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1.3k · Oct 2013
No Longer (10w)
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
No longer,
Am I,
Last man,
Unknowing
Twerking!
Miley thanking!
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
The young poetess^ writes:

Sitting on the edge of brilliance,
that cuts my youthful pride to shreds,
are the verbal shards of bards,
poets, beyond my experience.

Expelling their lifeblood,
I can, but only,
place my hands upon
their open wounds
murmuring hopeful platitudes,
praying that their blood spilled,
is not their excellence drained,
their wisdom wasted and stained!


The old hoary replies:

Wishful thirsty drinkers
from the cups of youth are we.

We 'presumed' ancient bards
have lived to regret the
burden of our accumulations,
the weightiness of our pages,
owning insights, steeped,
fermented, wine-to-vinegar,
spoiled by age, time-wasted.

Our words, product of visions
grown dim and simp,
under no duress,
we-eager confess!

Better poets were we,
when possessed of
blood hotter, skin smoother,
brow clearer, innocent of fear!

Your eager cuts run
zesty red and freely,
Ours, clotted ones,
anemic, yellowed from
the curse of the boundaries
of too much experience,
purchased pricey rules,
murderers of our uninhibited courage.

You cogitate with
passions unlined, unruled.
We shuffle, bemoan
our drizzling days,
waiting for relief,
and yet, rue
our inevitable conclusion.

We curse our fate, our slow dissolution.

You bless the opportunistic rising sun,
enervated by energies unbounded,
You animate for answers, solutions!

We sit caned and quiet, acidic,
damning Solomon and his caustic words -
There is nothing new under the sun.

Perhaps we know a word or two more than you.
Gladly we'd trade that for youthful hands
that pray, point and scribe, with the eagerness
that sets words upon paper of spirits enflamed!

Time, our master, has shred our writs to pieces,
yet, you young poetess, greet the morn, confident, saying
**today I will give birth to the first of many, masterpieces.
^The Young Poetess - Helen
1.3k · Jun 2013
Where/Why and the Who, I Am
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Where/Why and the Who,  I Am

I am a child of emigres,
Sojourners in a land that was not theirs,
Early risers, both long distance travelers,
- a traveling salesman who never forgot a customers name,
- a lover of Rembrandt, ceremonial Judaica, Broadway,
who shared her love for small stipends, traveling large distances.

They were transformational people, transformers of all they met.

Not great successes, yet well-reputed.

emphasize the small in smaller businessman,  
emphasize the part in part-time lecturer, writer,
emphasize the fullness of full time mother,

An odd couple, continentally divided,
Germany and Canada and born many years apart

Never understood the pairing, the mystery of "them,"
Different in so many ways, but inspirational to many in their own way,.

Never till just now,
got the light bulb turned on to what was their secret sauce,
the connectivity essence that wove their web
and I had a front row seat!

Story tellers both,
and if their biggest dreams went unrealized,
no matter, no matter as long as they could tell stories,
Entrancing the many Sabbath table guests, Sisterhoods,
Their Passover table included everyone on the block,
Long before 'regardless of faith, creed and color' was extant

Even interlopers, those who would beg a meal,
The professional beggars who knocked at ten pm
never went away empty handed,
Any crying child who crossed their path taken in, was restored,
Authors of good night stories that incorporated your daily escapades

Their was no commonality in their separate tales,
Their upbringings were as different as Jupiter and Mars,
But in the telling was their planetary passion released,

His ramrod posture, highlighted by eye twinkling charms,
Germanic, on Saturdays he wore a Homburg and striped pants.
Was oft disturbed by the pressures of the real world,
Never took me to Yankee Stadium.

But to this day, his children are approached by strangers,
Grown men and women now,
Who all say the same thing,
I knew your father.

The where and why of my life is still a mystery to me,
What I will leave behind that is worth cherishing may be  
Less than a zero sum game, but now I see that
Nature trumps nurture, for the story telling gene is
Strong in their offspring, inheritance, both sides.

What they gave me, all their children, was this:

The fearlessness to sign your name
to a public document like this poem,
to do small acts of public service kindness
and thousands of small private one for no thanks,
that lays yourself out, open to snide critique and ridicule,
Above all, tell stories.

The Where/Why of my parents lives'
explains mine somewhat,
or maybe even,
its entirety.  

Feb 2012,  
above the intersection of
Wyoming, Colorado and Utah
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
His Grandpa writes poetry in the tub.

(See the banner photo, please)

His Grandpa writes poetry in the tub,
Clearly a skill and ability
that has been passed
to the next generation.

For who could conceive successfully
Of writing something so exquisitely
Joyful as his smile,
A poem par excellence!

I am sure it is but a matter of
Days and weeks,
After the newbie begins to post
His œuvres écrites,
Here on HP,
That the debate will commence
Who is the better poet sweet?

No worries.
My conceit has already conceded.
1.3k · Nov 2013
Accumulations
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
July 2011

The arrogance of creation,
the need for accumulation,
tis a satisfaction that
new is a justification,
for anything
requiring us
to believe that:

I am worth this,
this is a thing
I deserve.  

This is mine,
therefore
I am more than human,
I am special.  

In Texas
the oilmen put their initials
upon the sides of a sleeve,
so when rolled up,
you'd still know that this man,
his name, these wells,
his landscaping tombstones,
are his labored gain
upon fruited plain.

All hail my work product,
its insights are worth money,
I know someone approves,    
cause my garage parking
ticket was validated.

We labor for sustenance,
labor for validity, in order
to collect, shed, replace,
accumulate ego,
glory or gain.

Some labor to survive.
This knowledge creates,
within a great sadness,
a hallowed, hollowed ache
that hurts, but does not
explain soully, this poem.  

Pins in a map, mark battle lines.  
Midnight tally, where are the
pins to be put at the
close of business this day?
Is this even the correct map?

I am so blessed in so many ways,
but compulsed by needs
I can't define,
to write this,

Part manifesto, part preamble,
part poem, part bill of rights.  
part green eggs and ham,
a scrambled product of
clotted plots, shower songs,  
salt and peppered by a
conscience that rambles on,
cause it
just don't speak the language of the day,
so moderne, it is called,

**shut up!
An oldie,  absent new insights...
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
a shredded bath mat, a Dead Sea salted bath, and a cold root beer
you want vino veritas vignettes,
color commentary, stray dog thoughts
time lapsed into a ****** single poem wood,
ha ha ha you can't handle the falsified lies
that constitute a sad man's disfigured truths

nobody cares that failure contretemps
inhabit every other thought,
his own sounds of silence sung repetitiously,
every severed second a new verse
coughed up and cursed,
emptying your verbal purse,
snorting with disgust
at your own claptrap vetted pomposity,
who gives a ****...

what I got is the ability
if you can call it that,
to cerebralize verbalize
every eye picture, inputted impulse,
knowing in the fullness of the unwell
that hash for breakfast ain't
suitable for mass consumption

a shredded bath mat,
a Dead Sea salted bath,
and a cold root beer
begat a poem of knowing nowing
a pretend poet meowing what he seen,
what he got temple pounding

Fogelberg sings Auld Lang Syne,
swig down the root beer,
thinking that is one freaking good song,
a life reviewed on the HP stage,

his lyrics modified
with only a tune he can hear

no one will like this,
as it should be,
don't like it me neither,
double negatives for rule busting emphasis,
the only point, ending circumscribed,
curcumsized  by children who don't love,
an ex wife hateful ***** man-enslaver,
this close || to losing your job,
*** is the new ***,
ain't it pc
to singalong
standing on a shredded bath mat,
fresh from a Dead Sea salted bath,
and having drunk a cold root beer,
Crosby Stills & Nash chiming in
teach the children well
their father's hell
will slowly go bye


and this is a poem

that I didn't write,
just reported the here and the there,
and the nothing in between
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2016
I well recall encouraging
in the early days,
sending messages to and from,
what was beyond and in between,
what lay between a woman's
wind tossed
heart
and her
breathless, winded,
words

these spaces,
so wonderfully human
and fine,
that we better
recognize
their existence
in ourselves,
through her words

motives purely
selfish, then, I guess,
words pearly,
gifted and given,
how we find the same language,
forges all
our contexts,
with a binding grace,
that elevates us all
beyond and un-between,
above
life's grays

I well recall the
rare, early days here,
when communitas was the
only guiding principle,
seldom was heard
a discouraging word,
how sharing each other's
innermost,
was
the most,
the finest,
expression of the ultimate humanity
inner,
that we choose to accept,
when wearing the
poetry cloak,
a notional emotional
grace
supra-national
in a shared world heritage site,
that no one poet could ever hope to obtain alone

I thank you
once more,
one more,
time and time again,
for the bloom
of your rose,
gifted to all we
itinerant dabblers,
in a world where
words and will,
literary and love,
transforms and re-forms
each other
with the constancy-frequency
glowing alliteration of
an early morn Florida sunrise

you are among the best of us,
we will brook
no,
this denying,
keep us together,
be the poetic glue,
the ganglia connecting us,
this ragtag band
of brothers
and
sisters,

after all this
are we,
not the lucky ones
who read, observe, feel,
and love the special aura of
the poetess

Ketoma Rose*
~~
with affection
nat
8:43am
Jan. 9, 2016
nyc
1.3k · Jan 2014
S.S.O.S.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
love love me do
the reply, of course,
feed me tea and oranges
that come all the way from china,
meet by the river,
meet me by the marketplace,
meet me at
the railway station,
we'll pretend to be
strangers in the same compartment,
long lost
combat buddies,
exchanging SOS's,
duelists hidden in plain site,
you'll say I like that tune,
the reply, of course,
it's a memory I haven't had yet,
it's sad and it's sweet,
someday, I'll know it complete,
when I wear an older women's clothes

puzzled,
he will try to be impressive,
trading rhymes for freedom,
verses of hearses mourning distance,
but there are no secrets
the eyes can keep,
or others cannot read,
and if freedom is longing,
then these children are free,
not at last, but to long.

They are the
children of the morning
leaning out of windows,
looking for love,
will they lean that way forever?

there are twenty eight new moons
in the month approaching.

there is a reason for every day,
plus one.

sand castles get washed away,
but
dreams of waves and days
yet to come,
continuous and connected,
the cells and words
that transverse water bodies
built from the long lasting kind of
defiance,
the kind that states as its premise:

love can and should,
perhaps even,
will,
conquer the spaces
between the letters of their
exchanges and trade
whole words for
actions.

but what do I know, little,
for I am but an observer,
a driftwood beetle from another ocean,
a linesman of a different kind,
who only know how to hum
on a long distance line,
a single tune,
she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,
an eavesdropper of their voices
that are neither muted,
nor common.
Apologies to Leonard Cohen, Bill Joel, The Beatles, Glen Campbell and Nat Lipstadt, and one or two others who are nameless, from whom I plagiarized shamelessly, for inspiration.

