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837 · Dec 2014
Worth (A Lost Ring)
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2014
for Laura and David

so the story goes...

of a long ago silly fight and
then a Boston Bay boat ride,
magical moments of a simple interrogation repeated,
that recalled a man beach combing for what,
he knew he,
already possessed,
a permanent bezel for his love
that secured with human strength
their togethered life

You! You Two!

recall best
the forest,
not the trees,
not the ring,
the freedom from a symbolic beeper drowned


recall best
the ring's tale,
your unfinished yet-storied,
mid-trip bay borne voyage of denouement,
a retirement and a reaffirmation,
marked best not by any stone,
but by
the knowing  women,
all surrounding,
with righteous exclamations of envy for

his loving words,
his words!

the value of living,
raconteuring memorized mutual wisdom,
no diamond could ere cut a deeper groove
than his spoken words

words etched in flesh,
immutable and undying,
far exceeding
rubies and diamonds,
their gain, their loss,
merely pecuniary,
could never speak or prove
a love far better
than those special holy words
a spoken capstone,
tribute gladly given
to his shipmate,
his fellow voyageur,
his story of them delivered
but happily incomplete

of this I know
with utter certainty,
for more than twice,
with his eyes cast down upon
igneous ankle-twisters,
while overstepping
lazy sea lions,
invisible iguanas,
heard him tell me,
the frigates and the *******
and the head-popping turtles,
all who came
to see and hear as well,
them too,
all jealous of
what he spoke,
even then...

for well they and I
heard him say,
in a whisper
intended just for me,
but overheard,
and legally witnessed and thereby,
and herein attested hereby
by many citizens
of the Galapagos and
even one from the great
State of New York

those loving words,
those words

without her, I am lost,
with her, I am gained,
repeating in his way,
Proverbs 31:10:
A worthy woman who can find?
For her price is far above rubies*


so accept this as a free release
from one who listened to the
poetry of a ring's story,
and though he cannot recall the
appearance of the accoutrement,
the words, the words
they spoke,
the whispery smile she let escape,
never left, never could,
that being the thing of greatest
worth
the poet
deemed most worthy
of recording for posterity

__________


this expert poetic witness testimony
in the matter of matrimonial affairs
now entered into permanent part of the record of
Laura and David,
notarized, signed and sealed,
and internet delivered,
truthfully writ this day,
December 20, 2014
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2015
https://www.facebook.com/isconnectivityahumanright

well done Mr. Zuckerberg,
but just to colorize your noble intent
with a corollary,
a lump of coal,
for you,
from my colliery,
so too,
is my human right to
disconnect, reject,
if my privacy abused,

not yours to take and trash

my human connectivity far greater value on any scale,
than your smart/good/profit intentions
to expand your product's universe

keep in mind that in my version of the small print,
is writ:

what's mine is not yours to mine
with reckless disregard,
though you couch your takings
so nicely and legal

my right to live free,
to disconnect,
ever present, and oft considered,
for the gluten of life is in the voice,
the real touch,
not in the adverts
so cleverly engineered, to insert


regarding Facebook,
I query daily,
is this time spent of true worth,
the wheat, the whole grains of life
too oft lost,
suffocated by the voluminous and volubly trash,
by the unending absorbing waterfall of
"I didn't need to know that"

for now, Mr. Mark,
just
keep this in mind,
one of my social curation skills,
on my settings tab inserted,
is one listed as
nuclear,
a/k/a

**bye-bye
Oct. 18~22 2015
835 · Sep 2013
I slashed his throat
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
I slashed his throat

Dreamt a madman me did attack,
With knife, he came upon me,
Enraged, engaged, I took his blade away,
Slashed his throat,
Watched his life
And mine,
Bleed away.

As she sponged my brow,
But a dream, hush,
But I knew better,
For the rage and the lust
Was primordial, a man's must,
His blood on my fingertips,
A secret  smile on my face.
833 · Jul 2017
half ring
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2017
half ring*

a present, a thank you compliment by way of a poem, for the zealous, tiny, poetess spark who writes exquisitely and calls herself Cynthia Henon*
~~~
strange old night-stands, a stained tan blonde wood
that's going ancient grey, but still handsome in a fitting way,
the front drawer hand painted floral in what I choose
to believe are by Italian hands in Italian reds and greens,
not so fancy as I make it sound, but worn and durable and
not overly functional but two silent, uncomplaining eye witnesses to a ten year ancient, greying love affair

wood ages, human eyes squint, failing to counteract the minute, advancing daily dimming, not paying close attention to the
Richter magnitude of the accumulated changes

the morning coffee ritual as catholic as morning mass,
a straw woven coaster to protect the sun blanched top,
hardly necessary, just a good habit, one of the  rituals that glue,
that couples use to keep the coupling intact

the cumulative subtle changes, the crackling sound unheard, the cracks in everything, even in the human tissue,
breaking, the papered over filler of purposeful ignorance,
cannot forever resist the erosion of the cancer of the
taking for granted

place the coffee cup half on, half off the coaster, un-noticing,
leaving half a ring that will now never disappear, never be
completed, causing her to fly into rage that rips the
complacent band-aids, worn dikes that were holding back the barricaded tears, but the sea~see
level was always rising and though visible, the revelation remained unchosen


later that day, I drive away forever with Yo-Yo Ma riding shotgun,
in charge of map reading and consolation music, thinking
half ring, half ring, half ring, half ring,
an embolism of symbolism, good for a play on words,
and a couple of poems about uncoupling

8:22am 7/1/17
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2024
“the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind.”

<>
            
“Even nowadays, most of us have speeches from plays and films jangling around our heads, alongside things that have actually been said. Both contribute to what Michael Oakeshott called “the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind.” Whether in verse or prose, there are some fictional speeches that, once heard, cannot be unheard. You find that you live with them.”
~from~
Things Worth Remembering: Nothing Is Lost Forever
By Douglas Murray 9/8/24
<>

the quote grabs the throat, a two handed grip,
but gentling, to ensure it does not go forgot,
or to the bottom the pile, or just another
never truly born, or premature to die,
guised as a drafty passing breeze,
a tickle too fickle, impersistent,
to be a poem unto itself

my thots impure, for I see, I believe,
that poetry is the conversation in all
we do have,
those that lyric wax when
one of the five big guys,
jive, sensory excited, the whiff, taste,
licks the visionary
of the need to be a completed
exegesis, a work to be telling
told

but I am old, my powers weaken daily,
the resistance training recommended,
by brain muscle, fiercer resisted

so reach for the quill,
blue lined sheet,
a cute puppy looking paper,
up for the “surprise” treat
just for extending a paw,
these humans so ease pleased,
you see,
here comes a poem
bout
poetry being bout every any,
even, the great creator struggling
to put out fresh daily,
new &  improved work,
after a six day historic period,
that demanded a poem-alll-day entity,
entitled as a sabbatical day
of rest.

Here I too rest as well,
too many conversations need starting,
fires requiring verbal refueling,
and my own voice hearing a,
“get up, get out of bed,
drag a comb across your head,”
talk, and plant those newly fallen acorns,
and let the conversations produce
giant oak trees,
and
a plenitude of poems


9/9/24
douglas murray voice of poetry lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2015
~~~

so few synonyms,
for so many needy

for a place of
shelter
by any name

call it what you may,
proffered here to thee,
but yes, but no,
nothing is ever free

the toll to pay is this...

