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3.1k · Dec 2013
Introspection / Extrospection
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
Introspection / Extrospection
the banner photograph that the poem references is off now, but...

The poem is about a photo I took, outside looking in, where the window and an interior mirror, both reflected me, outside, outwards, but caught the interior of the house within, and the interior of our lives, which was my intent, but the poem came later....

a self portrait,
a reflection
in a window, in a mirror.
a man stick figure
within and without.

me hidden, armed,
iPad spyglass
one upon the other,
unaware of observation,
introspection / extrospection.

man, external,
grilling striped bass,
woman, internal,
kitchen caught slicing heirlooms,
a dressing awaits,
peach salsa,
the seagulls inform me.

Outdoors, indoors.
bay,
in the background.
living room, kitchen,
in the foreground
couching, crouching, cooking,
a closeup and landscape,
of two lives.

so the photo treatment,
introspection / extrospection,
upon reflection,
a poem ouside-insight.


a moment to reflect upon a reflection of a moment.

this  how I see things,
and why not you too?

Double vision.
outside, looking in, inside, looking outward.
then,
at the point of intersection,
a memory recorded,
always recording,
paths, moments,
worthy of note.

such a note, here,
record of a photograph.
preserving my preservation.
tho photo blurry,
what you see,
is what I see.
lives of symmetry

summer symmetry is my life.
life is my summer symmetry.

exactly.



August 2012
digging up seasonal inappropriate poems to warm me up.
Continue reading...
3.1k · May 2013
Hello Poetry! W­ho's Who In Poetry (May 2013)
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
Hello Poetry! W­**'s Who In Poetry (May 2013)
Hello Poetry


Yearned.
Ached.
For so long, for a community,
That values the ineffable wonder
Of a wordsmith's creations, intended to
Repair himself and the world with bullets of
Verses.

And here you are.

Like/Dislike, matters not,
So long as we value each others work,
And the the heart echoes within
What the eyes read and the mouth whispers.

The array and disparity of your names,
A delight,
Each name a poem
In its own right.

So I resubmit a question for your consideration,
The answer is now known,
The answer is all of us.
May 2013
---------------------------------------------------------


­Who's Who In Poetry  



T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers, tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to rabbled boors,
imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was,
yet is,
because of you,
in poetry.
---------------
Postscript (1/25/17)

Even more true today, than four years ago.
Thank You.
a revised, minor modestly different, version was published in Feb 2016 as
Orphans and Poets, Peddlers & Members https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1564122/orphans-and-poets-peddlers-members/


and then finally another different variant, more personal was published in
Aug 2016 as
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1734088/the-harpooner-of-the-unexamined-life


the harpooner of the unexamined life

"Be the harpooner of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody, comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders into crinkly eye-lined smilers."

writ many years past, just another dusted off phrasing,
composed from life's lecture notes, collected by eyes tired
from the hazing,
eyes wearied by the addict-strong,
incessant observational needing,
of celebrating the loopy,
they who make this planet
capable of laughing at itself,
a helping habit for mutual survival...

should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross
cursed  'pon his Cain-marked back,
you need not move to the other side,
'tis only a make-believe poet,
with his recording device,
seizing your rhapsodies to rhyme,
his collected artifacts, your crinkly smiles,
his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words for you to keep,
a token of your now examined worth,
a celebration for the keeping...
___________-

special thanks to those who rediscovered these poems recently and brought them back to me for refreshing cherishing these old word friends.
Continue reading...
3.0k · Aug 2017
all poets are human, therefore, all humans are poems
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2017
all poets are human, therefore, all humans are poems
all poets are human, therefore, all humans are  
poems*

<•>

"In logic, a tautology (from the Greek word ταυτολογία) is a formula that is true in every possible interpretation."