In popular usage, SOS became associated with such phrases as "save our ship", "save our souls" and "send out succour". These may be regarded as mnemonics, but SOS does not actually stand for anything and is not an abbreviation, acronym or initialism.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2014
"the sacred geometry of chance,
the hidden law
of a probable outcome"^

so many days,
composing years of a book
of empty days
unlined with lines,
white on white pages,
subtitled
no joyous fear
of the
life changing chance taking

wrenching a thing past,
mostly forgot,
except for periodic
ache stabbing

you can't recall
the choices
that you didn't take
that got you here,
nowhere

the road split,
highway and river path,
always chose
incorrectly,
now
so past the younger days
question the lack,
no courage flaw,

what does it matter
anymore,
safe until death,
death having arrived
early on

always bore right,
when left was
the soul
go go
the chance right
un un taken

wanted needed accidents,
trip wires,
incendiary kisses
that rebirth
you one more time,
over over to
alive confirm

but fears of
breaking pain,
made you a broken man

the angles of life
obtuse,
the planes of life
flat fuzzy,
irregular, smudged,
flatlined

days drone by silent,
not a single word
out loud uttered,
three hundred and sixty degrees,
volume measured and
zero summed value

every normal distribution
has a tail,
some fat, some skinny

even this lonely man
has a tale
where the
improbable
is the most unlikely
day of likelihood

his days
were numbered,
they were,
each one had a number...

that day arrived,
calendar unremarked and unremarkable,
when
the hidden law of a probable outcome
saved,
the sacred geometry of chance
was rightly computed,
his number chosen

don't know this man personal,
heard the story from a mate,
third mate third
so third hand,
cause the other two were busy
one, holding her hand
and the other occupado
writing this poem
-----------------------
A lyric from "Shape Of My Heart," as sung by Sting
0ct 18 2015
1.3k · Sep 2013
Minor Poet
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Once upon a time, on a site far far away, I would post and not a soul would comment, let alone read...

  
  
  
  
  
Minor poet,  
I am not even, but odd.  
  
A truth that slaps me unto tears.  
  
I seek your admiration,  
admonish your failure to
admonish me, fail me
unto tears.
  
Your academic hyper-pretensions
gods of overlording silence,
sentence condemnations of the
meagerness of mine deaf,
weary-worn entreaties.
  
Your ignorance and the  
vanity of my weaknesses,
pencil point punctuate my brain,  
holes filling up with the  
approbation of silence.

Tender unto me  
the Onomatopoeia of a concerto of boos,
barrels of bitter alliteratives
regretful rainwater,
send me curses of future inspiration.
immoderate me re my mediocrity!
  
Try try again, to charm thine eyes,  
populate your face with grimaced tears,
penetrate our mutuality  
with uncommon verse,
pricking the winter frosted windows
of a enmity and a common enemy.
  
Another day of self-persauding,
un-succeeding to accept that
successive minor failures,
are undeniably,
a success of sorts,
in a minor way.
  
A play on words,
as y'all play me.
  
Mr. Adminstrator, answer me!
Are we not all prisoners of Poetry?
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2015
Refractions of Vivid Emotions

This poem has a story. A few months ago, inspired by
the response from patty m to one of my poems (quoted below,)
I started this poem and never completed it. Stumbled upon it, and asked for permission to post, when I realized the why of the absence of her voice from here, the passing of her beloved, Joey.
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1195106/for-the-love-of-my-life/

It changed the poem.

for Patty M.
and Joey,
who I only knew through
the eyes that loved him


~~~

"dayummmm this is amazing.
I love your foreplay,
the wanton ******,
your words tipping words in
refractions of vivid emotions"

patty m

~~

she hits me
sweetly, unknowingly
with a best shot,
a four lined stanza
of expresso appreciation,
while
shhhhh,
I'm at work

everyone, observing,
looking at me,
cause I am instantly
floored

instant cognition,
emotional reverberation
disturb, perturb,
by her phantastic imagery
a language, a phraseology
"refractions of vivid emotions"

slow conniption,
her phrases,
never didactical,
cause my reactionary words
to refract my emotions,
light rays now reflecting,
breaking off pieces of me,
all scattered about the universe,
and I'm learning me a lesson good,
be careful what you read...

grab the cell only to hear:

"currently, none of
Humpty Dumpty's men
are currently available,
so please stay on the line...
you're caller number one,
expected wait time, well,
ha ha ha ha ha..."

fix me woman!
tape or glue,
won't adhere
where you words have cut me,
sutures cannot close caverns,
reverse magma flows,
can you,
is even possible
to bring me back to whole?

you've tapped some
deep watered notions,
split my atoms,
you have refracted me,
vividly

I have here
writ me
down

newborn needy,
requesting more of her words
to patch
up

and heal
me
~
so I search for a refresher course on
The Poetry of patty m,
and am twice trashed,
thrown twice over prostrate to the floor,
her voice gone quiet,
lost from loss,
sometimes loss makes makes the best silence,
sometimes loss make the best poetry

Oh, this wanton ******!

her news upends,
her words tipping words,
each word,
a companion to each tear shed,
and I cry copiously

a last poem, this time
of an endplay
absent he... absent foreplay

my pal Joey,
though our eyes never met,
a debt of gratitude owed,
for you refracted
from your soulmate

words that made this trying world
such a better place

I too,
at loss
how to say goodbye,
this imperfect poem chile of mine,
for I am inconsolable and ashamed
the overt poverty of my words
that offer but a weakened console

so with pride
I will borrow some
patty-words,
hoping that's ok

~~~

**Beware,

life is never fair,

a trap, a clap trap happenstance

leading me in rapid dance

perchance enhanced with vibrant hue

dispensed in advice I'll give to you;  

run don't walk with backward glance,

hide desire wrapped away

and concentrate on dragons to slay.

Rejoice in thoughts if once set free

would join the world

in unity,

but you and I

can never be,

this I say with certainty.  

then sigh. . .