clarify and prep clean a vision,
do away with the dots and floating swirls
seen beneath closed eyes,
get the senses ready,
Purell sanitize gel
all your sad ways of thinking

then
breathe out so loud,
confirming you're genuine, ready, eager,
for you have been prequalified
to be here
to earn a place of
shelter  

no other way
other than:

read thy fellow poets,
earn their trust,
learn their signatures,
let their phrases of cleansing comfort
be all the
oasis, refuge, sanctuary, haven, asylum, retreat
you ever need...

fear not the tactile voyage arduous,
we have all paid and made it intact,
when you arrive,
prepare for a
welcome stupendous,
from us who have long patient awaited
more than just your first edition arrival,
but our newer combination additional,
bringing us all to a refreshed
state of grace


~~~

Shelter Island
August 9, 2015
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
If every human awoke each day,

Believing that they would walk on the moon
By evening tide,
That gods would walk in their footprints
By evening tide,
Saw them self as poet-omnipotent, a creator, a namer,
By evening tide,
Slowed their breathing, their seeing, time in seconds,
By evening tide,
Knowing seconds as days, hours as months, all
By evening tide,
Trained from birth to modify our each action without the word I
Then,
By evening tide,
Would we not

stand straighter, walk more slowly,
see with the clarity of perfect perspective,
know the joy of things, large and small,
remove pride from our nuclei,
jaundice from our eyes,
anger from fists,

and never capitalize an Idea as greater than,
for there is none larger or smaller than human,
then, we could remove the word
bloodstain
from our dictionaries.

and naive, as well.
Inspired by Ilion gray  
A fellow new yorker,
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2016
I used to think
I can’t be a poet
because a poem is being everything you can be
in one moment,
speaking with lightning protest
unveiling a fiery intellect
or letting the words drift feather-soft
into the ears of strangers
who will suddenly understand
my beautiful and tortured soul.
But, I’ve spent my life as a Black girl
a *****-headed, no-haired,
fat-lipped,
big-bottomed Black girl
and the poem will surely come out wrong
like me.

And, I don’t want everyone looking at me.
Chirlaine McCray is the First Lady of New York City, wife of Mayor De Blasio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/magazine/chirlane-mccray-and-the-limits-of-first-ladyship.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action;=click&contentCollection;=magazine®ion;=rank&module;=package&version;=highlights&contentPlacement;=4&pgtype;=sectionfront
Nat Lipstadt Aug 19
Robinson Jeffers: The House-Dog's Grave

I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you,
If you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no,
All the nights through I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read‚
And I fear often grieving for me‚
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.

No, dears, that's too much hope:
You are not so well cared for as I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided...
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.
832 · Nov 2013
Then make some dust
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
first you gotta eat.

first you gotta work.

get in the F150 truck,
the dust maker.
don't crank the music
too loud
cause you know
that, as an
escape venue
don't work,
same as nowhere at all.

you hit what is
a dry patch.
mostly stone,
pebbles and
way too much
concrete,
ribbons of white and yellow
making you crazy, and
you force yourself to

settle down,
get it organized.
only a matter of time
then when it's calm,
the itch,
can't  be creamed
or suppressed,
want to write,
you are afraid,
why and what
might,
will come out.

you proud, not loud,
you are the dust maker,
you will make your dust,
when it is time when
life is just a little less
dusty, or dusty enough,
don't matter, either way,
to get it straight,
the crooked will out.
Wrote this a few weeks ago in response to a message I received.  But wasn't satisfied with it, but who are we to judge...for Askew
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2015
~~~
I do not have a poem

at the ready,
at my fingertips,
ready, willing and able,
instant provision,

yet, in the fingertips, yes,
is red ink, warming,

waiting for the
sounding,
your tap tap tapping calling
of once-more


I do not have a poem


sited upon my lips,
in sweet patient stasis
awaiting
your requesting kiss,

yet,  deep hid within my throat,
are universes of words,

ready for assembly,
immediate delivery,
needy for the signaling of
your endearing
provocations


I do not have a poem


stored in the heart's ventricles,
in cavitation, ready to bubble upwards,
ready to travel the veins,
provide art to the arteries,
encamping in the capillaries,

yet, come stoke my steel furnace,
melt molten its contents for the removal of

the irregularities of,
enduring love,
leave the glowing rawness of
glory passionate and gift abiding,
songs of felicitous contentment


I do not have a poem


upon my person,
easy to come,
easy released,
signaling its lanterned
mode of arrival,
one if by voice,
two if by hand,

yet, this poem,
is my legal tender for you,
come purchase your poem
from the cells of my tissue


spend it wisely,
for everything is beautiful
but delimited,
in its own way

when thy body needs to survive,
this body rises to connive,
this body to provide,
words of relief,
of soul solution,
in words precise,
particular,
designed medicine
designated for thy spirit

all you need supply,
the need,
and perhaps,
a bit of editing
829 · Sep 2013
You WILL read this poem!
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Pas de choix, no choice,
On the Internet,
you surf waves of poetry,
Every breathe,
Every second of every-sight seen,
Filtered into a poem,
Words are your saliva,
Passion the glue,
And the poem your write
Is your finger extending heavenward
Like Adam's at the Sistine Chapel,
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/God2-Sistine_Chapel.png)
Saying gaze upon OUR creation.
Another old one retrieved for proper storage here. Today's project...
Nat Lipstadt Feb 18
give me-the bowie knife of repartee,
nothing more satisfying than the
quick stabbing, a good blood letting,
in your genteel face, no hellish
moderated pace, the energetic plunge
of a quick lunge into the woebegone,
long after you count the meter tempo’d
use fingers and toes, but needing to hold
your nose, to include that extra
grace note, that belies denies the harmony
the tules and rules of calling order
to control the roost,  sine-one
is a victim of a
down and virtuous ***** verbal slashing!

count my syllables, never,
let my stanzas run free,
like an African tiger,
with the goat of format
mounted in between his teeth,
bloodied and dripping dead,
the squealing of hyper innocente,
silent after cries of, kind sir,
me thinks thou protest too much!

we can squish and twist our holy words,
into formal tuxedos of cantankerous
arrowed arrogance,
but know this,
roses are read, them
violets, blue, have
turned millions of children to avert their
eyes from anything thereafter that was classified, notarized, canonized, sanctified
as the write rules of poetry

peals of pearls are born with parentage
of a lousy
grain of sand,
the words etched in the
lines upon my hand,
are lifelines of sidewalk cracks,
discarded candy wrappers,
the twisted ends cigarette butts,
used as proof that ash and dust are the
genetic source material of uncommon
great composition, given to those who
love the common touch of leaves of grass,
thstbeneath the heat of the sun that
exposes the nothingness of bitterness

know no one can run from the golden
visibility, of a sun, talent in pursuit of
egoism is a long road to a short history