<•>
hardly a tightly taut tautology,
yet true this, in every possible instance

all humans, poems,

as if their portrait painted

from words dipped in a vocabulary palette

which is why,

you my million muses,

are so oft the themes of *who I write

and when foolish think there is no
inspiration in the air,
your names
each and every,
a title awaiting
finishing
a gift for Jamadhi Verse

Friday, August 25, 2017 6:10 PM,
S. I.
Continue reading...
3.0k · Apr 2014
A Cautionary Tale re Poets on Dating Sites
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
A Cautionary Tale re Poets on Dating Sites
don't fall for their tales,
their trapping words
intended to capture all manner of
literary loving girls...
while they, these mopoets^ are perfectly content
to keep on looking
"for the perfect one..."
to write about,
the greatest love affair in all of
his-story

but only after getting first
a close dose of,
a teeming taste of<
her
"inspiration"

He tells them that
after the first date,
he'll go home thinking:

"I could drink a case of you"*

but usually but a glass,
at most,
a bottle, a month,
a satisfactory suffice,
and it's onto the next write

that's why the FBI labelled him,
a dangerous serial poet,
his mot
to be trusted,
not, no, no...no!


Ah men! Ah poets!
somebody should pass a law....

4:03am
meanwhile it is nearing six years...as she likes to say, she picked me out of a lineup, and
fingered me instantly(as-a-bad boy!)

^Mopoets = male only poets
Continue reading...
3.0k · Mar 2014
An Intimate Courage
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
An Intimate Courage
on fine paper,
quality paper,
deserving of thoughtful
care and consideration,
summon courage,
write for one,
even if too many will indifferent read

write for the one,
who will wait for you,
long after closing time
for the need to say
Something
of thanks,
something that cannot go
unsaid

write for the one,
who cannot say
what they needs to say,
and in their stumbling style,
fumbling unsuccessful reach,
says it better than anyone

write for the blind and
sing for the deaf,
be their guide,
be their intimate,
aid them to escape boundaries,
by granting them the saws
to cut loose binding emotions,
share with them your most
intimate courage

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."

T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)
#intimatecourage #an #intimate #courage #lipstadt
Continue reading...
3.0k · Oct 2018
“I haven’t done it good enough yet”
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2018
“I haven’t done it good enough yet”
a television interview, Oct. 2018  with Sir Paul McCartney

~for all of us, forever~


<•>

**** you Paul, old man
you trying to make us all look bad?
guess you’re just another
‘miner for a thousand years’
or more,
cause we haven’t seen a reason why the vein should run dry,
for the stolid earth resupplies endless old metal and the liquid veins
supply the need, the urgency of a warm gun of composition,
a drug nonpareil

and the things that provoke,
still provoke once more and again,
love and need, even memories,
petri dish cell regrown,
breathing atmospheric nutrients in the hotheaded hothouse air
of the human farm

‘tis why I paean you at 4:25am understanding full well,
better than most, for once I wrote,
it’s always the next one, that will be,
the flawless poem,
that will permit the laying down of the pen, the guitar

but even flawless is not
“good enough yet”
for all of us, forever

for “yet,”
even more than forever,

is the most unlimited word we share

~

5:02am 10/17/18
see
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/567944/a-flawless-poem-june-2014/
#paul #mccartney #havent #done #it #good #enough #yet
Continue reading...
3.0k · Jul 2013
Seven New Poems For Seven Days #3: Orphan
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Seven New Poems For Seven Days #3: Orphan
Seven New Poems For Seven Days #3:  Orphan**

Orphan

The funeral will commence at 11:30 am.
Gives me one last review time before the
Final Exam.

Panicked, I discover a whole new chapter
for which I am wholly unprepared,
though its inevitable presence was
assuredly knowable long in advance.

Orphan

It doesn't fit, occur, imagery is of a young child to
soon abandoned, not a late-in-life curmudgeonly poet-boy,
who has been multi-times reincarnated.

I add this title to my list
of proper ways to address me,
titles earned by dint of hard work,
or just unlucky luck.

This new status, orphanhood,
bequeaths no special privileges,
other than, a semi-official
societal permission slip
to feel bereft, lost, and compose poetry.

Know a real orphan, from early, early on,
has never recovered and
never will for it is just impossible.
Just impossible.

So whom am I to make light of
my undesired, unrequested new degree?

I accept it and to my surprise,
It hurts.

7/21/13
Continue reading...
3.0k · Jan 2014
I can't change a tire/when do you become a grownup?
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
I can't change a tire/when do you become a grownup?
One evening with a few friends in a borrowed minivan, we got a flat tire.   Changing the tire was so complicated (like PhD. complicated), we finally had the owner of the van drive over to finish the job while three other men stood and watched.   This poem came out of that night.



