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I saw him,
under
halogen haze
never days
a child I thought
no, a man,
tiny, with
a quick gait
trying
to outrun
fate
or an imagined
pit bull
always,
a white
football helmet
he wore
always,
he waved,
but always
he was mute
once,
I was
close enough
to see his face,
a smile
behind which lay
a secret
no modern
alchemy could
make him forget
a code
no white coat God
could decipher
a Mona Lisa smile
when I was expecting
a Munch scream
why the helmet
from what
was he fearing
assault--the asphalt?
stones cast from
the heavens
he saw only
under cover
of night?
I heard his mother died;
then he disappeared
perhaps she yet
laced his shoes
before his nocturnal
sojourns
and strapped
the helmet on
his head
I look for
him, and
other night
walkers, though
his once upon
a time is
memory
"Now I look for her always
I'm lost in this calling
I'm tied to the threads of some prayer
Saying, When will she summon me
When will she come to me
What must I do to prepare
When she bends to my longing
Like a willow, like a fountain
She stands in the luminous air
And the night comes on
And it's very calm
I lie in her arms she says, When I'm gone
I'll be yours, yours for a  song
"

Lyric from "Night Comes On"
by Leonard Cohen

<.
the morning comes on,
the blackbirds mark my Coming
with vociferous, unmelodic caw~cawing,
whisper a quick one line prayer
to whom, if anybody, who guardians
my soul & body combo
for one day more restoration

yes, you guessed, sitting before
the water's and landed tableau,
painter's tablet on lap,
wrapped my fav big ugly brown bathrobe,
coffee in my right, left pointer finger doing all the work,
of rat~tat~tap,
shedding my *****'s contents

yes, again, wish you were here, too
especially those who are long past their expiration date,
who I failed in ways inexcusable,
but don't linger for the heart reminders me,
probability states, I-won't have to wait too much shorter,
my due date unspecified, but we all knownow it ain't in the
far distant future
~
all this buys a way of introduction,
please consider yourself fully induction,
get you a pillow, and we both admire the movie
soundtrack of the goodly good of a stiff breeze welcoming us,
the bird empire gone quiet mostly, but the dutiful osprey parent,
wanders, floating, eyes by practice sharpened, for their are babes in
the nest that possess needs that must be attended to, for that is their
calling,

mine?

if it be your will to let me spill,
a moment the same, yet so wonderfully
different, sharing this day in all its specificity
have learned from its predecessors of thousand millions what
combinatory natural excesses it is duty bound to present us with,
for this I suspect, be my calling, waking to be an official greeter of
the miracle we so casually call good morning,
to be burdened in this manner, writing mad hatter style
of all the varied and variegated sensational sensoria overload,
I accept,
the anxious urgency of burning~some need
to capture every detail, without fail, to satisfy our
mutuality of wondrous awe that we have all arrived
in the same place, identical when's and where's here,
but no answer have I as to the Why, nary a clue, but here
I end, this poem dies, its calling  fulfilled,
and I am lesser for it, poorer too,
am disgorged, expunged,
having given, forgiven,
but low on excuses,
all I can, is that my
calling to, calling from, has
both been answered and filled,
leaving me satisfiably
pleasured, satiated

and called,
yours for a poem
.>


silver beach
Sun Aug 24
  Aug 23 Nat Lipstadt
spysgrandson
On the Nature of Writing—A Simple Rhyme

I write for me, not for thee
I write for me, in order to see
the things to which I might otherwise be blind
to rummage among ruins to see what I may find

I write not to create mystery,
nor to unravel history
not to fill my pockets with gold
or even have words for others to behold

because I write for me

when words scar a clean white page
like some tiny creatures released from a cage
I pause long enough to explore
why I opened their door

they were not asleep but only hiding
and when I allowed their silent gliding
I had to follow their puzzling trail
like they led to some great holy grail

And when I saw they did not end
but they like I could only pretend
I paused long enough to breathe
and finally to conceive

I write for me, and not for thee

so even if I don’t understand
the nature of this literary land
the words still keep walking
and my eyes keep stalking
the path I take for me,
but not for thee
Nat Lipstadt Aug 23
Just lately, 'learned,' (what a double entendre that is!), a long time resident and story teller in the empire of creatives who coexist with each other in two dimensions, in deep isolation and simultaneously
in a camaraderie of bonded bones of mutuality, of deep, affectionate
camaraderie admiration for another human, who struggles and desires to please the world by putting worthy words before us to
be felt, not just read in our bosoms, but-placed deeper still, in our very souls.

As is my custom, I oft forget what was written by me, and awoke feeling guilty that I never gave him "His" own poem. So I looked him up on the HP site, and lo and behold!
this tribute came up first...but cease not here, seize this man's living testimonies to the beauty of life and family.  