yeah.
(faster than a speeding bullet)
boring…
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2014
First posted here on August 22, 2013
~~~~~

Every summer, I relearn a new language.
Every winter, it departs for warmer climes,
And its charms and naked arms,
Its own alphabet,
Clean forgot.

Multi-lingual in the summer's peculiar
One language, one aleph bet,
But mega-millions of dialects,
Know them all cold, know them all, hot.

I speak Woman.

Summer is soft, shapely, sweet,
Clean, bare, lush in a sparse way,
And Woman is spoken thusly.
There are no harsh sounds,
Guttural exclamations, nein!

I speak Woman.

There is no ugly in the summer.
Ugly being an ugly word.  
It cannot exist in an atmosphere of
Sun, greenery, sand, carefree days, vacations, no school.
There are no ugly women in the summer.

I could take this writ many places,
But if you are sputtering sexist or other labeling words,
Could not give a good *******, because in the summer,
There is no ugly, there is no prejudice.

And I still speak
Woman with an almost perfect fluency,
au naturel.

Gym clothes, short shorts, A-line skirts swishing in the breeze,
High, god, so high the heels, flats clip clopping, flip flopping
all over my heart,

But, it is the bare arms and the hints of summer
Cleavage, the short skirts, body hugging one piece fabrics
stretching from here to down there that do not
Hint,
The shoulder strap of the underthings that asks,
That commands me:
Wonder where it leads too...

Even the light shoulder wrap
Casual over bare shoulders slung, at night, mocks me,
Like gift wrapping with a smile demure...a teasing blindfold...

All these say:
Write us poetry in our very own tongue,
Woman.

Will oblige.

I curve with curve of the ***** and
invert with  S arc of the waist,
Mystifying, how it is the designed place
For my hands to grasp, and never fails.

The crayola colors of flesh variations,
Boggle the senses... How can tan and pale,
Dark and Light
Have so many
Symphonic variations?
Adagio, slow and leisurely, a pas de deux
For two eyes, then a
Timpani crash and thunder,
Just as Byron wrote:
"music arose with its voluptuous swell,"
Yes, swell...swell...voluptuous swell

Enough.
My eloquence, no match for my
Fluency.

Late August, and my vocabulary is already
Diminishing.
I forget how to say in
Woman
Without you I am nothing,
With you, I am more than everything,

Tho I can no longer say it well,
It is is still true and
Beyond belief.

August 2013
828 · Oct 2013
Annual physical
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
The day after my birthday, my check up.
Doc called me, knowing I was a poet,
He said to me:
Every year to me you come,
Every year I tell you what you know,
If once again, you ignore my Rx,
Please poet, source me a kindness,
Find a new doctor, cause your
"Yeah, yeah, yeah,"
Is the saddest poem I ever heard.
He has been our family physician for let's say 50 years...he and I do the dance and once in awhile I listen...but he found abnormalities that ****** him off so he said it twice, My way or the highway, otherwise find another doctor
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2019
~for my poet friends who will understand exactly
the nature of our ailment/adventure~

it begins when once poem titled,
which, a first clue, nothing more, a mumbled prophesy,
an arrow to duration & direction home but unknown,
a one-way stop sign neatly lettered in the
smallest sized letters with the disclaimer above

you sojourn to an uncultivated land, not sown.

you travel to places “finding out what you
don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out,”
no guide, no well trodden path, no cultural prescribed woke diktats,
you are,
taken unwilling more than you lead, where endings
surprising, unforeseen, return tickets never offered for sale

pick words, more likely,
they pick you,
the only constant your rapid metabolism,
a winter snow blow, swirling churning, even midst
the most languid, sultry southern summer day

mind the mind.
mind the ground frozen until a tiny tickle trickle verse
becomes a full-on ground melt, wet and soggy,
******* you into a
rice-rock-hard pellet-poem thriving,
you observe your own drowning in a
6 inch deep wet paddy

the bottom line,
the net net, summary judgment
you commenced with urgent hesitancy for the
risks are great now, pen dagger chest pointed,
you, ******, in crosshairs, your own graven idol image

having found out what you
don’t want to know,
having found out what you
don’t want to find out

find myself weeping,
fists holding my head,
communing with floorboards oak hardened,
groaning acknowledging,
this, this, THIS


this discovering, uncovering,
this is
why I write,
this is
why I dare not write anymore!





12/13/2019
so-me-times the compulsion is greater than the fear
Nat Lipstadt Jul 4
a decent night's sleep,
my body to keep,
early light invades the
blinking eyesight, and
an indeterminate sky,
yet offers us an
either/or,
heads or tails,
success or fails,
what will the gods
offer us all humans,
to select, elect for this
anniversary of our
country's formation?

the slow rising sun
over the North Fork
will soon provide its
decision/incision for
our nation tumultuous,
turbulent, course direction

it appears that the silent
dawning will give us yet
another chance, a morning's
golden hour, with that irradiating
light that bathes us with visionary,
equality of light, light of equality,
but
last night's thunderstorms leave
us the detritus of savagery of
thunderous rains that came
with fury, reflecting our confusion
and the danger shoals that appear
with no warning, yet reminds us,
once more,
one more time,
even in troubling days,
of the blessings
of opportunity
that each day,
each unique sunrise
provides us choices,
and
skies have now spoken:
the early warming rays are
reminding hints that a new day
owns equal opportunities to
make our country beautiful
for spacious skies and
amber waves, of
water and light,
if we choose wisely, rightly...

July 4th
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
2025
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
new year notes to self at 4:30am

too cynical
to pseudo-resolve stuff
just because
an arbitrary mark
the calendar affords.

nonetheless,
the mind endlessly calculates,
then recalculates,
rinse and repeats,
responsibility, "success,"
middle class living death

pretend erase the slate,
as if this prologue was not
a sequel,
but the..

the squeeze of guttural noises
stuck in my throat
prevent raucous breathing,
stifle noisy disbelieving,
lest I awake all the babes
sleeping cozy nearby,
trusting in me,
so I communicate
to the others
who are awake
at 4:30am,
offering them but
a plain white lamentation,
cry with me,
"I know, I know."

Jan 3, 2013

.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2015
for Nana*

they are of mine

but life and love are powers
with out equal,
bolder than blood,

she inhales their joy of life

and grows younger

and I watch in
ataraxic, robust tranquility,
recording miracles

children making someone younger

though not from her body born,
far better,
from her soul,
gifted and given

look closer

see the transfusion

they are not adopted
but adapted

a rhapsody of gleeful shouts,
hula-hoops rolling,
hopscotch hopping
are integrated as
minor universes of the moment

their inarticulate delighted screams are
stars and comets,
newly born
to populate,
the heavens of this very instant

the soon-to-set but
not-quite-yet
sun
wraps them all in
shimmering glistens of
nature's protective custody

and yet

it's warming heat,
cannot compete,
cannot compare,
with the warmth
of life and love
being created before our eyes,
new soul cells,
all hers
Sept. 5, 2015
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
****, preferable,
but not necessary.

place your hands upon thy thighs,
the thumbs extended,
left to rest,
to fit in the designed, purposed crevice
between the upper torso,
where the soft belly
meets the legs.

your opposable thumbs,
too short to reach
your private part,
instead, your four fingers
to thrum, to drum,
driven by frustrated compulsion,
beat out upon thy exterior
the internal feel,
a basic rhythm.

the arms,
hard by,
press tight into the chest,  
the birth place of poems,
and squeeze,
as if it were a
Heinz Ketchup bottle.

the tapping fingerlings,
the now drifting yet compulsed mind,
the hard-sided pressure,
voila, words form,
heat-furnaced,
energized from within,
all at once will be extruded from
a poem's birth canal,
the heart.
before attempting this, have paper and pen and tissues nearby,
in case you start to
weep.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2015
~~~

"is it just me?"
this habitual guest,
nay, by now, alien resident,
this panting ponderous puzzlement,
so habitual, it has founded a room of its own
in a secluded space
upon mine own, contested Temple Mount

oft it strolls about the premises of me,
arm-in-arm with his pernicious cousin,
a fellow imploding interrogatory,
"what if?"
these thigh-slapping cacklers both, living off in the hollows
of the doubtful spaces they create,
cozy, corner-bounded criers, walk-abouters in thine recesses hidden

today, just one more inflection point in this man's life,
of which your are a welcomed observer,
and if but ******,
then let it be of thy own self,
for well imagine we, this pesky pairing,
that never venture far or away from their companionship
of any of us
friends of friends