I think you become
a grownup
the moment,
the very second,
you realize at
some very, very
early age,
you have
limitations.

Perhaps not quite
a total grownup,
mature like,
but some
irreversible threshold crossed on
a life long voyage,
a descent of no return,
a Checkpoint Charlie crossed.

You will never be all you
want to be.

Some will disagree.

the day of maturation,
they'll claim,
comes on that day,

when clouds
of different shapes
call out your name,
raining saturation
of responsibilities,
(feed your family, son).

you
initial your acceptance
by quenching thirst by
drinking 'free' raindrops.

ain't arguing,
the when exactly,
for this highway-journey has
so many rest stops.

But
when your body
cracks with disappointment,
harvests the bitter knowing
that
can't,
means there will be no defying this truth, now self-evident:

there are somethings
you ain't gonna ever be,
or never be able to do.

here's the rub awful.

the street called
Recognition Rue
is the longest road to
a dead end
you are forced to travel,

and the cruelest part
of this joke is
you rue the day
and the next day
and the very next day,
when, each time,
the Dead End sign
moves along all by itself,
another block or two,
with you following,
behind by a
block or two.

after awhile,
you cease to curse,
satisfied with the certainty of discontent
you and your
bag of tools,
cannot have every,
will always be lacking,
the precise instrument
to do
every job right.

half good is likely
your total best,
so sadly shuffle along
at the bequest of
the little voice insisting, whining,
have to, gotta go...

You
want to jack me up
on a cross of
protestations,
words like learning,
and
promises to teach,
no limitations,
words that overreach
and hint of
lesson recitation.

I can't change a tire
but don't give a ****.

this is not how
I measure my self worth.

the sadness that prevails,
that contaminates my brow,
ain't mastery of survival skills
likely I'll never need again
don't need your
complementation/approbation
of what I can,
or rants
why I can't.

For nothing will ere exceed
the exasperation,
chest ripping
agony of frustration,
that one single poem
worthy of saving
has ever,
nor will yet,
never, will
leave my fingertips.

It is
forever detained
in the prison of my limitations.

now that's worth
acknowledging,
now that's worth asking
now that's worth
answering -

why, why, then,
grown up you,
keeps on trying,
surely sure,
that looking back
regretfully,
is useless,

(and you have heard
the lock click thunderous clap of:
"sorry son,
your presence is...
not needed,
no worries, we won't
ask you to do
when better
surrounds us everywhere").

Answer is:
that it is worth trying,
writing,
a poem about why,
I can't change a tire
and it don't matter,
just so I can say
to myself,

*I'll never be all the way grown up.
Continue reading...
3.0k · Jun 2013
Three poems were walking down the street
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Three poems were walking down the street
Th poems were walking down the street

A young teenage girl,
A Professional Loser, but life lessoned and in possession of
Eagled-claws and tongue razored sharpened
From gettin/givin acidic high school barbed kisses
(She maintained up to date put down lists),
Swooped them up, hers to imprison,
Framed them to be soully hers,
Purposed for skin restoration during the wee hours of the
Crying Nights

A middle aged man, tired from failure,
Trapped tween lost rock n' roll dreams and
Unsuccessful retirement planning,
Suffocated by the hands of twixt and tween,
Grabbed the three, like a rock climbing hand-hold to
Take him home when and where his family looks at him
Pathetically.

This grandfather espied the other two,
Looked liked old familiars, friends maybe,
But eyes/words, dimmed, disparu,
Memories unsorted, disordered, jumble-merged,
Perhaps the words to a song he once knew complete,
But did he write that phrase, or was he just a poet
Thief?

The three poems went about their business,
Bringing heaven to earth,

FYI, even Angels can't be everywhere, so,
God invented poems to do his ***** work,
Cleansing souls.

They rode in~out of town on a prankster wave,
A cheering throng was not around,
But a singular poet saw, recorded the vision,
And thus, this nameless poet,
Below unmasked, unsealed,
Cleansed one more soul,
And that soul, this soul, as required,
Paid it forward.
Paid as in the past tense
Dedicated to the poet/poem,
Balachandran from Thiruvananthapuram,
Whose laurels decorate, cleanse me

* Billy Joel's "Piano Man"
Continue reading...
3.0k · Jul 2013
Which Is Greater? (July 2013)
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Which Is Greater? (July 2013)
Which Is Greater?