I wrote this, upon refection, for us, a year ago...
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2024

For Spygrandson:  A Man
Who Looks in the Mirror, & Sees a Potholder of Simple Design…

~ for spygrandson ~
with deep affection


https://hellopoetry.com/spysgrandson/

<>

I am en~titled
by him,
commissioned by his exacting wording
of this poem’s titular naming,
all my previous attempts are failures,
over designed, too artistic
for his modest self~reckoning &
bearded demeanor,
they demanded
denial with
request for
simplicity of an unflowery
reckoning,
a clean shave,
so to speak…


a potholder of simple design,
a modest picture self-drawn,
but his stories are
sorties tall,
he draws you in, worthy draftsman sketches
of words, tales short, poems complete,
tales so sweet, of characters uniquely complete,
and you think,
they cannot be fictional?

and you know they’re no such thing,
ok, maybe,
some taller and a few perhaps dreamed,
the big characters of those
giants of simple men,
whose deeds were not mythical,
ok, almost mythical…

but truth of the humans of the hammered and nailed tough skin,
who built homesteads in the
plain, in mountains, by rivers that snaked,
unmapped,
except on their hearts and feet

the humans,
that made up
the raw & naked bond holders of
these United States:
bonded by character to the soil and
its curvaceous dancing topography
from
& of the center of our country,
but with eyes keen enough
to stretch from
coast to coast,
to see to shining seas

yes, true,
the grandson be he
to/of an almost mythical man,
and so took thus
his penned name,
the grandfather, a real person
of whom stories are yet told,
for no one can be sure
that & of what deeds
this spy did,
on hostile, unfamiliar,
continents,
but the photographic proofs,
I have seen…

His blood thickened by many infusions,
a cross cultural experiment,
happily not unique,
just **** rare

but enough of this;
read him,
let his
tongue take you to
the unfamiliar,
a literary Ansel Adams,
who never saw the plain(s) men & women,
unworthy of being forgotten but
forever being
celebrated

ask him for a potpourri of his short stories
of war, the bonds that men forge in combat,
tween the dead that still live on and
the living,
who have unreadable dead spots within,
they carry their dying glances,
their dying wishes,
and who are honored by him
in his continuing recollections

with walking stick in hand,
even if going outside
to “just” measure the snowy depths,
he leave markers and trailers,
for us to recall how to weep,
from love and pain,
from following generations of his
beautiful blonde
children who are poster models for
the traditional all american imagery,
but thriving within,
with  his
wanderlust, his mixed fiery visions,
and acting, singing out dramas
befitting their inherited
visions…

<>
here
I cease,
here
I weep,
at the impoverished words
scrivened in haste,
through tears of pleasure
intended to give honor
to this man,
who cedes me the pleasure of his existence,
and enhances my world
when he asks me,
unwittingly commissions!
a poem,
about
the human character,
who see himself unusually!
“as a potholder with a simple design”
and as usual,

I fail miserable…
maybe,
nick the outer edge of a bullseye target,
because the important words that he deserves,
I have not yet mentioned:

honor, loving kindness and friend.

perhaps he is correct,
but doesn’t grasp
that without simple men like him
to hold the *** upright and firm,
we all would be lesser or
even lost.


maybe,
now I am one
with
done
weeping, bereft and lessened
I, write, weep & wipe
read
https://hellopoetry.com/spysgrandson/

rinse and repeat,
and so it goes,
on and on and on
I've been aware
for many a year,
but cut off by him,
for crimes he accuses
for crimes undisclosed,
his silence is wider than
the great oceans,
with no means of passage.
till one day a word,
his brother uses a word
that makes no pretense,
that shocks, stuns, and
force!admits me to a reality,
I, knew but couldn't admit

schizophrenic.

here I am sundered speechless;
as a new form of sadness now
internally prevails, and I am
even more quiet than usual,
contemplative, they call it,
but
I recognize sad/mad in every one
of its manifold disguises, and wonder
just how much, own ingenious genes,
the paucityof my impoverished down~
bringing brought, bought, caught,
contributed to this loss, this onus,
this cross that has no answer to the
                                   *only question that matters,
                                     how much,
                                     am I the guilty party
                                                           ­              the disaster father
Nat Lipstadt Aug 20
armed and dangerous, 20 oz. of hot hot coffee, tablet on lap,
sitting on the deck overlooking the bay, and once again,
unusual for me, I am touched by the sanctity of the serenity
pervading, assuaging, by waves just loud enough to sway to,
the off/on chatter of the early bird's convocation of the morning's
blessing, have survived another night to greet greatly the outlines
of loveliness in the all~of~surroundings, which hacks my brain,
for I am by forty years of habitation more accustomed to a rough and tumble city boy trader, screamer of:
buy/sell/straddle/strangle/crush/****/mercilessness, no quarter,

no mindfulness in me naturally, until nature robs my tools of
denial,  and I smell the sanctity of fresh sheets laid on bed, the
warmed blood, vein coursing, suggesting just listen, listen,
the hot shower water eradicating the prior day's sinfulness,
the highly valued sensations of sensational emptiness, and
words drifting from the surround movie theater of a vista beloved,
coming for to fill and fulfill this always~in~mourning soul by the
overhauling of a crisp, cleansing day break

I, familiar with notions of perpetuity, and at best, conceptual, though
my mind permits a drift to the thoughtfulness that this place, this moment, this performance art  of spectacular breathing of another
dawning day, after thousands upon thousand of its predecessors,
and the possibility, not remote, but not promised, to anyone, just may
occur at least once more, and one must learn contentment from but
that idea, and sip the cooling dregs of coffee, the sounds of human
interference, car door slamming, the heaving breathing of morning joggers, the wind rising, the white caps snapping, precursors and
signs that natural perfection is never permanent, always in transition,
and a whispery smile crosses my cheeks, as a silly thought invades,

nature is so very human~like and yet, immortal…

composed between 6:30 and 8:30 am this day
Wed Aug 20 twenty twenty-five
Silver Beach
  Aug 20 Nat Lipstadt
Immortality
The rain dances
on my skin
I pause
and it feels
enough.
I'm feeling soooo good!!!!
cuz sometimes the tiniest moments turn into the best memories ;)
and yeah.... love the monsoon <3
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