I have no answer for either torturous query,
this answer, unsurprising and well expected,
for these visitors from a planet pernicious,
are astronomer-logged in your own constellation,
the dimmed light they shed, sheds no light at all,
having arrived light years after they were first posed

how can I counsel thee, that their risky business
should be routine dispatched fast away to another galaxy,
for here I am failing and flailing, well into my ending years,
yet waking once more in bed,
with this uncouth pair today,
haunting mine well worn, well trod paths

have you no guidance, no solvable words to defer
the solvable drip of doubt with which they tint our souls?


the only defense I am aware,
is to answer-deflect them with
yet another half-inquiry, half-commandment
that resides in the wellsprings
of thine best, supplanting them,
a goal to be,
by asking a twice-harder supposition

how can I,
this new morning glory, 
this new clean babe borning,
be a better human?

~~~
7:01 AM
October 27, 2015
nyc

just another life altering day.,
then begins with an innocuous coffee-spilling,
and from within its puddle,
this questioning poem
born
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2024
this semi-seemingly sad refrain~reflection, more truth than
one can even understand,
for my physical self slowly
disappearing, diminishing
though no visible pieces
as of yet,
gone missing

few of you have come to visit me
in NYC, so you cannot be sure of
anything you’ve been told, for the
great liar claims, the internet bleeds
disinformation believe this
if nothing
else

for I’ve been a dream from my very
naissance, a vision imaginable by
those who contemplate my whereabouts,
my visages, we bemused, while
you imbibe, tongue |taste
mrs
written bouche amusante

well,
if you want them pieces & parts,
poems in the fleshes,
seek outa one eyed guy patched
by a rivered walk path,
see a troubadour on his soap box
amusing the real peoples
who pause to reflect
cause
them
give respect to his peculiarities,
listen to his truths bout
himself and them
selves too

if you can’t camp this far,
then believe in your dreams
cause my come and go,
fly out the window
and have reached as far as
the Phillipines, New Zealand &
the Land of Oz

I’m their break from the news,
indeed call me ‘the new news,’
which so cool, makes us laugh,
cause there ain’t no much new
by this foolish OG, ‘cept for the
rhythm of and blues, I spin, the rhymes
that they fet/met/net me with dollar bills,
loose change and half used joints in lieu of cash-is-trash

So I dream, they dream,
together we scheme,
each of us composing,
in separate and equal
prepositions preposterous
and share all who to be heard,
especially those who wish to also
have their dreams be
seen
823 · Jan 2023
Her hands lay gently joined
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2023
Her hands lay gently joined,
her breathing breaching the fortress of a bedroom’s silence

clasped as one, in the very early morn,
her fingers move in motion, wavering, *******
recalling a violin instrument, an unseen youthful memory,
her internality rumbles with a quiet litany,
an indecipherable host of jumbled mumbles,
a cacophony accompaniment to her quietude of steady breathing

I,
study her, as I have done so many mornings prior,
once more, capriciously slipping back inside/beside our bed,
to restart My Sunday morning quiet-like, for as is my wont,
have awoken with the morning dark, treading room to room,
filling my Winslow Homer’s Macintosh mug, with 19.7 fluid oz. of Jamaican beans freshly ground, an instigating odor, a fragrancy
most contradictory, soothing, nonetheless, a steadying, yet a
blaring wake-up call

She, clad my in-her new festive plaid pajama top,
a creamy fabric that begs for my I-dare-not stroke,
is easy prone and that,
pleases me, for I wish to bed beside her, letting her rest
till her mind texts her body, no more! or the mumbles grow
grow nagging onerous and stirring and when her disposition is
well-disposed,  she stirs too,
after her fashion

with a dancer’s grace, her arm slowly rises, resting airborne,
fingers arrayed, splayed and Balanchine arranged, (1)
pointing upwards,
lingering until
the arm falls impromptu, sudden,
as a crescendo striking an apex,
her risen hip-mound,
imitating a bell’s clapper woke reverb,
and she sleeps no more…

<>

Sun Jan 15 2022
in the wee daylight  hours
a true

https://sab.org/scenes/suki-says-part-1-balanchine-hands/
822 · Aug 2022
Vast Eternal Plan
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2022
TUESDAY Aug 9 2022

05:59AM

(for you)

silent alarm trips me up into a dawning at with a five o’clock
wakefulness, (‘woke,’ cancelled) that comes with morning daylight,
this is the likely culprit~catalyst, for the sky is traced,
blending multi-palest shades of whitening blues,
crowned by toppings of baby orange + pinks of faun~sun arrays


an hour prior, my 1st day-view,
is of mine eyes popping corn open to Peconic bay waters,
waves moving actively, not yet rascal-frothy winded,
meanwhile the woman


an hour later deep dreams of what I know not,
but rumbling and mumbling
and noisy shuddering combinations course through her frame and
whatever turbulence she’s experiencing is plainly nothing good


my apriori
training kicks in and a tender embrace and the be-not-afraid caresses work quick, restore her own waves to a comparable calmer current


now, she sleeps peaceful, breathes in easy quiet as I, writing, memorializing the moment, all else can wait, and Tevye’s prayer~
memory comes pinging, re the powers of it who makes all via a

  “vast eternal plan,

crinkles my smiling eyes and my fingers begin to radio-receive the signal of dash dot dash of words you currently are reading/imbibing

something unknowable raised me up
amidst the all-quiet of the first watch,
thus I, was snap ready to ease her troubles, at the very first moment…

<~>

now I am cellular~level conscious of witnessing and feeling
each of the trillions upon trillions of minuscule defractions

of light bendings that will populate, articulate,
the entire world’s rolling day,
give them to me, please,
the causality source of millions of minor miracles that will go unobserved, unrecognized and unrecorded

I rise from the bed needy, urgently seeking them,
your adventures, their earthquake interactive tremors,
the raw minerals of what will be all the future poems of our lives,
but, first,

coffee.

06:49AM

Shelter Island, N.Y.
Tevye of Fiddler on the Roof fame sings:
“Would it upset some vast eternal plan God,
if I were a wealthy man?”
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2024
cracks me up
this erroneous error message,
looks at me and states authoritatively
nuh-uh, buddy, “it ain’t you you babe,
it ain’t you we looking for babe”

makes me crazy crying
copiously betw snorting fits of
eloquent derision

why oh why

is it daily savings time prematurely
(immaturely) aging me,
be it advancing decrepitude
or just the AI’s sullen attitude?

be it a secret messaging that my
mother’s slow descent into
senility, loss of speech is now me-
visible to the all seeing eyes on
a dollar bill, & or the iPhone genie?

this erroneous messaging appears
with an irregularity regular, just
enough to make me think that

this
       is
           not
                  accidental

come to nyC,
come me to see,
need an independent  
judgement  summary
please
before the winter pale overcomes my
poetic resistance and they park me
in the backyard, where I can sit yet,
studying for multiple hours
the river-fed bay on its way
to the vastness of the Atlantic
Ocean, where the water will combine.
all cells of each of our selected
those chosen body’s of water,
bodies now interring,
while populating
intermingling
taking stingling diatoms from
of each, they will kiss, greet, each other,
with the clarity of recognition that our
poetry has already bonded us in ways that are irrefutable, been coming long time
geological formations new and old,
still forces unstoppable foreseeing
every, every ever
10-31-24 a prolific
October comes to a glorious end,
with glorious sunshine warmth, bringing out the
costumery adults. pretending to be daytime adults…
arrivederci ottobre, benvenuto novembre!
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2024
~inspired by a poem and messages from fellow poets ~
who have ridden beside me here,
for a decade plus,
SE Reimer, & Sally Bayan~

*we take our meds, vitamins and supplements
routinely, faithfully and with a big smile
of self-bemusement at all the times I mocked
those sillys who believed that
hu man
can
override his prescribed
sentencing

record almost every morsel that passes through my portals, reporting quantity and quality to remind me of my human needs, but
more to gauge my wearing weaknesses, and
make confession of
my sins of gourmand commission

and despite this and more, regular checkups, and blah blah blah, No Lies told here, the aging days are upon us, my brow furrowed
by a lengthening To Do list, that is endlessly
refurbished with more additions than
subtractions, ergo, the list grows longer as fast as the days remaining,
grow shorter,
ever faster!

no kidding myself, you feel (really) the cells
slowing their recovery, their fading fastness in every little thing, we squint where we used
to go without trepidation, we twist and turn
to musical utterances and undertones that
are groans and laughter at the old carcass’s
refreshing harmonic epiphany
of time’s passage

and think well,
I’ll do that tomorrow,
handle that later,
deal with that problem surely
eventually,

and the only thing that is attended to almost
instantly, is writing here,
last gasp observations,
that my being demands be issued now!
in time beating to
my slowing heart rate,
or factually,
my rapidly
rising rate,
each a contradictory economic indicator
of the same,
singular portending trend

so here I am ribbing and scribbling myself
before you, prompted by a gorgeously written poem by my friend (1) and the departure of another to a faraway land
where they live, my failure to meet, a shameful delay by an old man’s cautious
fear, that should not be abided…

is this a poem,
a cri de coeur,
a confession -
something of all three, but it is done,
breaths and words rapidly expelled, and for once. I feel like I have, once, now, gambled
against time, and actually

won
820 · Jan 2017
my morning mass
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2017
~~
for Danel Kessler^
~~~