I break a vow.
A serious vow.

In a place, in this site,
Where the fluid pain
Is the water of the world,
The element that is crux,
The amniotic liquor of creative flux,
The morning juice,
The afternoon caffe,
The first beer of the day,
The liquid that we rinse and spit out our every day,

I will write about pain,
Arrogantly, as if there is any unused combination of
Letters, vowels and consonants left unspoken, *****,
Having sworn not to, for pain is cumulative.

Asking myself,
Which is greater?

The pain of creation, inception, origination and birth,
The pain of  wreck and ruin, destruction and death.

Homework Self-Assignment: Compare and Contrast

Suddenly, I am expert.

Creating a poem a day is very painful.
A poem that is the sum of
Reflection, research, and purging.

Once I wrote:

The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.

The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.

Suddenly, I am  expert.

My mother is dying.
It is a process. Days pass,
She neither eats or drinks,
Yet she lives on.

I watch each labored exhalation,
A subtraction, a countdown,
It is as if she was returning each singular day,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
she ever possessed to the atmosphere,
One breath at a time.

Is that painful?
It is for me.

Now you complain. They're different, not to be compared, et cetera.

Pain is pain,
Whether it is in the service of creation, or
Creative destruction.

Once I wrote:

With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poem's birth diminishes me.

So, one and the same?