         as I softly whisper

goodbye.
"For Patty and Joey: Refractions of Vivid Emotions"
Started April 2nd 2015,
Finished June 27, 2015
~~~
How it all began.

On May 12, 2014,
I wrote:

Patty M (Read the new poets here)


I have never been published
or won a prize,
except, yeah, yeah,
the one in the
Crackerjack box

but from that cheap plastic surprise,
much was learned even as a young boy

cull the chaff of life
from amidst the wheat

plant it well and deep,
then forget all about it,
except where,
t'was seeded

when eyes yellowed,
hair turned a color Disney repackaged as
frozen
white,
normally a gift of a hairdresser,
called mother time,
and your pink skin scaled smooth
now kin and kith of the kitchen grater,

then time is in,
cull your plantings

go back into that yards,
pull out the weeds,
uncovering what only time
can provide -

poetry planted and born from
the summary addition of thousands
of days of life,
well felt,
well received,
well recorded,
drawn from earth and water,
well lived

sometimes my nyc sidewalks uneven,
cause a toe snagging tripping,
this loss of balance,
adrenalin hot flashing,
similar to tripping upon a new poet

every time I say no mas,
I must choose tween
left or right,
one can
read or one can write,
but not
both

a voice on I stumble,
making me ever so foolish,
ever so humble,
ever so confused

so at 12:31am
at it again,
reaping what others have sowed

this woman by her own confess,
Trouble with a capital everything
T.R.O.U.B.L.E

only a grownup chile
writs me a poem
re crackers in her vegetable soup,
a naval battle akin to that of Midway,
that makes me crackers with delight!

saucy, that poetess
you better love her well,
she tells you outright
or she'll sell you, the reader out,
for the next one cruising along,
hence this poem, her good graces sought!

but to get certain memories I want,
but can't recall for I never had them,
she, for me doth record:

*Imaginary space within a dream
floats in a subconscious sea.
Our affection grows from
tremulous beginnings
its dramatic unfolding
vestige of the soul whispers
and lingers in twilight and ice

Shared breath,
in time our leisured rhythms
savored sweetly match kiss for kiss.

Words in parody drop,
one by one.
enmeshing me in rippling sorrow,
once again you've moved
just beyond my reach.*

curse the teachers and the genes
and my plain vanilla simp vocabulary,
that don't let me write like this,
but to my backyard I go,
where I cull what other's have planted better,
and harvest the new fruits of
crackerjack superior poets
1.3k · Nov 2024
A Simple Poem
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2024
~a companion to “A Flawless Poem” (1)
<>
time is truly never on your side,
but it lends an assist
with a continual grinding inexorable steady draining,
but that narrowing perspective, clarifies, opens eyes wider, and yes,
simplifies and prioritizes

there is an elegance in simplicity,
and write this as a reminder
to self,
that the beauty of
straightforward brevity,
with a honed tip
is likely the fastest path
to the sticking point,
and there, and here,
will I leave you
to it,
flawlessly
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
"Escribe con los pies, poeta de la calle"
"Write with your feet, poet of the street"


days of no inspiration,
nights of emptiness irritation,
labor strife strives to divide,
the desire, the greedy needy,
to unburden, touch lips to tablet,
unsatisfied, muse departed
for foreign lads in foreign lands,
where dark eyed ladies sing
put the load right right on me

where once I saw poetry,
now I see lessons of less,
trees blowing whipped me frenzied,
saw cappuccino foaming,
revisited, now, see but tired dancers,
de-auditioned, sent home to wonder,
poets with paper cuts but no bleeding,
so eager so desirous of conceiving, thinking,
will I ever......................................again

once, every step a poem,
every sidewalk crack,
a smack down of nuance,
eye recorded,
mind disordered,
run home, to dance
each vision into words,
gloria, glorious just to walk
my city streets

once upon a time,
a traffic light rainbow,
stopped n' go, was a word design,
demarcated visions of spun sugar,
bodegas sold me
magic beans by the pound,
masterminded into cups of delight,
treasury's bounty overflowed,
now, dregs drain, sink stained,
as are my writing utensils,
my ink stained, us-less, fingers

come visit me, unknown stranger,
let us exchange fluidity, barbs,
a contest of kissing, eye lashing
wit ands shared vision stashing,
and together, once more,
write with our feet,
while holding hands,
becoming once more
poets of the street.

Only, come quickly,
Oct 13th, 2012
1:36 pm
Tinkered with July 2nd, 2013
1.3k · May 2014
Plane Poetry: I go to Barber
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
Plane Poetry: I go to Barber*

aisle seat C 14,
an emergency exit row,
forced to solemnly swear
that for the extra legroom,
I will solemnly assist to open
the exit door, me first as my reward,
and keep my terrified screaming
below an elephant's trumpeting mating call

what hast this to do with a trip to Barber?

you Brits and Aussies, ever economical,
say went 'to hospital,'
leaving we Ameddicans
to dignify that august institution
as going to
The Hospital

Thus advised, be apprised, a
Nota Bene Benidictus:

I go to Barber,
Not
I go to the barber.

Samuel Barber,
Adagio for String Quartet, Barber

If unfamiliar with this piece,
you will recall it well
if "Apocalypse Now" registers at all

If not stop immediately,
return to Go,
start here,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g


be prepared to surrender your mortality,
listen and if effected,
if you find yourself on your knees
weeping, recalling the days of loss,
the early empires of hope,
the first kiss
of your firstborn
and unknowingly,
the last you gave
a loved one

if you have the courage to
be touched and impacted,
as I,
then welcome back to
right here where why...

I go to Barber
where violins soar me heavenwards,
where violins rip open sores long since scarred over,
I go to Barber
and float, eyes sky'd, as water
fills and departs my body simultaneously,
I go to Barber
to know that art can rise beyond,
that my weakened, wrecked human flesh, surpassable  
I go to Barber
to harmonize my disconcordia,
romantic lyricisize my waning days,
I go to Barber
to voluntary confess, admit my impoverishment,
to acknowledge that they, my days, yet are capable,
I go to Barber
to remember and to forget,
to mark and unmark time
I go to Barber
to be created and recreated,
to be destructed and despaired
I go to Barber
to acknowledge, as human, better is forever possible,
for of the god spark, yet unextinguished
I go to Barber
because there is no plane as fast as his slow adagio,
to transport me to the who I am and should yet be
Over the Carolina's? 3+ years later, came
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2250737/yet-another-violin-adagio/
1.3k · Nov 2014
Return Voyage
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
return voyage,
window seat,
trapped but nonetheless neat,
the views anticipated,
the route, north/south,
Eastern Seaboard, on the right,
don't need no GPS,
just a flotation-in-case device
under my **** cheeks

the local barge pilot
sent back to port,
now, the pilot~poetry commander  
in charge,
now piloting
this body, this ship,
over interstate global waters

my censorship overridden,
watching words flower,
in a daze of self-formation,
my input,
torn-out by force,
brain clamped,
seceded unwillingly from the
united state of the brain~body
of my republic

off to the far right
thru white haze,
the coastline, pointing,
an arrow head directing,
homeward bound

see further the water's edge,
wide but still bounded
by a somewhere-out-there horizon,
a glazed vanilla cloud bank
demarcating the end of the world,
for surely,
this cloud line thickened
over shadowed by
rainbow shades of only blue,
for this is where the cartoon sign is
perma-posted,
the one that appears always saying
The End!

beneath a complexity too much to explain,
lies a jigsaw puzzle incapable of ever being
disassembled and reassembled,
so fine are the parts and pieces,
of this land

roads like capillaries,
over and through fall earthy browns,
connecting mini homes,
an occasional clustering,
all set down scattershot,
randomness of guard-posts
over endless cultivations,
some linear, most not,
but all irregular,
as if the toy designer,
drew a landscape with
intent to cause or replicate
human madness at its tiniest,
its finest

periodically, the sea
invades the land, net casting,
subdividing naturally
the subdivisions human,
into islands and lines
of rivers so bent and curlicued,
they too,
cannot be conked,
their single hair straightened

where I am I so do not know,
guesses are hazardous,
so I make one,
Virginia perhaps?

Of course, I am incorrect.

from my perch in seat 12F,
I see a noon-day moon, halved,
observing me and vice versa,
sneaky uncensored notions
periodically sneak in,
causing poetic commotions

does the moon write like me
of what it sees,
or it is an inured sophisticate,
the daily astounding of earth's
mysteries innate, just commonplace,
a regular, serialized TV show?

below clouds cumulus, cumulative,
the kinds superhero's rest upon,
a white blanketed shelf of
fluff obscures the land,
the irony for those flying above this
delish
most relished,
blue skies above me,
a white wonder of
fuzzy cotton ball
underneath me,
which to those hapless earth creatures
is just
but,
another cloudy day

all is lost.

the captain speaks,
descent imminent,
control soon to be
returned to the
fool in seat 12F
the guy that did not write this poem,
but that other fool,
some dumb doppelgänger thinking,
a vista was his and
needed sharing

soon he will be concreted,
his flesh moved like a chess pawn
gliding in and on mass machines,
to move his essence to a specified
confinement cell,
from which
this essay will be reviewed,
wonderment,  who,
who riposted this travelogue
while his hands were tied and bound

for only an innocent can be so
wildly moved, wilderness bewildered,
natural emotions run ramped
from ends to endless,
only hopefuls see horizons,
and what lies above
cloudy grey ceilings,
while below,
in land of
asphalt green and work,
where bills due, obligations a must,
responsibilities that crush,
and so

his innocence is shelved,
wonder is a child's task,
not his,
his are chosen by
clock and calendar,
and flying is an excuse,
to get away,
not a place to get to...

and he wonders who wrote this eloquey,
while he observes rows of rows of
single family homes,
tall buildings and a Brooklyn Bridge,
a Central Park and even his home,
hard upon the East River,
while landing,
finally,
he espys

this place,
this isle,
Manhattan

it  is his brick and mortar,
the stuff of what and where
he lives,
like everyone else,


*on just another cloudy day
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/961704/a-prayerpoem-of-air-turbulence-and-thanksgiving/
A Prayer~Poem: Of Air, Turbulence and Thanksgiving
another Thanksgiving,
another voyage in the rareified
l'air au-dessus,
the air above,
next to, amidst
the satisfying but untouchable still,
the gray-white of the clouds of which we so oft
exclaim, and always fail,
to do justice by

this time the
turbulence
within
compulsion beating
compels this thanksgiving addition
to the compilation of airplane poems

the pointer finger tapping
out this journey's record,
a priori, gold leafed,
added, inscribed,
on the priory wall
of other journeys,
even before
it was conceptually written

the pointer finger tapping
upon your own chest,
calming the beating turbulence
ever present, a giving present
to me,
red wrapped

no whining!

I promise myself,
to promise you,
cause if this be,
the best poem
I ever write
(why not, could it not be this one?)

a small prayer shawl supplication,
shall not be marred,
with plaints and requests,
visions and incisions,
the beseeching distaste of
be and re quests,
this one simple,
even, and as always,
a tad odd like me

I am just an ordinary Joe,
flying over the middle,
the country, the real one,
no megabytes
amidst the real,
a few hundred other supplicants,
gaily glad on a mostly
head-phoned, protected silent passage,
over water, land, rivers, and family clans,
all engaged and presaged by
calendal X marked to make ,
a Mecca trip,
a Jerusalem western walled, holy mount,
which ironically is for me is
direction relative,
that bastion of flesh and sinners,
the city of tan men
and salt pillared women,
the City of Miami

whoa, real turbulence
makes the typos egregious, plentiful,
and the body sways,
left to rightly,
the poem is compulsed
urgent flown to completion
(amazing the shaking and the stirring,
to the point of locating the airbag)
perhaps, he thinks, someone in this
airy residence doe not want this prayer
finished

enough.

"The Prayer~Poem of Seat 25D"

Dear Deity of Whatever Name:

We humans peculiar to some places,
set aside a day, this week
for being superlative,
for looking inward and do
quiet summary addition,
employing organs,
as many as necessary,
noses and toeses external,
organs invisible internal,
a counting to make,
to number what we are,
isolating the better reasons,
why our existence justified

we do it in
foolish human ways,
as is our nature,
human and fools interchangeably
one and the same

So this one man counts
his words, ever careful,
ever plentiful,
and utters grace,
the Bene and the Blessing,
quiet inside,
his fellow airplane passengers
holy unawares,
that he is praying for them
simply saying this

May each one pause,
even for a second,
and collect the moment,
understanding,
that thankful is a
but half a notion,
incomplete unless
it is given
away to another,
by making it
selfless



in the air over the Georgia/Florida border
Seat 25c
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2020
once again the fog draws me in,
speaking fog soft,
“of me, of me, you must,”
so write-birthing,
I am mustered out,
permissioned,
commissioned,
so ordered.

This fog is personal, in your face, changing by
masking/unmasking street and bay, slow burning,
this one, revealing a tableau, like a theater curtain
rising to audience applause for the set before them,
so unexpected, eye-delighting, pleasuring perspective.