in the early morning
of one's youth,
going to synagogue,
quite regularly,
a fabulous, honorably believing,
father's sole request,
more than a half-century ago

time eroded,
the fallacies of organizing a public meeting time
with a deity who seemed unavailable,
when most needed

instead we chatted
in the late of night of the early morning,
a time and places of my choosing,
for human fools do like  a setting regular,
comfort food for the divine spark within

rising/writing for early morning
poetry mass,
was a noted feature of the twofold meaning
of my latter years

where and whence, now and thence,
irreverent dialogue
tween the invisible one,
that would be me,

(can you see me now?)
and the visible one,
the you-know-who-
maker-of-custom-suited souls,

(can "you" see me now?)

*had become  
quite the regular artistes salon

witty repartee, elegiac conversations,
the residuals, in a rain drain trapped,
products collected by the light of  the early dawning,
apres skiing of an all deep-night long mournful body scoring,
poetic raconteur-ing

heaping spoonfuls of two-way mutual chastising,
paeans to the divinity in human-inherent,
regular debate team features of a
contested dark bedroom,
lit only by tablet light bright,
one if by land, two if by sea,
which the shining path to be taken by
itinerant signal comedic essays,
crafted aboard frigates and kayaks
voyaging on turgid, turbulent rivers,
mean city streets, 
swath cut by switchblades of greed,
exploring stories of the dying lands
of an aging man
fed by the streaming videos tubing down
the veins and arteries of an aging poseur

so in the sleep hours,
when I did not dream,
instead nail bled from my hands
words upon  a cold sweaty screen
from fevered fingertips,
diatribe prayers of hope ever after,
after every
dialysis of the arrogance of human nature,
removing, diabolical urea of our tainted beings,
replacing, with granular molecules of wishful thinking

then it stopped, for unknown reasons,
unbegotten creativity, chilling like
***** and champagne layabouts,
on the upper shelf of a mind's refrigerator,
always ready, just in case,
say
a new borne terrorist atrocity,
a seasonal wistfulness flu,
a cold virus blue through the heart,
love came and went with nary a
how-the-hell-did-that-happen,
even a new born babe joy
to the family est arrivé,
comld torch that heirloom/heritage seeded
inert patented creativity
into anime wakefulness

so here, so hear, I paid-pause,
conclude-delude, at 4:44am on
January Seventeenth of Two Thousand and Seventeen,
winessed by numerals white on a blackened background,
of a digital alarm clock with time, temperature and
the lunar phase of a madman
who twice was Christ told
would be a poet/story teller,
like his mother

a bountiful clock telling,
precision information detailing,
a tale that tells about nothing about a man,
who no longer requires
an alarm reminder to attend
his own moring reborning mass,
on a regular basis,

for his disheartened verbs,
runaway convict adjectives,
con-nouns, whimpering exclamations,
all on the loose,
nice sounding,
but of no earthly use

his lips like (the book of) Ruth's,
move in silent prayer,
only two can hear,
but the low priest observing,
disbelieves, thinking the piety of the poet
is just drunken emotion, not devotion,
kens not the broken poems
of the morning mass service no more,
but for
this one, irregular,
unacceptable exception
5:18am 1/17/17

^
I don't think I can write a storytelling poem much better than this. So happily gift to Denel, who serves the gods of poetry and our works with devotion, and who wrote this and inspired me

You must begin early
while it is cool and your head clear
discernment, a sharpened tine
probing the rocky darkness
for all things latent and destructive...

You must delve as close
to the origin as possible
or the **** you think eradicated
will bide its time, germinating
in the still secret ground

waiting for light
to penetrate the moist earth
waking the sprout
who voraciously pushes up and out
a curled blemish

in your otherwise carefully tended garden.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Do you pay your bills (on time)?

Lunar and sun cycles overlap,
interest accumulates, faster than
human cells compounding,
atoms splitting.

time rules inexorable,
it's justice, ruthless,
so many dues to pay,
for clubs I didn't want to join.

do not deny,
I bought much of my own fate,
my heart, my eyes overwhelming
my worn down, common common sense.

even if I pay my bills on time,
time is the only winner,
and what I possess,
becomes a prison, possessing me.
818 · Nov 2014
T his Body, T his Breadth
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
this composition
(not this one)

but the p r o c e s s

a within discovery
so radicalizing

composing himself
this body, this breadth,
this work, of untangling,
slight light shapes,
enfusing, suffusing,
even parts defusing,
but all a
cold fusion,
of body,
of breadth

some, unguarded, tumbling,
some, guarded, jumbling,
all shockingly emergent,
most shocking
to himself, this
decomposing of
composing,
his body, his breadth,
t his process,
t his work,
t his hymn,
this of him,
body and breadth
Oedipus and Sam Shepard at 2:40AM
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
The Nighttime Skies have altered, altering us…

The nightly showing of twinkling heavens, fulsome,
brimming, as can now be seen but only in a planetarium
program, always was a delight to our ******* citified  
visitors, who received this free reminder of Earth’s  
non-centric role in the universe, happily, for it jived
senses with common sensibility, confirming an assumptive
reality with yes! my-eyes-can-see-it proofs, that many city
folk only hope & assume are yet true someplace  else
‘out there.’