Nope. Yes. But. Cannot one be the greater?
Yes, one is greater.
When I lay on my deathbed,
I will exhale the answer
Into the atmosphere
For your retrieval.
Greater. Think upon it.
~~~~~~~~
Lipstadt-Roth, Miriam née Peiman, 1915~2013,
passed peacefully Sat. July 20th.  

Critic, speaker, writer,  
her fiercest feat,                    
her leading role, creator.      
A near century of memories  
her legacy, memories that  
linger not, for incised,        
chiseled in the granite of the
books, papers, and poetry
and the very being              
of her descendants.            

Her faith in Almighty,            
unflagging, for he did not    
forsake her in the time of      
her old age, when                  
her strength failed.
Continue reading...
3.0k · Dec 2020
“Sacred Geometry of Chance” (1)
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2020
“Sacred Geometry of Chance” (1)
~dedicated to the old poets here~

the addictive pairing of certain words, a line,
a lyric, slap-snapping you to full attention,
unfailing decades of instant recognition,
an adrenaline + caffeine shot that powers

a chance, a tensile injection that causes

the lips to commence a new choreography,
the fingers to tap, a jumbled, hurried, embattled
disorderly mess that regenerates, reformulates,
concords into agreement, a harmonic consistency

a geometry of many differing angles that equate

a hard physical, a soft mentality in a singled work,
coexisting in a sacred state of singed confluence,
though imperfect, satisfies mathematical boundaries
of a random outpouring, crowning the stripe inspiring

the spark that finally satisfyingly silences an ignited

filament a-glowing for years, that holy happens
to cross your antennae, fulfilling the need to honor,
the sacred geometry of chance, the honor to need,
the joy of saying, at last, this unwritten debt, paid!


————————————————————————-
(1) a favorite of many years, a lyric from “The Shape of My Heart” by Sting

(2) Dec 3 2020 2:53pm  NYC
#lipstadt #sacred #geometry #of #chance
Continue reading...
3.0k · Aug 2019
The 1300th Poem: The Deepest Twist
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2019
The 1300th Poem: The Deepest Twist
The Deepest Twist

<>
for my friends who know that when HP says this my 1300th
poem, it’s off the mark by hundreds; nonetheless
1300 is worthy number to celebrate your affections
nat
<>

you return back my older children, fully grown,
my eldest word babies who never ever visit,
blessing them anew, lavishly, with special wishes

I,
take them,
with both hands, a reacquainting occurs,
the old words, deep twist, now hurtful hurt because
reimagining when and how easy they came to be birthed and
how the replication of that process is now a
practiced impossibility

how they burst forth, in purple majesty, wheat waving,
wholly formed, bathed in holy water, leaving no stretch marks,
only just an empty sac inside instantly needing,
needling me into auto-refilling right away

even the twenty four hour, hard deliveries,
long and arduous, were so easy created faust-fast,
that the errors of typography contained,
became lasting hall marks, iconic nomenclatures of
passionate loving-nonpareil

now, well past point of urgent addiction,
unlike then every glance, each sidewalk cracking,
lamppost shadow casting was
a sea story for a deep dive delving asap

I,
supplied answers for the internal badgering incessant
happy ****** need, mine, to go, spill the words,
cab or bus motion nursing them,
now they come slowly strolling,
semi-formed, needy, inconclusive, reused,
and feeling as trite as a cloth coat from an old thrift shop,
so wanting for tender loving care,
which is to provide when you are
four score

wondering how easy it was in prior times when inspiration
fell like a deciduous tree’s fall colorings gifts or
as little children’s nightly multitude variety of dream tales,
when whole worlds uncovered, nay, universes,
hidden between summers green grass blades,
or in unique snowflakes

the semi-forgot love affairs that parented poems
by the score of scarred orchestral scores,
now love circle-turn in holding patters in the
crowded skies above nyc,
awaiting for a trafficked man to give permissions
to “run-away”land that rarely is granted

once, poems in turbulent fluid born, noisy ripping of skin,
****** by the emitting of  constant calming tenderous words,
wonderful drippings, so many multiple births in a moment,
even the OBGYN is complaining,

give other poets a chance at parenthood!

the awesome anger of human tragedy is now so shopworn
from over experience,
even god visits less and less, for it is written,
nothing new under the sun*

though soon his annual visitors day approaches (Day of Atonement) and god will require new
words of human comforting,
a new poem acknowledging that being godlike
is ******* hard work,
for humans are annoyingly capable of incredulous kindness

how can one justify allowing unlacing acts of insane violence to tear
the hand stitched lacing fabric that’s ever ready
to bring us together in an instant elegiac joining

the truth is every one of todays poem are clawed,
shovel dug out from cavities and crevasses,
your new words of recognition of the oldies but goodies,
iron of irony, make it hard, hard, painful to write
without an epidural to numb the painful
dumbing down

when I am breaching my waters, I am hard to spot,
we ancient humpbacks live beneath the deep distanced,
cold waters for many more minutes
than we need surface for breathing,
the show-off fluking, less and less,
and when we birth,
every two years,
must bring the calf-poem to the surface instantly,
to breath, lest it die,
all the while repeating to ourselves:

what was miraculous writing is now nearly invisible,
to blinded fingers that arrhythmically cane tap,
words difficult to recall, recalculate, recalibrate
into a wholly poem

only the **** tears,
that same shameful violin permanent-accompaniment,
they laugh at me when now, they alone
come first quickest, all too easy,

appearing nataurally,

without a formal
written
invitation
“He says, "Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"

Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright”
#the #deepest #twist #lipstadt #1300
Continue reading...
3.0k · Apr 2023
19.4% lesser
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023
19.4% lesser
tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar

not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute

a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just  numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected

naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?

here is the hard part.

your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am

gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:

I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…
early April 2023
NYC
#lipstadt #lesser
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3.0k · Mar 2014
betterdays (read the new poets March 2014)
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
betterdays (read the new poets March 2014)
http://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=Betterdays



as is my wanton wont,
when stumbling
upon a new voice,
the passed baton
is herein handed off

am old man.
my poetic voice is just
memories that are
repetitive lies and lines.

speak in simple sentences declarative.
this is nature's way.

darkness approaching is indeed my
au courant poem, mon actuellement.

I have seen better days.

I have read betterdays.

now I am upset, distraught.

here come another young
hot bright votive voice,
and I am being asked to believe that there are
still words that raise hopes of
betterdays.

her bed chip crumbs, delighting,
leave crumbs of pleasure in my soul.

l like her big word poems,
that leave me, fill me by:
siphoning all in a parched gluttony
leaving behind a viscous residue
and few glassine portals
into a reflective world

better yet I love her
mothering little god poems,
letting me remember little boys
who once loved a father

little god love
radiant is thy smile,
smallboy love, exudes from you,
like a flower god's nectar,
bestowed, with negligent love,
upon a mother's world.
i will drink my fill,
everyday, whilst i can,
for far to soon will you
grow up.

don't speak eastern Australian,
tackers and doona's, no clue,
blue cats are a foreign breed,
but the cat of this starfish mother,
shares my literary tastes:

him, nestled,
on the second, to
uppermost stay,
of the third
bookshelf,
in the study.
he has filed
himself,
between,
ogden nash
and proust
and it is there,
he plans to stay.

let me not go on and in deeper, lest
I delay you from her pleasuring
thy tasted untested senses.

so here I am all grumpified
(at my age, you can make up your own words)
unsure if un or satisfied,
knowing that a woman,
word whips me into a
soothing frenzy of creamy
morning coffee verbosity,
a captive taker of life's
ungrandest moments,
poems of them,
make to glory come.

somewhere in the world,
a woman writes of plain goodness
of simple strife and simple lives,
makes methinks that there could be
betterdays still ahead,
better poets surely, than me,
and the day starts well
http://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=Betterdays

Read her please, follow her if you love life.
Continue reading...
2.9k · Jul 2015
The Postpartum Poet
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2015
The Postpartum Poet
"There is a stillness that floods the moment"
                                                        ­       a sky full of stars
~~~
for you, poet, you
~~~

there is a stillness that floods
that exact moment,
the cutting chord moment,
that oddly has no
resounding chords
~
a stillness
that, simultaneous,
happily, sadly, accepted, lost,
all immediately,
by its very knowing
released acceptance,
for that is when
depression and joy,
a 1-2 punch of  
raging quietude floods
the exactness of that moment
~
this shock of the calmness,
albeit brief,
jolt of kind,
jolt that slow mo's
pulsing prior air gasping
~
it comes when thinking

done,

it is done, yes done and I am undone,
having surgically cutting off
a limb, never bloodless, but
still relief waters flush the wound,
a granted, gifted joy floods,
permitting its escape tween the sutures,
in exhilarating exhalations
~
throw it down,
your extracted best,
lift up,
the fleshed out silhouette,
present it to the court and corps,
a farewell glance push,
finger caressing the send button
with ****** anticipation
for the lovely loving,
a vintage of the pre-regret
of completion
~
the poem is done, gone, ****** eliminated,
the light of eyes so peculiar to that moment,
when you have birthed a new born poem,
an acknowledgement of the stillness of a
closing loss,
the parting, the coming,
of a
peace of you
must too, be noted,
all deserving of equal rights