why should you care? what matters this to you?

your fog likely little different, in the Cascades,
Everest, the California coastline morning burning off,
not costing anyone’s life, the Blue Ridges smoking meats,
the Quatse River saying, follow me to the Alaska glaciers,
(in the Midwest, some states, use rivers as boundaries,
so they like the fog to keep the ‘neighbors’ on the other side),
the twin Ghats, or mourning steam rising from the Ganges,
or the Zambales Mountains, guarding Manila Bay entrance,

all mine, here too, so slow retreating, gifting a quiet, wider
bay vista tween two islands, one Long, one sheltered.

so wrong, it matters so, none beyond compare!

these mountain or river comparison, white or gray,
listen friend, look closer, see my face, my words
fogging your soul’s view, full of carryover affection,
so deep, they borrow West Virginia coal miner~heroes
to dig it out, a different kind of mining,
but,
nonetheless,
mine.

so it is here, I see your multi-colored faces like
light flickers shedding clarity to these troubled times,
troubled waters, saying here we are, we are!


we here, outside your window, on waters calming,
see us dancing, but it’s so hard for me spot you in
the mists, for mine eyes are clouded, misted over too,
glasses fogged now, **** these **** tears.
8:53am
Jun 18th
Year of the Mask
You know where...


Eugene O'Neill

“The fog was where I wanted to be. Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here. Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. I didn’t meet a soul. Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is. That’s what I wanted—to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself. Out beyond the harbor, where the road runs along the beach, I even lost the feeling of being on land. The fog and the sea seemed part of each other. It was like walking on the bottom of the sea. As if I had drowned long ago. As if I was the ghost belonging to the fog, and the fog was the ghost of the sea. It felt ****** peaceful to be nothing more than a ghost within a ghost.”


― Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night
1.3k · Feb 2015
My Night with Paul Simon
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
My Night With Paul Simon
(Posted originally on June 5, 2013)

On the night train, the red eye plane,
Flying home to NYCeeeeeeeeeeeee,
From the city of Los Angeleeeeeeez

Feeling flush, dropped some cash,
Got me a seat in extra large first class

Seat 2C, plenty of room for my toes,
To wiggle  to dance, lay down some poetry tracks,
pretending I'm a **** jive,
bad *** from the
make-believe west coast

A short guy, with fedora down low,
An older man,
looking about nine years older
than somebody I might know,
hiding his eyes @ 9pm
neath some excellent Raybans,
slip slides into 2D,
gives me a smile,
And says Hi, I'm Paul

I look once at his face and say,
Listen Rhymin' Simon,
I'd know you any place,
No worries, your secret,
with me is safe,
Cause dudes in row 2,
gottta stick together, be cool,
We're riding first class,
over the land of the free

What ya do for a living he asks,
A little of this and a little of that,
All of which, ain't no **** good at!
So I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
Can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse

He said that's cool,
I like to do that too.
Guitars on planes
drive passengers insane,
They take up too much
overhead compartment space,
I just scribble me some rhymes and
Let the music come
when I got two feet
on the ground in the city
we both come from.

Paul:  You got any stuff writ
on that yellow sheet,
or just pretty blue lines,
a big pad of nothing?

Dude: Man you may got diamonds
on the soles of your shoes,
But pay me some 'spect,  
you talking to the man who penned
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland
on Hello Poetry, gad ****!

Paul smiled and said
you can call me Al,
And if you feel like blowing some lines together,
We got five hours till we can see
the house that Ruth built.

Dude: Hit me with your best shot,
I'll show you what I got

Paul: And she said honey take me dancing
But they ended up by sleeping
In a doorway
By the bodegas and the lights on
Upper Broadway
Wearing diamonds on the soles of their shoes

Dude: Just cause the union of the  monkeys
in the Bronx Zoo done gone on strike,
Don't mean the lion ain't
still king of the hill
inside this New York city jail

Paul: And the sign said,
"The words of the prophets are written
on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered
in the sounds of silence

Dude: A home-grown poet.
I am
Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both,
Addict and dealer
A ****** poet
******

Paul: You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

Dude: Contact with the atmosphere
makes self pity die,
blue blood turn red,
the TNT tightness in my chest exploded
I got no place
to store these words,
the cops think I'm
some kind of
Terrorist

On and on thru the night,
Riffing, rapping, rambling, and spitting,
Ditties and darts, couplets and barbs,
Single words and elegies,
Free verse and a lot of fking curse words,
It was a moment, a time
that deserved
to be preserved,
and so this poem got writ

You may think this story apocryphal
Which is another way of saying untrue,
But I got his boarding pass and it is signed,
To this crazy poetry dude, long may you rasp,
And it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
And it has never since that day,
Left my grasp
why some call me

stillcrazynafteralltheseyears,
SNL provoked me to repost it
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2017
no matter when I go to sleep

no matter when I go to sleep,
my next door neighbors
wake me up,
arguing.

History and the Future,
the oddest couple,
always in opposition,
in a world of mutual armament.  

these unilateral siamese twins,
every dialectic ends the same:

one says I'll **** you,
then, they both start laughing.

(Eléa's #1 fav)

9/15/17 4:35am

<•>

mark me as safe

though the namelessly hurricane is never ending,
the roof, a sacrifice in the wind's temple,
letting millions of naked eyes be persecution witnesses,
marking me as safe, but not saved,
surviving, the destruction, a beautiful curse,
this violent universe.

9/15/17
4:30am
(gifted to Joel & Kelly Rose))

<•>

address me with no assumptions

for we will provide the facts,
with liberty and justice,
we will fill in the redacted parts
in the bill of particulars,
of the indictments signed namelessly,
only as the
The State's Attorney,
woo hoo,
We Who Always Win,
Cause We Make the Rules

9/8/17 9:31am

<•>

21801BB705 VDAB7

given this, the key,
the rulers announced thanks,
but not in anyway a necessite,
we will just smash the locks
and burn your personal history down,
until now it has JUST been whiteout corrected,
you're welcome!

9/14/17
6:37am
(gifted to Evan Crow)

<•>

don't major in the minors

don't major in the minors,
classicism is a double entendre,
you don't understand,
but you will,
when you study headless statues
in a museum
come back to life,
do not act surprised.

progress is not an iPhone,
it's taking a long bathroom break
in the mind.

(Graces's fav)

9/10/17. 5:37am

<•>

All the old battles are new again

All the old battles are new again.
every old poem is but a pretense, a new work refreshed.
cutting edges dull knives, easily resharpened by new use,
fresh excuses.
stale words that stick humans, come to life,
as any and all of your favo-rite
army of **(fill in the blank)

  _ism's,
marching in the name of good riddance
of the  disloyal opposition.

nothing new under the sun,
history books predict the future.

(Eléa's #2 fav)

9/15/17 3:55am
SY: even when i write shorties, they come in multiples; get paid by the word, indeed!
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
You ask me how I find the time,
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition

I see a toddler swaying, see him to disaster lurching,
Somehow avoided with last second seer-like swerving,
Ten times in a ten foot walk across a patio,
My eyes code red at the incredible risk/reward ratio,
It is nature at it most incredible, miraculous, ordinariness

A young girl of ten wears a pocketbook across her forearm,
In the style of an elderly woman, as she plays with Barbie,
Tho her body immature, her psyche, says note my
Iconology, her accoutrement, texts a message subtly,
I am preteen, I am near woman, treat me accordingly

Dueling iPads in bed is a poem in my head,
rhymes accurate of screen reflections of an
X factor that stimulates my cerebral cortex.
Verbal ointment that I posses can't fix a flat tire,
but sets me up for a personal review, self awareness
Gone mad and with finger, on gas station floor,
In the grime, words are realized/written concretely,
what my heart speaks freely

Within each day, miracles present themselves,
Gauntlets thrown, note them well and be justified,
Visions, external to my physical self,
Yet product of internal chemical reactions
That blow through my veins, swirling,
Word leaves, on a November weekend,
Windswept from a thousand directions,

So you ask me how I find the time,
The question proper be amended,
How do the times find me,
How do I know them,
And why, do I share them
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
First poem of the Day: Yes Ma'am!

The discussion that follows is pertinent,
If you are over a certain age limit,
Whereby, having survived, you are entitled
To certain discounts that shall remain nameless

(Still reading? cool)

Having recently entered said stratosphere,
I became painfully aware,
There is no precision tool created that
A man can call his woman in public
Without setting off fiery eyebrow raising
  
Let's state the facts:
She gorgeous, she's hot,
She goes tango dancing after 10 PM
With bad boys from Argentina and the Ukraine

But that is not the problem, for she loves
Her poet's nookery, like he adores her cookery

No, my issue is more conventional,
Indeed, not boundary breaking sensational,
It is ticklishly delicious,
I don't know how to introduce her in public,
Or in a quaint phrase, in polite company

She has rejected
Lover
GF
Mi amore
Woman,
Companion

Hardly indiscreet and something the world has quite accepted,
Tho she dances nightly, on this particular dilemma,
She provides no guidance, dancing here too,
All around the problem

One day she intro'd me as her fav poet,
To which I acknowledged by addressing her as
My number one fan,
Which seems to have stuck,
so I acknowledge her as such,
And always add a polite, respectful, winking,
Yes ma'am!
Well so much for getting serious...
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
if you want to make a mark on the world,
remove the marks placed upon thyself,
by thyself,
thus skilled,
then erase others.

be an eraser,
then
a bother-in-arms.

no typo,
bother the world
by your
arms,
your reach around,
arms extended.

freedom begins when first seeing the greater good.

making goodness greater,
frees oneself to free the others,
all the days of your life.

mark them how you free them well,
being a eraser,
then a re~marker
upon each other.

he who erases the marks of others,
makes his mark upon the world non-pareil.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2020
Eden’s Weeds (Andrew Crawford)


“seed buried somewhere six feet deep beneath dry bones
and brittle debris, lost in all of eden's weeds” Andrew Crawford

<><>><>
you tripped exploring mine own eden's weeds,
more precisely, tripped me up, your poring over,
my one hundred year old poems, flawed, by
many spilled tears, aged old, for and over them,
and now, once again, je vous réponds s'il vous plait

this poem planned, title chosen, well before you
exercised my memories, disinterring by your fingers,
(surprise!} but the content you also now provided,
@ ten to midnight, your privacy invasion, a very fine
sleep deprivation excuse to compose one more time

who knows, perhaps this next one could be ”flawless”^
not likely though, flawless never found amidst the weeds
though in Eden chances are, chances are, not impossible,
for that’s the place where slow, simple songs get replayed,
celebrating lovers of life, its pleasant harmonies, go figure

over, over again, like a rolling stone, until friction finally wins,
yes ”my own chosen speed”^ is a-slowing, direction home, finally,
the mosses occluding new words and combinations, concealed,
like a moss, got no roots, birthed by shedding spores airborne,
my new old poems, plucked from air, words passing by in phrases

your phrase,
eden’s weeds,
hit my irises,
insisting it deserved,
instant cognition,
two words,
demanding special education,
accolade recognition,
perhaps if I
stick around,
for a few more poems,
I’ll learn to write
as beautiful as you.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2017
15th,
the time of the month
when a master card american expresses a visa reminder,
hey your passport gonna get cxld!

don't leave town; you got debts due from living life
to the fullest or the lesser, the black & white soda of
mixed up scrapings and dreaming disney fantasias

7 decades is a whole lot of 15th's
many rent/mortgage notices due,
'postage not included' notices,
(in case you were thinking of cutting a
first class stamp size
corner)

the worst word rent, rents,
and not only on the 15th,
smiling - got to rent me a poem someday,
what is the cost, guessing I'll find out on the 15th next

all the time,
lip limp from weekend to the next Friday,
just just making it through, barely,
month to the month, year to tear, dear and dare
15th to the 15th, teenth to teenth
and what is in betweenth

fully forecast a final call, last call will come on a 15th,
made sure there will be enough left to cover the outstandings,

another outstanding word I love

just enough left to mail me and my ritings,
take care of the responsibles, the non-disposables,
my last months rent, covered, my rep intact,
but no more, no one last yellow taxi ride

  the postage to return me
to my next forwarding address,
and even the cost of this poem,
got it covered





3:23am 8/15/17
1.3k · Oct 2013
Were you born in '98?
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
Were you born in '98?

so was I.
