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Nat Lipstadt Jul 2024
(so many revolutions provoked, this is just the first cut)
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this rabbinic saying, is both disarming and yet awesome,
the interpretations are many, but I find them stained, strained,
and I welcome the “pshat,” the simple mystery of the
what YOU think
is plain meaning of the words,
that makes it so sensible to us,
individually,
formatted into our own personalized
understanding

for the nth time when the poetry won’t come,
or arrives warped, spoilt fruit,
incapable of being repaired
and walk away
with ease
though tinged by
being ill at ease,
but properly snap the padfolio shut…


<>
(but smile on, for the
revolutions are
unceasing)
(1j Rabbi Tarfon
“You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.” This is from Pirke Aboth, or “The Ethics of the Fathers” (sometimes called “The Sayings of the Fathers”) a collection of wisdom from the Jewish Talmudic sages, in this case, Rabbi Tarfon, who lived and taught
2,000 years ago

first cut/ first version..simmered for awhile
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2024
grit on my face…****!

<>

city boy,  progeny of the multi-cultures
any new yorker breathes, the grit fills in
the mini pores, but even better, the lines and
the deep furrowed creases of squinting worries,
inherent and inherited
from years of peering into
the future whose outcomes always fell
outside the range of ordinary misperceptions
and into the realms of extraordinarily ordinary…

even the grit and the grip of grief, cause and
consequence of my endless errored foreseeing,
equally crinkly when smiling and/or grimacing,
for I read what I have written smilingly, and grimace with
the unknown knowledge yet within, there is more to come,
but from who knows where or when, and the grit hardened
exterior groans with the thrill of pulling and
purging yet more words from the
Sea of Churn,
whose burning sensations brings cherried sundae
of mixed anxious trepidations and a groan of relief
when the work of words is done and done & delivered,

and yet:

(that fearsome worded curse)

sadly seeds the junkies need for the next fix…


and my lips issue a pleasured ****!

7:59am
Sabbath Sat.
29 June 2024
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2024
fewer words means no greater appreciation


well you know, I’m not one
famous for brevity, after all,

why not use three words for
every one sufficient, satisfying
the egotistical statistical curve
of the illnesses of literary illiteracy.

exactly.

but brevity in thanking,


the swift surety of a few
chosen, well aimed, words,
is the arrow in the bullseye,
that is taped to my chest,
directly over my heart,
that part, from which we
ship and receive
immense gratitude
countless kindnesses
and proofs positive,
that our two hearts yet beat,
marching in more than
unison,
nay,
marching in a

unification
greater than any
distanced separation!
Feb 6, 2024
nyc
  Jun 2024 Nat Lipstadt
Colleen Brown
I sat atop the roof so high,
And sang my mournful lullaby.

Years went and the tears went
Pouring down my face. A crier
At heart, emotions run my game,
Though I was never taught how to play.

When the going gets tough,
Pull yourself up by the bootstraps,
Making sure not to hang yourself
In the process of “equality for all”.

There’s nothing equal about love, and
There’s nothing fair about emotional reactions.
Both happen spontaneously, subconsciously,
And
Suddenly
You’re living a life you never imagined.

I’m tired of singing this sad soliloquy.
It’s time to leave the roost.
rekindling my inner voice in rhyme and reason.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2024
~ for Alyssa Holmes Underwood ~


Modigliani  (1)
deliberately unmasked his Jewish identity,
even introducing himself to new acquaintances
with the phrase “Je m'appelle Modigliani.
Je suis Juif”
(I am Modigliani, a Jew)

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I separate the words above from mine;
not to divide,
rather, to combine
as a single tissued web.
<>
Designed, designated, distinguishable,
intended to honor them, for they’re
indeed honorable and
distinguished.
<>

Je suis Juif aussi.
I'm Jewish too.
<>

Perhaps,
you did not know?

