is,

that neither satisfies at all but just sufficiently,
that he could put down the imagined pen, pull the cover beneath the chin line, letting sleepy reign over him once more,
and perish the thought,
he will do it all over again,
tomorrow some twenty four hours hence, thankful the murk
of clouds prevents him from seeing
a battlefield of stars, which

too, comprehensively incomprehensible to the feeble
line he hopefully, is yet then still a straddle.

good night you boon companion,
meet you on the other side
of the line, which is what lines are for, a demarcation between
you and me that we welcome, to cross wordlessly and word fully,
and shall do, as is our due, again,
soon enough.

g’night!
4:26 AM
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
did you ever write poetry?(1)

once. but everything of earthly substance,
destined to fade into the ignominy of forgotten
vaults, where time takes it time and erodes all
into dust. here,

every word preserved. there is no time
in the dominion of creators, and you friend
are numbered in their midst, enshrined in many
hearts and eyes, and

with every
reading,
each reimagination,
you are a reincarnated being
excerpted, & reformatted from a poem by lmnsinner
with author’s permission!


(1) https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3963013/no-fame-no-claim-no-name-absent-glory/
  Jul 2023 Nat Lipstadt
night unkind
new words for an old day that’s just begun

even I, author of the conundrum above,
confused but let us sort it out as we
descend into the elixir that is our combo
of noises, prejudices, limited vocabularies

time noted, not even the nine o’clock mark,
so the day qualifies as new, but it’s an aged
sun rising, skills displaying, historical precedent,
ancient practice, adjusted for atmosphericals

the lawn is speckled, mottled, as light ray guns
through the defending battalion branches and
platoons of leaves facing up, to a certain death
later than sooner, no killing fields till September

the oak tree generals, wisdomed experiential,
prepare plans, take light a prisoner in sufficient
quantity to nourish the troops, yet, not too much,
for the sun can be fickle, a flame thrower machina

all that vision leads me to this pronouncement:
*Oh Lord, bountiful be provided, beloved, inscribed,
this day, its mega-millennium predecessors and
successors gifted precision amounts needed, then,

Cast me gently into morning,
For the night has been unkind,
Take me to a, a place so holy,
That I can wash this from my mind,
The memory of choosing not to fight.


Sara Mclachlan “The Answer”




9:18am Thu Jul 9 ‘20
  Jul 2023 Nat Lipstadt
Marshal Gebbie
Pacing in soft falling rain along a path seldom taken.
Preoccupied by thoughts, perturbed by the direction of my concerns.
How, in the epic of everyday normality, the excesses of humanity at large intercede, intrude on the peace of mind. Intrude on the grace of the green and peaceful rurality, in which I walk.

Insanity runs riot in some of the most , otherwise, passionately beautiful locales on the planet.

It manifests in the slaughter of unsuspecting innocents sitting down for a breakfast in the quiescent early morning light of old Kiev.
The monstrosity emanating directly from the mind of the mania driven, 70 year old, balding man in the Kremlin.

Carnage, death and unspeakable outrage and sorrow. Both young and old contorted, suddenly, in the stench of cordite and smoking rubble. Dreams, dreamt, just yesterday, obliterated forever.

Incandescent rage of vengeance ignited in the eyes of the beholders, a rage that will endure in a livid hatred that will perpetuate for centuries.

And of course, every day now, in the palaces of Pyongyang, Beijing, Paris, Washington, London, Delhi, Tel Aviv. Iran and Moscow, old men in expensive suits ruminate, sip rare old whisky and plot strategies on the nuclear chessboard. Moves that have the capacity of determining the endgame.

The fate of all life on earth.

In the meantime, the planet, fed up with the excesses of humankind, is reacting in melting the ice floes of Antarctica and the North Pole, swelling the oceans to engulf, warming the seas to create the emergence of devastating cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes.

Man is awakening to regions of expanding drought, vast and repetitive deluges of rainfall causing landfall and huge areas of catastrophic flooding, Encroachment of coastlines and the threat of inundation of vast low lying population areas, coastal cities and essential infrastructure, airports, power stations and arterial highways.....and then there are the wildfires, ever expanding, ever increasing in frequency and the continental choking palls of smoke.

Pondering these things, as I walk this country path in the falling rain, perhaps the greatest concern that causes my brow to furrow, is that largely, my fellow man turns the other way, preferring to put these things out of his mind. leave it to someone else to sort out. Place it all in the too hard basket.....and this attitude, I'm afraid, percolates to the top.
Concentrate on getting the votes, it will all sort itself out just so long as WE WIN THE NEXT ELECTION.

And so it goes on now, indeed.... A Whiter Shade of Pale.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
Hafiz (14th Century).               Wow        Lipstadt (20~21st Century)

Where does the real poetry.                      Where does the real poetry
Come from?                                                 Come from?

From the amorous sighs                            From the wet tears spilling
In this moist dark when making love     In dry, bright beauteous light
With form or                                               Within the apparitions of my
Spirit.                                                       ­    Mind’s eye


Where does poetry live?                           Where does poetry live?

In the eye that says, "Wow wee,”             In the fingertips that spout
In the overpowering felt splendor           Words becoming splendid in
Every sane mind knows                            Every maddening heartbeat
When it realizes - our life dance              When life encapsulates into
Is only for a few magic                              Momentary mega-magical
Seconds,                                                       Seconds,

From the heart saying,                               From each cell borning,
Shouting,                                               ­       Pronouncing,



"I am so ****                                             “I am so ****

Alive.".                                                   ­       Alive.”





("The Gift" - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
AM Wed me @ 10:27 July
  Jul 2023 Nat Lipstadt
Still Crazy
Maturity is knowing what your limitations are…(my daily chore)


<>

Maturity is knowing what your limitations are. Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.”
Kurt Vonnegut


<>

maturity comes when you cannot,
even try, to fool oneself,
indeed, you preposterousness,
make you laugh hardest
at your very, fully owned, selfhood
preening mirror disguise

Is this a poem, a lamentation, a pithy regurgitation
of Vonnegut, and you say: “Don’t care, it’s words
that gotta come out, be released to empty the heart”
a daily excess removal of that daily overflow of the
days first words when new day light and nighttime’s REM
sleep overlap, and the music starts of a life time of favorites,
and like a pleasant thorn direct into your temples brain,
the leaking, then the spilling spirals unstoppable onto the pages, and the first true relieving exhalation comes with
the excited exorcism of the stones of your life, come outside
your body and there is a freshly born stripe upon your face,
not yet a scar for it is yet to ripen by healing, but it is your
creature for loving…and it is good company with so many
prior guests who have checked in, stayed for a moment’s
observation, departed after getting an extended checkout
time, joining the many who came and went, disappearing
in to the internet’s ether, where we one will join them eventually,
though you smile at that thought, cause you’re mature
enough, baby, an all growled up dude, to know that when
you reached that stage, you will be, non-stop laughing
at *** serious you imagined you were, and wondering out loud
why it took so long to recognize that mirrored visage as
one big ole fool with a smile upon his face…

p.s so much for that promise to take a break from beating
yourself up, but you know what, it is pleasing, in that way
when upon the grand occasion of waking up to another
unexpected day of living deserves a deep, but rueful,
laugh out loud and others’ look at your self and argue to
only mischievously agree,
you are indeed,
still crazy after all these years
7:59 am
Sabbath
Jul 8
2023
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