let's do the maths.
that makes you fifteen,
even sweet sixteen.

Methuselah, not my name.
not even my middle fame, unclaimed.

Course meaning clear!

Lived a long time coming,
Picked up yesterday my three year old boy,
Third of a third of a third of a third
Of a half of me,
Who I only see once a year,
And we fell in love once again,
all over as is our style,
Annually, annuellement.

Went to the cemetery
Go once a year,
Where they have buried
The lineage.

On the first,
From near two millennium ago,
And upon the each of and the
every one of his descendants,
Psalm 37:37.

They wrote
upon their markers
David's words

לז  שְׁמָר-תָּם, וּרְאֵה יָשָׁר:    כִּי-אַחֲרִית לְאִישׁ שָׁלוֹם. 37          
  Mark the man of integrity,
  and behold the upright;
  for there is a future for
  the man of peace.

An enticing blessing, and curse,
A passed down warning goal.

What's this got to do me,
I got love, poetry, and
French, geometry, and history,
And cute boys on Facebook to study!

Plenty.
You were once three.
You will be someday
Not just fifteen, sixteen, but
Three hundred and fifteen
Just like me.

Your cells will be embedded in
Others,
So take care mr and miss 1998,
On that banner, wrapped
across your chest,
If you win the contest
Of a good life,
Better write down something smart
That is worth living for,
On the palm of you hand.
Tattoo it where you will see it
Everyday, and in your mind
Inescapable.

Then press it upon the skin
Of that three year baby boy,
For that is what this has to do with
You.
All true, gladly show the where
After I am with them
1.3k · Nov 2013
Gonna die broke
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Gonna die broke.

Angst, not this man
That be his plan.
My treat.
Feed the world.
That be the word.

Why eat home tonite?

Get on a plane,
Be the plan.
Feed the world
Specifically,
You and me,
In NYC.

Brasserie,
Patisserie
Hot Dog Cart
Wine Bar
Chinese
Thai
Felafel
Haute Cuisine,
Street steak,
Lean and mean.

Pizza in between
All meals
With white cloth napkins,
Real silverware.

Need your help
To execute
The best laid plan.

But one thing you
You
Need to do,
Need to due.

Bring Milk Duds
For desert.

When the account says zero,
Some might say you're a hero,
Even tho can't afford a casket,
(Maybe just a picnic basket?)
I will be buried with taste!

The taste of you and NYC
Upon his smacking lips,
Une bonne mémoire,
C'est tout, au revoir!
See banner photo.
1.3k · Jul 2013
Find Your Word!
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Elect, select and write it down!
Stare at it for 60 seconds, no more,
Then write the first thing that comes along!

It matters not if it is
Inferning or just churning,
Cold or hot,
Matters not to anyone
On this site,
Even if it is explicitly ***** (alriiiiiight!)

Hell, matters not
Even if it is absent from the
Dictionary's stock!

Matters not
If it is two or letters twelve,
**! **! **! reserved for Santa Claus,
Rambunctious, reserved for his Elves!

Put, pick a word and work it well,
In fact, give it hell!
Squeeze it, free it, and when you're done,
Just leave it the fk alone.

Milk it for all the silk
In it,
And if its only cotton,
Turn it in to cotton candy,
Which rhymes with dandy,
But I refuse to use that rhyme,
But thinking about using randy!

Put, walk, nay, run
That word, now single,
But soon to be married,
Upon whatever you write,
Chew it up and spit it out
After, but a solitary bite.

Taste it,
Run the  tongue's buds upon it,
Make it a flavorful word,
Then fool us with the saddest funeral dirge!

Vanilla passed away today,
The Chocolates, mourning, both,  dark and white,
By celebrating  and laughing long into the night...


This will not be the hardest poem I e're wrote,
But if there is no inspiration
For you to smote,
And armpits refuse to provide perspiration,
To source juices for a new creation,
Try this trick,
I promise you
No one will lick your ice cream cone,
Nor mistake you for Leonard Cohen,
But when you are done,
You will be High Priest of
Hello Poetry for the rest of the day!
The high priest of Israel in the Temple was the called the Cohen Gadol.


https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl;=en&q;=cohen+gadol&spell;=1&sa;=X&ei;=WwvbUeTQGLLJ4APy9ID4Ag&ved;=0CCwQBSgA
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Is an old poem of mine that I tender to you to turn your mind away for just, even just, a few minutes from the sadness and the depression that I read about in poem after poem.  I am an old man whose sighs are recorded in the lines on his hands.  It will be better. You will be loved.
Be brave.


Lead to Gold, Philosopher to Poets

When the philosophers abandoned
castle turrets for ivory towers,
lost was the secret of
I and thou,
of turning lead to gold,
but these cagey, canny scholars in new residences,
who traded
perspicacity for pensions,
before they left,
they tasked to the poets,
a singular task,
cloaking them in a life long responsibility
charging them as follows:

Be the harpooners of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhaposdy,
exhort the loopy
to light candles of illusions,
canonize the nursing mothers to deliver us
the kinder Ishmael's who will revel,
lead us with warmth and apprehension,
with the strength of sinews
fixed and flexible,
we will believe and
they will teach the rest of us
that the first commandment
is to empathize.

**with clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
the comedy of our conscience,
our free to see,
the peep show of us,
explicate and deconstruct
our unexamined lives,
help us to extend the boundaries,
record the voyages of our timepieces,
declare us all free and victors,
file away the chains of language
and declare us all poets
Write of your pain, but see thru it and observe that you are tasked to empathize and see yourself free and victorious.  Stop the clock watching, close your eyes and smile, the old poets of the world are watching over you. now go to sleep!
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2017
she,
a salty say
right direct into my fine cut
lines,
to wound and to love,

how ya doing,
what's new,

slipping in a well hid second base pickoff move,
seeing anybody?

you know me too well,
don't have the courage  
to lie or ask you the same
being an-in-love-no-more liar,
I turn around to reveal
that I'm now just a silent salt pillar gazing back,
my salty tears just adding,
replenishing my body's mass
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2015
It's 5:00 pm,
any poems to share?

my watchwoman, Seamless Siri,
my conscientious conscience,
gives said inquiry daily,
at the precise heure de rigeur,
with the perfection of a
mechanized soul attending to her
imperfect human programmer

poetry, a sometime thing,
comes when it comes,
what the query,
my godmother faerie,
truly seeks knowledge of is
something she cannot measure,
like my counted steps and distances travelled,
what this overseer mine truly seeks to know


why am I here?*

Here. On this earth.  On this site.

have you any new written proofs,
your existence on this day to justify,
were your failings and flailings,
surpassed by any acts of kindness,
this new, freshest penmanship, a reflection,
an accounting of grace and worth,
blogged and logged here
as if only I had
one day,
one poem
left...

at tabulation time, the incisor bites,
are you juiced or morbid,
this, your essayed life,
are the words,
deemed shareable,
is their value,
calculable palpable?

Siri inquires but you are jury

at the late afternoon
trial by fire,
wherein my singed bunt offerings
are produced
at the
wake of when,
my nom I do append

am I deserving
of your recompense
of one more day,
one more poem?*


~~for Harlon~~
5:13 pm
November 21, 2015
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
always woke up with nothing to say to her
not a thing.

we slept in rooms separate,
but she would bust in on me,
occasionally, to have an occasion,
never knocking, just door pounding,
just to annoy, just to see
if I still cared, hoping to revoke
what passed for pseudo-serenity.

some times entireties
would pass
before you had the energies
to swing
your legs over the
side of the day~bed,
conceding, white flag surrendering,
losing the commencing-avoidance of
the start-of-the-day battle of
pseudo-existence.

hoping against hope
you don't meet,
hoping against hope
she doesn't say accidentally,
good morning.

so you don't have to
Lincoln~Douglas debate,
aerate, concentrate, orate,
how to answer without bitterness
intended to maim.

knowing you could not e'er possess
a good morning, day, night,
by definition, by ruling of the
gods in charge of never.

sometimes you made it out
of the apartment that had
no ingress,
only egress,
happy happy no converse.

used to go to a Barnes & Noble,
get a refillable endless Starbucks,
from open to closing.
read all day, sitting with strangers,
till my **** hurt so bad,
didn't think I could walk again.

now and then,
smiled at the ladies,
tho nothing could come of it,
nothing ever did.

she never asked me
where I egressed too.
didn't care, that was better
for sanitizing my pseudo-sanity.

came home cautiously,
door opening silently
in case I was home prematurely,
she still there.

sometimes you wake up with nothing to say
to yourself.
that is even worse,
cause the meaning clear,
breaking point is near.

have a picture of me from those days.
a cellphone photo I took myself,
of course.
serious, bearded, short haired,
red eyed, unfiltered.

Sometimes I think I will banner it,
so you can tap into a part of me
that words just cannot do injustice to,
more than was already done.

here, while composing,
I fell asleep.
tired?

maybe.  maybe,
sometimes you just don't want to remember.
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
These Lines:
etched and edged,
well-distinct and ill-defining,
clarifying and disguising,
multifarious characters,
multivariate natures.
nefarious and courageous.

thickened thinnings,
straightforward curvings,
appointed and unanointed,
given, taken, and then
redrawn, misshapen.

both boundary and limitations,
goal reached, unending destinations,
a human's realm of indefinite definitions,
These Lines:
mappings of his domain,
recordings of his failings.

my great divide,
testimonies to my endings,
visual markers of
virtuous past successes,
virtual future failures invadings.

How can they be both simultaneous?

These Lines:
double etched and sword edged,
outbound-triumphant, defending,
inbound-plaintive, wailing,
both an indefensible and defensive blade,
cutting, both ways.

*PostScript:
The twenty eight of the month of Feb-rue-ary,
clear enough ending to the muddiest, contrary,
turgid month of the ifs of a man's life.
4:30am on that day, the tastings of my archaic bourn
1.3k · Nov 2013
don't ask permission
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
don't ask permission
to make a fool of myself,
tell you publicly
what my near, dear ones
have no clue.

my torment,
the headache-constant,
imperial and impervious
to poetry, pills, therapy,
caring words
don't pay the bills.

a breadwinner has a job.
feed the family.
protect and serve.

do it well.
because there is
no acceptable excuse.

am afraid.
when was supposed
to be easing on down,
am slipping under.

have come so far.
my soul is old.
my tired is w/o definition,
in the legs, knotted shoulders,
aging faster than
hungers, fingers, can write.

warped,
reversal of causality,
the older he gets,
the more mouths to feed.

man, it is tough,
this unexpected,
for me,
already,
a nine lives survivor.

can he do it
one mo' time
on borrowed lives,
again?

it is simply amazing.
my eyes,
constantly tearing,
nobody notices.

Do not!
like this poem,
don't.
hate weak,
have been strong
so long.
but this well,
just got dregs left,
drudgery dregs ain't potable,
worthy of your drinking.

need nothing,
for myself, need nothing.
there's not a single
object on this planet
wanted to posses
or worse,
be
possessed by.

more cannot say.
jutting chin,
stomach ****** in.
nothing gonna
change my world.

monday,
wrestle with strife once again.
today, on the sabbath,
deny reality.

Do not!
like this poem,
don't.
hate weak,
have been strong so long.

when hearing Shakespeare
my own voice, stilled,
it's poverty exposed,
am ashamed
of every word
ever wrote.

hush me not,
for tis true,
yet write on for
an audience of one,
on but one subject,
a subject, a life,
mine,
still unmastered,
even after
decades of trying.
Begun Sept. 5th, completed 11/23/13
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2020
things she doesn’t ask...

are they things,
she doesn’t know to ask,
or
are they things
to which,
she does not want to know
the answers.

my not knowing the answer to this puzzle,
drives me to distraction, her Mona Lisa smile,
accompanied by her noncommittal “whatever,”
hiding the answer, nearly leads me over a blurting edge,
but for my inevitable retreat, for the true question,
has a  truer answer, that comes as well, 
in question form.  

Why do I,


or do I,

want to know?
winter 2020
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2016
I recently came across my first journal of poetry,
written in my early forties.  A tumultous time in my life, I kept a hand-written journal and the poems flowed.  It began on a (recovery) escape~vacation to Mykonos and many other Greek islands.  Unable to sail, (stuck on Mykonos by fierce winds that grounded even super tankers),  I wrote to pass the time.   Even then, I dated my poems, noting when & where the poem was composed. Themes were employed, that twenty years later, reappear (to my surprise) frequently, in my poems of today (by example, "The Wind of Correction").  Even then, I wrote long, way too long poems, some good and some awful ones. Judge this, one not too harshly, judge it as a first endeavor, simplistic, crude and heartfelt.

What seems to have triggered poetry to be the outlet for my emotional upset, as a father of young children, in the midst of a bitter divorce, was a Greek poet, Cavafy,  that I must have stumbled on during my visit
and a particular poem he wrote in 1908.  I include it the notes in shock and awe, for it unconsciously informed my "style" and seemingly, or unseemingly, still does.


The Geometery of Greece
(His Very First Poem)