Night light pollution, a life feature just assumed as
a costless cost of doing business of our modern
population distribution, has horrendous mental
consequences for a generation of me-me-me
young ones, who lack the lessons in real awe,
not by way of a video game, but by never having seen a
Milky Way,
constellations and planets
that were so necessary to
critical cortical thinking p,
human beliefs,
re the totality of
existence a mere
two hundred or
so years ago.

The star’s disappearance for so much of our population,
reenforces the notion of our own centricity, get it?

A world centered on the city.

The truer star studded sky knows not
of gender neutrality,
racial disharmony,
through a
“I am not the universe “ perspective,
for in this large than life realer than real
exterior externality,
which why, by the by,
is mega black and white duopoly,
makes who is bigger no better than smaller,
for all but magnified speckles
all now more of a minor
irrelevant relativity.

When all the worlds are watching, not just the world, but
a Universe of unknown worlds are judging, studying us,
and maybe our lives are mighty picayune,
but amore humbled and yet precious, do we not need to be
always on our best behavior?

the fact is that we who are but 80 miles from nyc’s borderline can no longer sky-testify, be reminded of our planetary’s liveliness- uniqueness and our proper place on the largest tapestry
of the always, of the forever, of the
majesty and harmonious coexistence.

I am naive and a proper fool, and I do not know if it is the new smoking of the planet, spread of the seemingly innocuous
city boundaries encroaching on our rural existence, or a new physicality condition that makes our nights a pungent blackened cloud, and that so many can not say of the awesomeness
mystery above us, and think
with humility
our destiny,
our alignment
                         “is in the star’s.”

Alas poor Yorick, even your creator, the poet William Shakespeare, who understood human frailties too well, conceded that,

”it is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.”

But the again,
he could nightly gaze
upon them,
and we cannot!

He also conceded, to attempt to balance
the imbalances of our
visual scales,
and magnetic moral compasses,
writing,

indeed!

”there are more things in heaven and earth*”
817 · Feb 13
In the Near Future
Nat Lipstadt Feb 13
a common enough expression,
lightly spoken, easily surrendered,
wishes become hopes or prayers,
depending on the gravity of urgency,
right, know that wishes are
gravity-resistance,
rising up to the atmosphere, where any
cruel, fate-focused, looking to be
amused, lousy lounging-around gods,
always cruising
for some real entertainment, might
snap
into action,
upending plans, ruining futures,
or tickling your fancy
with a run of fabulous luck,
by, due to, their fanciful footwork

in the near future:
I hope to live to serve tomorrow,
feel the
ingenuity of love’s aroma,
as fresh as a new morn born
fragrant croissant

in the near future :
I hope I hear
Rhaposdy in Blue
being played live
through an open window
and be joined by my fellow
sensualists in a spontaneous
street festival

in the near future:
I’m going to go on a slightly
oh so lightly
planned road trip,
domestic and international
to visit friends I have netted
in my butterfly catcher,
the human kind,
whose flowers of words I have
suckled the nectar thereof,
and thank them properly
with hugs, fresh fruit
and gifts that will
tickle their fancy
fanciful wordswork

and make it home,
a safe return
to those called family
and find them
happy healthy
and never complain ever again
about that
stupid grin
on my face
that just seems impossible to
erase
200am 2/13/25
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023
<>

the thought is oft on my mind that all the poets here, I hold so dear,
that if we ne’er to meet in flesh & warmth of physical embrace,
that the nuances of our affections should be in someway marked by a lessening, a discoloration, be it be know then that our colors mutuel
will yet be be enhanced by

the colors of divine light,

this real light,
but invisible to the human naked eye’s limited spectrum,
this light fills the “unnamed, unmanned spaces between us;”

although we may not knowingly vision each other,  
we may envision-know the
sensate glow from the warmth of each other’s blood coursing
blue in vein and artery,  
with the aid of divine light,
trace each others faces with colorizing,
memorizing fingertips,
creating a seared retained memory;

the hues of theses impossible colored, rays that cannot be
optically ascertained, yet, we can understand them, in the same manner we mortals understand the divine presence,
invisible but ever present
in ways more real than, well, as real as any other mundane way
Inspired by Patrik Reuterswärd's 1971 essay, "What Color Is Divine Light?" and the art of Anne Lindberg's installations, both a  response to an
unanswerable question
that yet answers and speaks to me

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_light

What colors are invisible light?

However, there are other “colours” that our eyes can't see, beyond red and violet, they are: infrared and ultraviolet. Comparing these pictures, taken in these three “types of light”, the rainbow appears to extend far beyond the visible light.

April 2023
NYC, Washington, D.C.
812 · Jun 2014
My Night With Paul Simon
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
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,
roaming free,
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 are 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
when 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 verbal
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,
it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
it has never since that day,
left my grasp

June 5, 2013
First posted on HP exactly one year ago.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2015
a gift for the poet
a sky full of stars,
whose poetry, when well read,
brings, leads,
souls to their knees
satisfying with quiet desperation,
satisfying with noisy aspiration,
unto the best places poetry,
can airlift the human soul,
to a sky full of stars
~~~
so many pleasures to pick from:

the summer's first awakening taste of
comforting cold vanilla in sugar cone
upon the lips,
reading Whitman and Poe,
in my sheltered poet's nookery,
watching my woman chop
summer fruits, cranberries, berries, mango,
into the salad of our lives

but one pleasure olden,
yet evergreen new,
rare,
but never aged,
like the occasional
pink potpourri sunset of  gold bluesy hues,
this ancien accidental tourist stumbling
smack dab
into a new poet whose excellence
force~asks you to say,
while he breathes intake/expels
noisy airy,
how~wow?

I don't read the words of
this solitary kayaker,
no, I drink till drunk
on mine own tears,
angry that I'm late to the party,
once again

nine poems glorious,
this poets meagerly provides,
reminding me,
a few master treasures,
oft outweigh the many

me, a thousand and more,
yet struggling to hone
my dulled verbal skills
to take true flight,
most o'mine, suffocate stillborn
in the torrential waterfalls of
never ending misleading
gold plated
trite

nine (!)
poems only,
bring this old soul
to his worn out knees,
in humbling fresh-face humility,
he thanks the muses for
gift-granting knowledge of a
blackened velveteen night sky new poet star,
to his eyesight keening,
sad in the knowing that so many more,
shine
but remain undiscovered

this new poet

"writes a little,
just soul scribbles mostly
not wanting to be anybody special,
an evanescent dark star; season's change"

give me more,
this old man demands,
for each of the nine is a

"single delicate petal cast off,  
like a party dress fallen
in a beautiful mess
upon the puddled wooden floor"

her invitation, I accept, I accept
on bent knee eagerly to

"Come swim within this restless silence
the raging river inside beckons

the cadences we hear
are the heart's untamed waters overflowing ,
eroding this heart's shorelines ,
leaving the thrummed edges wild
swim within this restless silence
the raging river inside beckons

the cadences we hear
are the heart's untamed waters overflowing ,
eroding this heart's shorelines ,
leaving the thrummed edges wild"

as always,
I wax too simp,
too long,
while the new poet waxes
simply eloquent,
hard knocking down his old soul
to the ground
with memories
of days when with first morn blush,
two three poems,
he provided
to greet the honorable dawn,
after searching the night skies,
for new and
Undiscovered Poems

She
(for must be a woman, I just know)

"colours this heart's blank pages
rapt in the poesy a joyous ecstasy ..,
enrapture with rainbow's candy taste"
Please follow this poet, lest you miss a new star..
The lines in " and italics are all hers.
Been awhile since I wrote a Read the New Poets.
Please follow her
810 · Jan 2014
Lost all sensation
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
All five

Yet
Write on
only in the mind,
where my senses
are even keener

see?
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
4 day weekend Yay!  
Black topsoil fertile? Yes!
Poetry planting...


Did I get the 5-7-5 right? Only have one hand and can't take my shoes off at work!
808 · Feb 2015
For Eli
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
a fine nine,
an eye feast,
boy of man,
a man in his
prime boyhood,
a creature-so pretty that
invokes eye smiles,
auto-no-hesitation

mop of hair
even the day
after his haircut,
wise and hungry,
an adult,
a child,
in a fine nine year old
boy body

spout, no,
his child-like wisdom
adult easy steady and sweet,
easy in and easy out,
a long strand of a sensible
sweet spaghetti softly shared smiling

this special child,
no kin of mine,
and my words
can not capture
a sweetness so sane,
so brilliant, I wonder
why to try

yet here is this
wonderful child
on a freezing cold
Orchard Street night,
surrounded by hipsters,
hugging me good night

he does not question,
does not break away,
let's you drink him,
and takes freely
what you want to feel,
a creator,
birthing companionship in gentility

days later you limbs burn
with pleasure of his young arms
kind sweet tea,
the taste mint,
on the tongue of your soul,
the brilliant sanity
of a nine year old boy
who is quietly love-perfect

wonderful to hug
a gift to me
makes me want to live
longer

in that winter garden,
we bite each other,
our Adam's apple
from the tree of knowledge
newly fallen,
each sharing a secret,
mine - you need never fear;
his-  you have done ok

and  await our next rendezvous
to exchange new learnings
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
T'is a far far better thing I do,
to write tributes to new poesy chicks,
when seldom sufficient is heard
an encouraging word

than repeat yellowed ancien
tale~tell stale revelations
of an ole man's
forgotten glories and
never ending
tribulations

research uncovers a single
tributary,
a common origin, an irony river,
for their source,
tributes and tribulations,
one and the same

herein, this aging
tribune
defends the new poets
even as his own defenses
erode ever faster,
daily the surf takes him,
granule by granule

thus, t'is more urgent that he
construe and
contribute,
formally and officially,
attribute
the old guard's passing mantle, cloak,
making no
tribologies

frictions tween young and old,
fictions tween old and old
reconfigured as pretend new

this the natural way,
this luminescent fractious friction,
gives birth to
an Einstein~energized
triboluminescence

heat and light
the by-products of the
tribe
of poets
Real words. You could look 'em up....
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
So many lost ones, can you find me now?

Resubmitted for your tender consideration.
It fell between the cracks of us, but I love it so,
remembering its birthing, like it was but a moment ago.
~~~~~~