Or do not care.
<>

There are marks upon my body,
residue of human installation,
bodies are a canvas tapestry,
of human and inhuman
three dimensional
physical actual
cerebral and
invisible
works
<>

forever available
for additions,
paint-overs,
that badly,
sadly
require periodic touch updating
every century,
tho some marks permanent,
some unhappily hate the mark, temporary, and the fade,
yet those are imprinted in thy mind’s eye,
indelible inked that cannot be unseen
therefore, are permanent upon me,
DNA encased, historical genetics,
alive within tissued corpuscles
discardation, erasure, dispersal
continual shedding
<>

W hen
G od created hate,
W e were not consulted.
S eparated by physical differentials,
b y languages, symbology, metaphysical,
for these are the
S paces created to be celebrated,
not hated,
alas,
we humans,
with our empowerments,
and our capacities to
free will,
fell & fail,
fall & feel,
everything
and nothing,
require constant
reminding, necessitating
our specific differentiation,
so I state by defining,
differentiating,
once more:

I am Lipstadt,
I am a Jew
.
4:56 AM
June 13 2024
7 Sivan 5784

(1).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedeo_Modigliani
  Jun 2024 Nat Lipstadt
guy scutellaro
***
****** angel slept

in silence

softly curled into a ball

a sweet song in nylons spirited

away in dream rapture
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2024
the propulsion of compulsion is indefatigable,
it cannot no more, be ignored, as if it is forming
a holy commandment, number 11, you must
write when so ordered, denial is temporary
i n s a n i t y, and the backlog of nuances be
comes longer and longer by the instant

the provocateurs, them eyes, those eyes,
even the ears and tongue join in to instigate,
the cabal of influencers who peddle no product,
demand no payment but total obeisance and
sometimes low-class instant fufillment, for here
I am in servitude,@ 4:33am, by dawn’s early light
(no **** for real), propelled and compelled by
the creative, the spilling urgency of the need
to expel notions of potions that flit between the

frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cingulate gyrus,
and prefrontal cortex: (I told  you, it’s a cabal!)
all  firing
up neurons like electron spark plugs, and only
I can see the sparks colliding inside as letters,
words, phrases, none lazy, all demand long life,

or the Perpetuity of the Momentary”

it grows lighter by the minute and the sporadic
lights across the bay wink morse code secrets
to the observant, and Noyac’s  tree line has
become a distinguishable and distinctive
land mass to which I crossed last nite via &
upon the South Ferry, when all these conflicting
concepts began a painful birthing delivery,
the coagulation of the flighty, merging and
transforming into my child, in my bed, through
the picture window that has so oft been complicit
in the ganging up on my very, very old and restless
brain

but, uh, this ecrivez, this motion that the momentum
of the momentary desiring & deserving of monuments
to the perpetual
won’t be stilled and hours later, with it’s invisible hands
around my throat, it yanks from within what did not
exist ten minutes prior, but always existed inside me
as a jumbled puzzle, gestating quietly till a swift kick
of birthing pains insufferable accompanied by her
raucous dreams, awoke me from ******* and rhyming
Rem Sleep, to now, this moment, named forever as
4:57am and this noisy newborn, covered in embryonic
fluid (wonderful but disgusting really) is all ready pealing and peeling
off suggestions for brothers and sisters, this arrogance
is untenable, but the babe laughs at me, for it knows that
there are hidden, voluminous files of titles awaiting their
turning time of final conception

no longer nighttime, an early forming day, it too,
covered in its own fluidity, awaits discovery, for
the lights from across the bay have gone to bed,
turned off but the greatest, more powerful
brighter discharges
of the Sun Gods

The Bay’s waters are still, though my woman is not,
muttering, still dreaming out loud, as if she wishes
to foment
turbulence, and desires a boat for safe conveyance
across the dark seas of the night to the searing bright
June summer day that the Greek seers have forecast,
and then that moment, like it’s older sibling, will demand,
it’s very moment of personalized perpetuity, its own
unique naming,
a full recording, a welcoming by the Preservation Band,
amidst the glory of its mother mornings colorings of
palest blues, puffery of cumulus whitiwhispers all tinged
in my favorite, flavored color, creamsicle orange,
and the calming power is self evident for the rustling
back and forth of raucous dreams have ceased, and I too
am no longer possessed by the moment, until soon
when the hands creep slow round my throat by a new
moment, and all is lost, all is gained and a newest poem
is brought from the womb of my ancient past, my currency
of the next minutes and the wealth of words that are
available to us all! demands one of us, perhaps you?
to commit its actualized existence into reality

I bid you a soft adieu, for the chores of existence
those demanding pests of drudged biblical
pestilence
can no longer be kept
waiting

nml
5:21am
Sun Jul 16
2024

writ at you know where…
writ in the “moment”
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