~~~

the geometry of Greece
is the perfect intersection
of clear blue sky,
right-angled to azure waters,
with puffs of white clouds
to mark off distances

only
the wind is non-linear,
like feelings,
the wind,
it washes and caresses you,
envelopes and wraps you in
its totality

what it all means is this:

all that I know,
all that I love,
have, got and given,
is leaking and pouring and leaking
from the rectangular shape
what I
now know as,
now call,
my previous life

so now,
the winds of my true self
direct me on a course
that can be plotted
but one day,
one island ahead

no long range planning
on the sailing waters of Greek isles,
the wind does not permit it

the perfect line of the horizon
is not anymore a limiting
boundary

rather,  
the sourcing place from which
the wind comes,
that buffets,
to and fro
throws,
carries me forward,
and ever backwards too

this horizon line
that I sail towards,
neither marks nor closes in,
it is always there,
to be sailed to,
ever anew,
to renew

~~~

August 6, 1993
Noon
the Isle of Mykonos
As Much As You Can
by C. P. Cavafy

1908

And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.
1.3k · Feb 2014
Poet In Trouble
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
See  please, if you have not yet,
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/594328/this-filled-a-need-i-had-no-name-for/
                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

got myself in trouble,
found me a problem
all of my own making/creating,
all my own to solve,
all by my lonesome

put/found myself
in a room with no exit at all,
only bookshelves upon the wall


with bookshelves full of
great poets who when they wrote,
they filled a need that had no name

said to myself,
how am I going to
get out of here,
or
find a space for me on that bookshelf?
or both?

this new standard, self-imposed,
discovering, exposing, sensing,
filling the aches and hopes
with a new satisfaction

it occurs me this is the precise atomic second
that if, can place the keystone,
then, can build the edifice,
floor by floor,
room by room,
poem by poem

so, trapped in this electronic/platonic youthful room,
a room with too many words,
but none mine,
my problem begins

so I have begun to solve my own one-problem,
alpha bet, word, line, stanza, poem,
one at a time

and never post what never meets the highest
standard of mine own creation,
fulfill
*the need you did not know needs filling
I have drowned in the geyser up, the waterfall down of too many poems.  I have decided to post less, but hopefully better.  I will read more but say less.  
I will be among those anonymous reads,
of whom, oft wondered,
who are you, you, who read and move on
with a nary a moment to comment or like, or dislike?
Look for my messages tho, for via stealth technology, I will be present here.

To write special, and leave special on the table, my goal now.
From here on, I write for me and to the highest standard, expecting to fail, hoping to succeed.
Knowing this:
I define success when I put the pen down,
having left breath ,tears, a poet's and a child's dream, and sweet perfume
as the residue.  Those of you, the readers, who come along, treasured but fewer, share my meal and leave the table satisfied and tell me too,
that you too write to me,
you will fill a need that we did not know needed filling,
One poem at a time.



*“Get yourself in trouble. If you get yourself in trouble, you don't have the answers. And if you don't have the answers, your solution will more likely be personal because no one else's solutions will seem appropriate. You'll have to come up with your own.”

"society is much too problem-solving oriented. It is far more interesting to [participate in] ‘problem creation’ … You know, ask yourself an interesting enough question and your attempt to find a tailor-made solution to that question will push you to a place where, pretty soon, you’ll find yourself all by your lonesome — which I think is a more interesting place to be."*

― Chuck Close*
1.3k · Apr 2014
Watt's a Bucket List?
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
Bucket List


By Harriet-Tecumsah Watt

What's left when it's done
No more to cross off with glee
No more to choose from


http://hellopoetry.com/poem/648367/bucket-list
~~~~~~~
never write angry,
wise counsel for most,
but not this holy *******
poet~person

I am your bucket,
I am on your list,
or I better be,
and don't be thinking,
my dearest poetess,
that you are all done,
till we meet in the park,
***-freezing,
beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

You, my Hamlet,
always questioning and
annoyingly annoying
keeping me ego-honest,
Ergo
you are
on my
the toppiest ten of my numerous
bucket list
of lists,
and I ain't crossing you off,
no way, no how.

Word-slapping your face,
frustrated and infuriated,
Watt is left for needy me
in a world with no
rhymeslut*

broke, busted, disgusted,
life can't  be trusted,
so take your disruptive crying poetry,
bring to me in NYC,
and I'll take you to poetry slams,
tango parties, a real Chinatown,
blow smoke up your nose, Waltz step on your toes,
drink with you in Central Park at five am,
visit half a dozen museums,
take you to the ballet,
and then you can maybe,
cross a few to-do's
off of our mutual
intersections.

write poem lines together alternately,
hell, even post-modern alternatively,
if that is watt it takes to slap the
Most Uncommon Sensibity
into a woman asking an
A+ stupid question

you are one of gods most
hauntingly lovely gifts
to me,
and I ain't giving you back,
NFW

No-red-me-likey-heart* for
Watt's "I'm All Done Bucket List" poem,
just me bucking the trend,
just a lightening bolt to send
up your sorry-for-me ***,
and a private, tender,
missive.

I'll come to you if you feeling blue,
but
get this straight my Indian chief-girl,
no matter where or when,
you better have yourself
Sequoia tree hugging me,
list unchecked,
and not till then
can we toss,
our lists,
in the trash bucket
they belong in.

Am I clear?
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Why Do You Want To Have *** With Me?

Version One
Jul 7, 2013

Answer:
Because your poems please me.
And
I want to write one
too.

Version Two
Jan 11, 2014

Answer:
To perfect my poetry,
I need to learn
New words
frequently.
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
Why I Kissed Your Glasses (A Love Poem)

I went to kiss your forehead
missed my turn off,
instead, connected,
with a seeing-eye tortoise
made of plastic.

Went to kiss your toes,
but the stunning purple hue that
decorated your toenails
shocked me into limp rigidity,
in-articulation, inactivity

Kissed your lips tenderly, longingly,
but Coco's formulation haunted me the whole day,
Her interference needed, but let it be noted accordingly,
It was you I loved, not her!

I kissed your fingertips so delicately,
with tenderness great,
enjoyed a vigorous nibble,
as your compensation,
received a poke in the eye,
accidentally, of course. (Right?)

Could go on and on,
but decorum forbids further revelations,
worth noting, but not composing,
still laughing at my just rewards,
the bruises resulting from my failed escapades!

All I can say is
En Garde!
I will be coming back soon enough.
because you are my best poem,
and the there will always be another stanza needed...

10:00 AM
Shelter Island
Memorial Day Weekend 2013
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
In 2008,
I lay upon the floor,  
disabled,
pain hobbled,
my back
unable to properly space
the Lego discs
that keep a man
upright


king and absolute ruler,
was I
of the carpet.
in the little blue room
off the kitchen,
where solace
in loneliness,
was my little
heaven in hell.

It was my blue period,
When you decided to leave
And try to take everything
But hang around our apartment
to practice, practice
making misery your profession.

It was the same
little blue room,
years before
I ran to,
for a few hours rest
after tending to you,
nursing your cancer needs,
fetching, most fetching,
I fetched and fluffed,
shopped and tended,
and comforted,
after working all day.

Now three years on,
on the floor
of the same little blue room,
unable to move,
weakly, wounded,
brokebacked,
I was a soldier,
in a deep trench,
almost paralyzed,
caught tween desk and bed
called your name,
even though there was
nothing you could have done.

Role reversal,
years later,
roll reversal,
roll from the bed to the floor,
fallen, immobilized,
I rued
the morning light,
for men must work and
women must weep,
work and weep,
this morning,
I was responsible for both.

I called you name repeatedly,
in a peculiar voice, agreed,
the voice of wrack and ruination,
after hearing you slippers
shuffle a two step at 2 Am,
outside the little blue room,
oh for many a minute,
in the middle of the night,
calling, calling
perhaps, you would help
me to rise,
oh yes,
just to help me stand,
on my bent back,
my own legs

Somehow one finds a way,
is it not always that way?

Later, I asked.

Did you hear me call you name
in the middle of the night?

Oh yes.
But your voice sounded so weird,
I would not go in.

Years later, I asked again.

Just get over it,
you replied,
matter of factly.

Today, years later,
I ask again,
right now, right here,
I ask
but a different question.

Do you think I am over it now?

Oct 15th 2011
self-explanatory. "A cold and broken hallelujah."
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
first read
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/life-circles/#after-reading
After-reading
including the notes  and the  exchange in the comments section. Then begin to read the words below, for they are derivative thereof.
Also
ponder this quote from a play by Richard Greenberg.
''I speak when I have something to say. When I have nothing to say, I write.''


the contriving is all that remains,
so,
with a bow and a great flourish,
my hat, right-handed swooping,
grazing my knee,
I tender my amazement at what the
lives of all these contrivers,
bring me each day.

Long Live All Poets!

the contortionists, the evolutionists,
hard working smithies, risers with dawn,
selectors, all day long tasters,
all night long scene stealers,
of each word that parses their
five senses,
even the contrivers,
need, deserve,
get their day in court.

you know the real poets
by their every day
discourses,
for your subconscious
rhymes their every response,
even their *thank you's
and yes, please,
please all nearby,
like a thanksgiving prayer
spent, sent heavenwards ,
each word
lifted up skyward, alongside the hearts
that move to hop on, join their
poetic alephs and bets.

the haiku masters who
breath lifetimes into a moment,
the balladeers who ferment
tales unseen but conjure them
as forever keeps of yes! I was there,
the sonneteers, the lyricists,
so powerful these wizards place their
visions in our throats to hum when hearing
spoke a single one, a phrase, of their words

the contriving.
how I adore that word
as if the work was
the easy part,
and the insighting,
the feeling,
the noticing,
the tugging at the heart was
the easy art.

oh lord forgive me I write too much,
see beyond what I see,
hear the street snatches of conversation
and drip those reformatted words from mine eyes,

is that your blessing or your curse?

let me be just a contriver,
a poet who
follows form and function,
and gets an A from his English Lit. professor,
acknowledging expertise
at contriving
per poetic custom acceptable

whY did you insert this knowing,
this sensory malfunctioning that cusses
lest I not transform the everyday of the
everysay into verses and stanzas.