Multi-tasking multi-sensations

kissing your eyes,
sensing the tickling
of your trembling lashes,
between kisses and breathes
someone utters word-wisps of
love poetry.

right hand strokes thy chest,
sensing/sending heartbeats
upon my palm to the
forever to keep part
of my
treasury memory chest.

all the while
my left finger indexes,
it mesmerized, it memorizes
the curvature of the face
to be stored in the
never-forget-always place.

my tongue
restless to participate
goes whatever it feels like,
for the tongue is
the only body part
with a mind of its own.

my eyes, my eyes,
see only the
totality of this moment,
when mastery of multi-tasking
becomes
the single best poem
this man ever penned
with only
his entirety.

May 19th
Edited Nov. 17th.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 28
''Well, I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do for you
And all the times I had the chance to...

These days I'll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
"
These days by Jackson Browne
[?]

once again, mess with soulful perfection,
the melancholic mood of music & word
making me aching for the sweet sadness
of loss for when one possessed a curvature of
the smooth straight idyllic perfect love
of friends, family & females,
ascending into crescendo,
then the blood letting of
ego, vanity, incorrect priorities,
the hurrying up to nowhere silly manhood,

and Jackson bemoans
"About the things that I forgot to do for you,"
begging please in a daily prayer,
let me be
confronted with my failures,
my children,
I have not forgotten them,
though, they, I,
nor you,
and you too,
have not forgiven me,
nor I,
myself

and all that is left
is counting time
in quarter tones,
and even smaller, finer
intervals,
to make my punishment for all my
mistakes, go slower, making my time taking
more grievous painful

In the context of the song "These Days," counting time in quarter tones to ten means using musical notation to mark the passage of time, specifically dividing each "quarter" of an hour into even smaller intervals (quarter tones) up to the tenth quarter hour. This is likely a metaphorical way of saying the speaker is deeply immersed in a melancholic state, counting down the time until a specific moment (perhaps ten o'clock) or simply reflecting on the slow passage of time
><
These Days
https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=these%20days%20lyrics%20jackson%20browne&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5#ebo=1
807 · Apr 2014
Glowing under the comforter
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
glowing under the comforter,
that's high tucked under chin,
but white glow
escaping from underneath it

his electronic tablet,
in multiple ways, charging,
on his chesting, resting,
like a hot water bottle,
the screen warmth,
welcome and dual-purposed

for the poems,
he dream~writes,
now, directly from his chest
nightly transposed from tablet,
passed onto you
raw unedited no disclaimer
revoking writes of rights

when he wakes,
he reads
what he did not know
he wrote

stray thoughts stay
some become old friends
some become farewells,
as he bids and wishes,

fare~thee~well

he knows he
no longer needed,
his matter grey,
no longer matters
Wrote itself somewhere between  Five and Severn am this day,
the woman tells, she heard the keyboard tapping,
though my hands were not moving,
resting squarely outside, above the comforter wall
807 · Aug 31
write short and sweet
Nat Lipstadt Aug 31
it will always be complete

too late, this wisdom for me,

so i guess i write more, daily,

to eradicate that feeling of

incompleteness

clearly, i never met a good piece of advice

i didn't ignore

for her~4:41aM
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2024
~with thanks to T. Riddle for the inspiring photos~

there are color photos of budding nascent fruits,
an unexpected delivery to the eye’s inbox
exuding new youthfulness in
variegated shades of green
and

solitary ant traveler on a leafy space shuttle,
making its way, crossing galaxies
drinking from eye-drop seas
living off the land
and

life bursting out unreservedly asking for
no favors, nor recompense but to
breath, drink of soil nutrients,
to live to give back more
than it takes
and

to be chosen, plucked, torn from its environs,
to be the fruit of sustenance and a
delivery system to pass on its
****, tasty, enhanced flavors,
its seeded progeny the
chance to same
and

the ant travels on and about fearless,
its mini-size and sure footed body
leaping leaf to leaf to live and
to be fruitful and
multiply
and

multiple multipurposed prayers multiply,
of human origin, as humans blink at the
new-life miracles repetitious, wistfully
wishing every prayer, could be
answered thusly so lusciously
but

this it cannot be always, so we accept
as best we can, small proofs,
of regeneration, life eternal,
wetting browned, dark
soil with blotches of
salty damp-tears
encased within a
moment~eased
hopeful heart
7:52am
Sabbath Sat.
June 8
2024
804 · May 2016
if you are up at 4:10 am
Nat Lipstadt May 2016
join our company,
the erstwhile, ne'er do well,
itinerant lunatics,
the no-sleep freaks
that hallway haunt the passages
where these passing-by poems
on the fly, go by, like raindrops,
crawling up, against logic, on a window pane

be comforted by the fact
that tho alone in your own writing castle,
I am looking over your shoulder,
wider, older, maybe wiser
and yet still can't
answer the question
we are unitary posing,

can we handle the nighttime seasons of our lives?
a generic night haunt at 4:10am in the ages of the distant present
802 · May 2014
My Meridians!
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
My Meridians

We are:
a great circle upon the earth,
passing through the poles,
the East and West of us,
unique pole points of each us.