Reimer, Reimer, beloved scoundrel and schemer,
what have you undone to me!
he who never sleeps, just
weeps and weeps,
for you have contrived me yet gain
to see something I saw before,
always knew but never wrote,
in this exact format,
but all life long knew, and blubber anew
at words that I never knew existed in
this precise combination.

you can cannot contrive the spirit that
moves us to write, the words employed,
yes perhaps, but all
even the struggle for
le mot jus,
oft for naught^^
the repetitive, the uninventive,
glorify.

I survive,
I contrive.
but far more imposing,
is the knowing,
that tho the contriving still remains,
it is a cost so costly,
and I must include herein
that every verse
of every poem
ever writ,
every contrivation,
every submission,
even the worst simplest is a blessing,
even the simplest worst is a blessing.


all are:
"the fruit of promise,
a table replete,
hope restored,
a circle complete."^

Yet, t'is the fluid visionaries shall lead us
to our restful place
even if they cannot speak,
even if they cannot write,
just contrive.
___________________________________________
^ http://hellopoetry.com/poem/life-circles/#after-reading


*It is in an instant, that life makes a poem in a man's mind, that will live longer than that that oak.
Nat*

*Reply
SE Reimer
i've reflected on your words, several times now, Nat, and find them to be such an accurate description of my experience with writing... though the words may move around a bit, once conceived, the contriving is all that remains.*

^^le mot juste
"the right word" in French. Coined by 19th-century novelist Gustave Flaubert, who often spent weeks looking for the right word to use.
Flaubert spent his life agonizing over "le mot juste." Now Madame Bovary is available in 20 different ****** english translations, so now it doesn't really make a **** bit of difference.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
For Caira Doheny, My Irish Muse


"Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame."

An Exhortation, st. 1 (1819)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
------------------------------------

Let us intimate a Poetic Competition,
Tween an Irish lass,
and a New York Jew,
I shall serve, and you,
You shall return

A contest:
Our tongues, our racquets,
Across the table,
The words shall bird fly,
Across the net,
Couplets and haiku
Shall smash and whistle

The winner will be the one
The God of Poetry
Accepts for permanent servitude

You **** my poetic soul forever
With the currency of praise genuine,
Authentic, flowing and fulsome,
Awarding me the Medallion Doheny
Cash value, a mere Irish penny,
But to the poet, the food of love and fame

Genetic to your nature,
You exhale word rhythms,
Excitable and interrupting,
Speech free flowing,
Tho I am of the People of the Book,
You, by birthplace,
Are unfair poetry advantaged

All your utterances
Are action heroes of the heart,
And I fail miserable to capture
The poetry you breathe out

Your Irish praise me awarded,
Tis now the
Standard and the Curse
This benighted amateur
Must now Prometheus nurse

One day in Dublin, shall we meet,
In a country where poetry is the
Iron in the people's blood

In a particular pub
Opposite we will sit,
You, a cowboy by adoption,
Me, the dastardly banker

You know the pub,
I, with my pint,
You, with your diet coke,
And the only lingua Franca
Shall be darts of poetry
In a language our own,
A collective work we will weave,
A blessed unity, a single tongue now,
Lilting, singing, bespoke

We will let the singer-poet laureate**
Of the island we now share, moderate,
Over his piano man's gin and tonic,
As we do as Yeats instructed:
Between us,

"A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem {but}
a moment's thought,
our stitching and unstinting
has been naught"
**Billy Joel

There are other references you may not get, but not critical for comprehension.  Feel free to ask tho...another oldie
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
My third attempt to commemorate Joel Frye.

News arrived Mid-May, found me far from home,
found me shock-gasping in a hotel room,
on the wrong coast,
though he sort-of-warned-warned,
about a month earlier, I misunderstood his subsequent
silence, thus it caught me unawares, unprepared,
and strangely grasping for proper comprehension
and the right words, that usually come so quickly,
even too easy~quick, when one’s emotions are
running fast, like a springtime Northwest mountain stream

Imagine a conversation of nine year’s duration,
one of a number forged in the iron-y of poetry,
a most
genteel art.

I found his words above in a comment on a poem (1)
of mine, writ in 2015; the subject, so apropos, to be
ever gentle to thy words.

Our dialogue and mutual admiration lives on and survives,
for bonds forged ex-the world of poetry, but more so,
in real deeds and deals and realized poems come true.

We never met.

Not unusual for an on-line community, where the social, literate
media can foster a closeness surpassing the normative
standard need of the physical,
which nonetheless the absence of that touch is now
deep regretted.


But Joel do not be concerned!

Your words will live with others, as per your desire.

This my promise, this my premise:
A debt of brotherhood that will be,
must be, paid in full.

So let’s begin…shall we…

~~~~

Joel Frye Sep 2015

Friends

Some for a reason,
some for a season; even
lifetimes come and go.
All things are transitory.  Doesn't mean I have to like it.

<>
(1j
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1425812/oh-poet-be-ever-gentle-to-thy-words/
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Notes From The Poet's Nook: My Body Has Changed

There is this moment
When the mirror solicits an
Unwanted confess,
No tort or tortuous devices required,
The self-evident, undeniable.

It is almost as if someone punctuated your life with a
.

Traffic light. Stop. Red. Green. Go.  

Stop n' go.
Periodically.

But while you're momentarily waiting
Some convertible-rider boys pull up aside,
Whooping n' hollering,
Cause they like what they espy,
A woman, no more a changeling,
That excites their almost mature juices.

You call them idiots,
Flip them the eagle bird,
Smiling somewhere where only you and
Poets can envision,
That grin, a womanly gleaming,
Deserves a poem unto itself.

Other moments, other lights,
When time whispers kindly,
It's  now, today, is my-time.

Alone you go the drawer,
It's Bikini Collection Day.

Valuable space wasters,
Even that one, resident of the night table,
In the photo momentous,
You and the kids, on your lap,
Unchanged from the way you know it,
The one you swore forever keep.

Not to the trash they go,
After all, perfectly usable,
So drive to thrift store depository,
Where reusable dreams are stored,
And now future memories to be
Husbanded by someone else's husband,
On someone else's night table.

Got a mortgage, two college funds,
A ton of worries and a
Paunch, a gut, to hold 'em all.
Stand up straight, breathe in hard,
Still there, as if you didn't know, unchanged,
What ya gonna do about it?

You got too much stuff, no way it's the poet's fault!
Go to the couch  and bake a plan!
Cause that's why linguists gave us, maybe and tomorrow,
My fav word when rhyming sorrowful...

You see that child in the photo next to me?
In the baby seat, skeptical of all the cooing noises?
That look I treasure, for she be my genes,
My grand baby, who trusts no one but
Mom and Dad to pick her up,
Sensibly cautious, even tho I blow kisses
On her belly button, the one that says Press Here,
For raucous laughter and present-ed her 25% of herself.

Nowadays, almost two,
Her body a change machine,
Now she is a pusher, not a pushee,
Pushing Elmo in his carriage
Look me up, but see her.

Dressed to the nines, a Manhattan lady.
I missed that moment, too many came, coming.
Changeup and fastball
The only pitches in her repertoire,
So far, but if her dad don't teach her a cutter
**** right you smarmy left handed hitting boys,
Her Poppy sure as sht will.

Ok, you know me. Got remind myself to stop
Before I get dribble mouth.
Guess that's kinda of a
Momentous change for me,
But lucky for you,
I can still do it,
Write a poem 1,2,3...
5, 6, 7, times a day,
If that stops, it wail be
Because....something changed me permanently.



July 6th, 2013
For my Izzy.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Time and Place (To Say Goodbye)

You know where I am ensconced,
In my nook, in my solar system,
By the bay.

My love, my life's interloper,
Who divided black from everything,
My creditor, comes upon me silently,
Checking upon her investment,
This sneak attack, holy anticipated.

The music, unfettered by earbuds,
Plays for all who share the moment,
But it plays for her, specially.

When she arrives, Madame Butterfly
Fills the air, before extinguishing life.

When entering the Kingdom of My Lapland,
Time To Say Goodbye,
Con te partirò,
Fills the frothy air, that selfsame wind of yesterday,
Not just remaining,  but has grown stronger, carryover,
And the voices, my poetic entreaties,
All, have failed, to calm the blowhard's wrath.

No matter.

My possessions, few and final,
The music, my poetry, the sun bright
and my life, my love.

Of the moment, I whisper.
This, this precise spot,
In this worn down chair,
Where I gave birth to so many
Of my children,
Is where I wish to die,
When it is time,
Con te partirò,
Time To Say Goodbye.

"But not-today, my love, she orders."

In my heart I whisper,
Who can say,
But I smile and say,
"But not-today, my love,
But not-today, my love."


For if it were today,
I would not deny it,
For if it were today,
In the moment of now,
Its perfection, accepted.

For should to my chair,
She, solitary, returns,
She will have the music,
The sun's companionship,
The wet-stain spots where the tears,
I weep, at this, of the moment, and,
So many love poems,
And the comfort,
Of this one too,
And the perfect lyrics
Of this our song-to-be.
http://lyricstranslate.com
Italian
Time to say goodbye (Con te partirò)


Quando sono solo
sogno all’orizzonte
e mancan le parole,
Si lo so che non c’è luce
in una stanza quando manca il sole,
Se non ci sei tu con me, con me

Su le finestre
mostra a tutti il mio cuore
che hai acceso,
chiudi dentro me
la luce che
hai incontrato per strada.

Time to say goodbye.
Paesi che non ** mai
veduto e vissuto con te,
adesso si li vivrò,
Con te partirò
su navi per mari
che, io lo so,
no, no, non esistono più.
It’s time to say goodbye…

Quando sei lontana
sogno all’orizzonte
e mancan le parole,
e io sì lo so
che sei con me,
tu mia luna tu sei qui con me,
mio sole tu sei qui con me,
con me, con me, con me.

Time to say goodbye.
Paesi che non ** mai
veduto e vissuto con te,
adesso si li vivrò.
Con te partirò
su navi per mari
che, io lo so,
no, no, non esistono più,

con te io li rivivrò.
Con te partirò
su navi per mari
che, io lo so,
no, no, non esistono più,
con te io li rivivrò.
Con te partirò.
Io con te.



English

Time to say goodbye


When I’m alone
I dream on the horizon
and words fail;
yes, I know there is no light
in a room where the sun is absent,
if you are not with me, with me.
At the windows
show everyone my heart
which you set alight;
enclose within me
the light you
encountered on the street.

Time to say goodbye
to countries I never
saw and shared with you,
now, yes, I shall experience them.
I’ll go with you
on ships across seas
which, I know,
no, no, exist no longer.
It’s time to say goodbye…

When you are far away
I dream on the horizon
And words fail,
and, Yes, I know
that you are with me;
you, my moon, are here with me,
my sun, you are here with me,
with me, with me, with me.

Time to say goodbye
To countries I never
Saw and shared with you,
now, yes, I shall experience them.
I’ll go with you
On ships across seas
which, I know,
no, no, exist no longer,

with you I shall experience them again.
I’ll go with you
On ships across seas
Which, I know,
No, no, exist no longer;
with you I shall experience them again.
I’ll go with you,
I with you.





Read more at http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Con-te-partiro-duet-Sarah-Brightman-Time-say-goodbye.html#650EH3ZbvI6FxOyx.99
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
I have never been published
or won a prize,
except, yeah, yeah,
the one in the
Crackerjack box

but from that cheap plastic surprise,
much was learned even as a young boy

cull the chaff of life
from amidst the wheat

plant it well and deep,
then forget all about it,
except where,
t'was seeded

when eyes yellowed,
hair turned a color Disney repackaged as
frozen
white,
normally a gift of a hairdresser,
called mother time,
and your pink skin scaled smooth
now kin and kith of the kitchen grater,

then time is in,
cull your plantings

go back into that yards,
pull out the weeds,
uncovering what only time
can provide -

poetry planted and born from
the summary addition of thousands
of days of life,
well felt,
well received,
well recorded,
drawn from earth and water,
well lived

sometimes my nyc sidewalks uneven,
cause a toe snagging tripping,
this loss of balance,
adrenalin hot flashing,
similar to tripping upon a new poet

every time I say no mas,
I must choose tween
left or right,
one can
read or one can write,
but not
both

a voice on I stumble,
making me ever so foolish,
ever so humble,
ever so confused

so at 12:31am
at it again,
reaping what others have sowed

this woman by her own confess,
Trouble with a capital everything
T.R.O.U.B.L.E

only a grownup chile
writs me a poem
re crackers in her vegetable soup,
a naval battle akin to that of Midway,
that makes me crackers with delight!

saucy, that poetess
you better love her well,
she tells you outright
or she'll sell you, the reader out,
for the next one cruising along,
hence this poem, her good graces sought!

but to get certain memories I want,
but can't recall for I never had them,
she, for me doth record:

Imaginary space within a dream
floats in a subconscious sea.
Our affection grows from
tremulous beginnings
its dramatic unfolding
vestige of the soul whispers
and lingers in twilight and ice

Shared breath,
in time our leisured rhythms
savored sweetly match kiss for kiss.

Words in parody drop,
one by one.
enmeshing me in rippling sorrow,
once again you've moved
just beyond my reach.


curse the teachers and the genes
and my plain vanilla simp vocabulary,
that don't let me write like this,
but to my backyard I go,
where I cull what other's have planted better,
and harvest the new fruits of
crackerjack superior poets
Read Patty M,
please yourself...
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
First impression, first date.

You come late, a major sin in your own lexicon,
tango dancing redesigns your hair to curls atwitter,
despite remedial ministrations in taxi,
you text apologies profuse en route,
but you have been outed, and
I am charmingly amused

A warm December eve,
a local Italian eatery,
table by the window,
red wine floes melt your defenses,
allowances made, you're intrigued,
enjoying  our dinner of
charming amusements

But really you like my understated swagger.
I like that you like my understated swagger.

Walk home armed, arm in arm,
your paintings I must come see,
Immediately (!),
You offered this as  desert, instead  of biscotti,
a tour of your new apartment, sleek/simple,
messaging that this is me,
if you ever want to be invited to stay

Inspection over, my smile is a knowing
that this first foray deserves a concessionary accolade,
So in a mode so gallant at the front door,
Adieu you are bid, and devilishly clever,
I merely shake you hand,
leaving you delighted by this gallant, modern,
charming amusement

Looking at my watch, three and half hours
have passed.

Maintaing that in your ways set,
Early on, I challenge your rigidity,
Turning your hair from curly,
Into spun straight Rapunzel gold liquidity,
By asking politely, humbly, on bended knee,
You give in happily,
Charmed, amused at my ferocious insistence

Looking at my watch,
I too, am delighted, charmed, amused, to discover,
It seems my watch is running slow,
For it is now three and a half years later
Perhaps you saw "First Date"that I dashed off but 2 days ago, then I stumbled on this on written March 24, 2012.   Ah well, too many poems, not enough memory - but thru poetry the key ones preserved in different ways.  Early in our story, she of curly hair came home straight (straightened?) at the whim of her hairdresser.  God strike me down, scout's honor (cub), when she opened the door, I fell to my knees,
begging  her never to be curly again.

And she never has...
1.3k · Dec 2013
Ison, I, Comet
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
Ison,

you who are the sons,
this is addressed to you.

you who are comets,
you who are not,
cannot believe, you are
comet,
but are nonetheless.

You who awake and say,
I, Son
be whom you must,
pretend not to be
the son of...

no matter how many
millions of miles must be
traveled till you are visible,
no matter how brief your life,
you are more than Ison,
your are yourself, part son,
but all man, unique.

set your own course,
if to the sun you must fly,
set the course you choose,
and we will call you by your
name true,
I, Comet.
---------------------------------
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303497804579240290630829078#printMode


Like Icarus, Comet Ison flew too close to the sun and perished. After passing near the solar surface on Thanksgiving Day, Ison vanished in a ghostly puff. Ice and dust proved no match for infernal heat. Next up is Comet Lovejoy, whose close encounter with the sun will take place on Christmas Day.

Here on the island of Nantucket, we know well the heartbreak of comets. In 1847, Maria Mitchell became world famous for discovering a comet from the rooftop of her family's home on this fleck of land 30 miles out to sea, the first comet ever found using a telescope. Mitchell's calculation of the comet's orbit showed that its trajectory would carry it away from the solar system, never to return. Within three months of its discovery, the comet had faded from view, beyond the light-gathering capabilities of even the most powerful telescopes. All that remains today is a memory.

According to Greek legend, when Icarus and his father, Daedalus, were imprisoned by King Minos on the island of Crete, Daedalus built wings of feathers and wax for their escape, cautioning Icarus not to fly too high because the sun would melt the wax. But Icarus was so overjoyed by his ability to soar and swoop like a bird that he forgot his father's warning. As he flew higher and higher, the feathers came loose and he fell to his death in the sea below.

Ison was once a prisoner too, held for billions of years in our solar system's dark netherworld, the Oort cloud, a place so remote it takes a beam of sunlight a year to arrive there. Freed by a sudden gust of gravity from a passing star, the comet began its exhilarating but ill-fated flight to the sun a few million years ago.
1.3k · Sep 2013
Lend me a tune
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Lend me a tune

(For Robert C Howard,
One of the lucky ones)



"But I'll know my song well before I start singing".   Bob Dylan


Some of us poets,
some of us musicians, and a few,
A very blessed few
Songwriters and lyricists,
Poets in sound and words,
Both.

Wish I knew how to
Compose some love song music notes,
But can't carry a tune,
Seems to me,
Comes first the music,
Must music comes first

So with conceit and disbelief,
Wrote words and shot 'em into space,
Hoping they'd pass thru galaxies,
Maybe a comet tail,
Find a Songster who will strum them
Into perfect, into complete

I ain't unhappy that all I got
Was the lesser gift of
Humming words to myself,
Ain't dissatisfied, but wish they
Could be ratified, by the music
Of a voice singing them to me
Or fingers tapping, happening them
Played upon  the ivories upon my chest,
Where the lyrics are aborning,
The chest that needs
Music to be whole, and word-completing

Wish I knew how to
Compose some love notes
But can't carry a tune,
Seems to me
Music,
Must come first

So let's make some music
**** right, together,
Finish these lyrics jointly,
When all finito, pointedly
Needed your music, my darling,
Music to make them soar,
Take our co-sing-song,
Dance to it with our bodies
Sing words the whole night long
Another old one recalled to active duty status to tribute Robert C,
The man who does not . in his name,
For he  c's both music and words simultaneously,  with nothing in between
1.3k · Oct 2013
Lamentations (a psalm)
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
11:00 PM July 7th 2011
Outside Delacorte Theater,
Home of Shakespeare in the Park
Central Park, New York
~~
What wretched wags
we have become,
sold rhyme and couplet
into slavery and meter sacrificed,
upon the altar of expediency.

LOL and BRB, the hallmarks
of our
insincerity,
forgetting that civility
is resurrected when
we employ the poetry of speech
in our plain and
simple communiques,
most especially in the simple,
please let beauty hold sway.

Brutalize our tongues,
thus our lives,
compression of our language
into single words that celebrate
the mundane, as fashionable.

yeah, yeah, yeah...

Our speech, its fragrance lost,
sublimates but does not sublime,
one liners demean our humanity,  
grunts of yeah and cool,
are awesome not,
our future hope is in
the details of our expression,
whereby we inject
into our verbal demeanor
a grace that sets human
above the existence animal.

So touch this screen and
let us begin,
to take our measure
by our measure
of the care we demonstrate
when we communicate.

These words have transversed
from weekday to weekday,
soon at morning prayers
to the gods inside of me,
David's hymns and poems
I'll recite,
a slow eloquence will infuse
my hallelujah eyesight.

Plain truths will be spoke,
in rhyme with
diction apace,
transfuse my soul
elevate us
severally and jointly
above the confused noises of
the prison of nondescript lives,
leaving me a believer that
all's well that begins well.
Digging out the old ones, when all I got is perspiration sans inspiration. See new companion piece, an ordinary word...
Good Morn New Delhi,
Good afternoon, Auckland!
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
Once upon a time
in the Great Hall
of the Metropolitan Museum,
my woman wan~pale,
doozy, woozy, about to grace
the floor marble, with an
undesirably inelegant fall.

Steadied her, a quick diagnose,
Low Blood Sugar + Dehydration,
her condition I pronounced.
The antidote in my possession!

From my pocket left,
withdrew my emergency tangerine.

She looked, quizzically, upon me,
even a bit weirdly,
marveling and marvelous,
as I fed her bite-sized orange curvatures.

Who walks around with a
tangerine in their coat pocket?


I replied, doesn't everyone?

besides, that juicy tangerine looked
mighty good, so I took from
pocket right, another one,
laughingly, which we shared.

Henceforth she has called me,
a partial mocking homage to a former actor,
who should have stayed that way,
the one who was thinking you can always start over,
The Anticipator.

If you ask me what is the secret
to keeping love alive, my answer permanent.

Get thee a coat of many pockets,
like the one Joseph had,
fill them up with with the things
that will shelter her from the storm...^

No longer the season of the tangerine,
In my pocket in the fall,
a Fuji apple and a box of
raisin~poems
^ was searching for the end of this line, when I hear bob dylan singing shelter from the storm, so gotta give a partial credit
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