At any given point
on the earth's surface.
the half of such a circle includes,
two poles,
a singular line connecting
just we two.

This great circle of the celestial sphere,
passing through its calculus points,
fixed, but in motion,
you, the observer,
me, as composer,
we meet at an intersection,
a zenith peaked
a poem,
our greatest achievement.

And when we meet,
at a point of our
highest development,
great prosperity shared,
in the body's rivulets,
a vital energy flows,
when two create,
a write writ, read, and beloved.

This then,
My Meridians!

Noon and midnight,
the period of our greatest prosperity,
without them, without you,
how could I be culled, found,
this meridian, this our direct line,
transferring a tangible taste to both our
Lips.


I need
My Meridians!
6:03am
Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

Lyrics from "Fly Me to the Moon"
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2024
Tessellation & Interstices


”A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface,
often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes,
called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps…In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of geometries.”


the insistent need to be distinguished
means many are not,  
indeed,
this hunger
to be an influencer
and never just an influencé.

creeply creates a linear surface,
a flooring to be trod upon,
a tessellated plane,
were we each fit in
right-tight juxtaposition
and we are noticeable for our
uniformity and

the scuff marks of having been trod upon,
well used.

it is in the chips of irregularities,
the overlaps and the gaps
where we touch and connect
with our individual Ah Ha’s,
where our Venn Diagram Lives
intersect, infect, interfere, inject,
in the tiny
interstices
tween us,
the jagged, irritatingly edgy
rubbings
that the friction of creativity
is comedically inseminated.

I love a good tense sweat,
that invasive, deep boring burring,
that demands
instant creative solutions lest the angst of
an unwritten-in-the-moment-poem
is even more annoying,
before it is annoyingly,
befogged, lost forever.

that is why with old age,
fearsome fast
short term memory loss,
some turn to the speedy freedom of
free verse,
unconstrained by socks
and well fitting shoes,
and the slip on sneakers
of rhyming,
so insistent on perfection,
that the
burr is absorbed,
the irritant rubbing is creamed away,
and that loss of
a pouring of the soul’s ******* of
Done!
is
our exclamatory mutual curse
saturday sabbath
march 2
2034
9:50am
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2016
"Taking It Home to Jerome"**
by David Kirby


~~~

In Baton Rouge, there was a DJ on the soul station who was
always urging his listeners to ‘‘take it on home to Jerome.’’

No one knew who Jerome was. And nobody cared. So it
didn’t matter. I was, what, ten, twelve? I didn’t have anything

to take home to anyone. Parents and teachers told us that all
we needed to do in this world were three things: be happy,

do good, and find work that fulfills you. But I also wanted
to learn that trick where you grab your left ankle in your

right hand and then jump through with your other leg.
Everything else was to come, everything about love:

the sadness of it, knowing it can’t last, that all lives must end,
all hearts are broken. Sometimes when I’m writing a poem,

I feel as though I’m operating that crusher that turns
a full-sized car into a metal cube the size of a suitcase.

At other times, I’m just a secretary: the world has so much
to say, and I’m writing it down. This great tenderness.



---


A professor at Florida State University, David Kirby is the author of 12 collections of poetry, including ‘‘Get Up, Please,’’ which will be published next month by LSU Press.
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022
tired of the voices in my head

blunt spoke, they never shut up, believing their longevity
provides a grandfathered status, denying them dispatch

they do not acknowledge my notice of eviction but the
rumbling is quieter this morning, the mournful bittersweet
residue of their whining, wrecking, nearly  murderous noises

their recital of my major crimes, weak selfishness that was the mirrored reflection of my weakness and jealousy, the hallmarks
of the failure to be brave at the moments that mattered, indeed, my own murders Eye-confessed-committed but yet unpublished, remain

flawlessly bawled out loud, with repeat threats to remand me to
a higher judgment if I escape responsibility in this world, which
is laughable as they have played accuser, prosecutor, jury
and judge, so oft that the processional process, my living justice, trembling, slow destruction is preliminary a full color, living hell

but this sabbath morning of a blue sky after forty days/nights
of a cold rain that relentless fell, sparing none, gives me a pretense, a veneer of an almost-bravery to dial till a click clean heard of a
thunderous silencio, “no más” no more and a sudden abrupt of
is this not preferable,
this silenced soliloquy of modest relief

and weep guilty~grateful for a reprieve, a small pardon that
undeserved for the heinous things I have permitted, nay, allowed, will never earn parole, early release, and the finality of no more delay, is a inevitably undeniable, and a poem
of excuses not successes, and an acknowledgment that
I’ll never seat at the head of a table
revered by my progeny

welcoming the arbitrary invitation delineation of a new year,
a fresh start


Sat Dec17 2022
New York City
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
The Night Table

The night table, the night stand,
Too small for all it must yeoman hold,
Something keeps falling down

Lamp, bottle of water, a single tissue, partially used, a clean corner held in abeyance for future tears when poetry writing, writing tablet for when the impulsion strikes, lamp that goes on n' off when it so chooses, a straw-woven coffee cup thing to keep off the stains of liquid time, a watch that tells you the time only when it is falling over on the way down to hit the ground, a picture frame of mother and child from thirty years ago...

if there was more room,
this list would be longer
but I already told ya,
this night table is just too **** small
which was told to you twenty years
when you bot two of them!

Re-decorate, she replies
A single word
that strikes
terror
In the heart of a
grown man.

Good thing I am still a kid
And don't any need any of those grown-up things
Listed above.

Keep those night tables babe,
Perfectly serviceable and a metaphor
For two kids like us,
Cuddling in the bed those night table stand astride,
Guardians of the place where we tell each other tales
of twenty years ago...
(I told ya they were too small)


June 1
6:54 AM
"a straw-woven coffee cup thing to keep off the stains of liquid time" - could not think of the word - a coaster, turns out that it was a good thing....
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2020
Sept. 5th, 2020, 6:35am (wondrous palette)

the sun risen, but a solid foothold as of yet unestablished;
the new day’s skies borrow coloration from nearby sources,
no unique identity bright enough as of yet to call its own;
thin cumulus streaks, striate against an unidentifiable blue
paleness, more to contrast than to claim,  “here we are!

the bay is in labor: multi hues of blue intermingle, as the
light illuminates each part differentially; soon enough,
one hue will come to dominate, just like you, soon enough,
a single hue will dominate, and this day will be distinct,
and who knows? perhaps even distinctive enough to be
memorialized.

minute to minute is the ever changing interplay; unlike a
human, this rapidity maturation is unafraid to experiment
with new combinations but-based on prior recalled self-
examination; something on the water, a small boat low and
close flat to the surficial; a skiff, a rowboat with no oars,
drifting, languishing on the fishing spot, unmoving unhurried
humans aboard, thinking, this is the good way to start living

last comment; tiny hinting shades of violet, pink and orange
exist, hard to discern so well blended are they with the norm
of broader blue and vanilla white and then all readily apparent!
this is the new days message, we are what we appear to be,
one earth, one sky, indivisible but born from
a wondrous palette;
and so yet another first poem of the day is created, a verbal
prélude, étude, unique but a product of its many ancestral
predecessors, just like
, we the people.
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