~~~

July 12, 2015

*NML
Continue reading...
2.9k · Jun 2014
Timothy's Prayer
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
Timothy's Prayer
Dear Lord:

I am confused.

My life is Damocles,
My name is unimportant,
My sword's thread stretched
thinner than thin,
barely a 10 word poem
slender wide.

This body's homeland,
this deluded tired,
where my physic resides,
is indeed nominated accurately:

Sequestered.

Yet I am not alone,
though cut off in ways,
few can comprehend.

Sequestered.

Indeed,
secluded,
withdrawn but not by choice,
the loveliness of life
escapes and
eluded and yet,
I still believe...

a disciplined disciple,
my faith constant,
in this,
your awful trials and failed tests,
to me, success eludes,
and life deludes.

Yet,
tested beyond exhaustion,
you let me sojourn for a few brief, precious,
every-days in a multi-windowed world
where the entry fee is simply
the freedom of words
undenied,
but well defined,
in perfect clarity.

Rest and restlessness no longer debate.

Rest,
defeated has departed for more hospitable climes.

Weariness,
has won,
I rail not, swearing faith,
debate not your choices for us,
long ago,
surrendered that incomprehensible struggle.

Here I am
uncomplaining,
unfeignedly,
still here,
worn but standing in
your verbal grace.

One comfort
left
and it helps me
right
what's
wrecked
and for that,
I bear the knowledge and the burden of what ails all humans,
and what can bring them comfort unceasing..

Gifts so small  
that that some
single lettered,
make up a whole

here is me,

I

bowed, boxed, bowled over
and still bowing,
on so many days
in so many ways,
and in those the few hours
when the mind refuses
the opportunity to sleep,
hope tries to keep itself seeded

for here is  found,

Lord,

where sonnets bloom,
where one can draw welled fresh water comfort
from the words of poetry
with which you surround us,
letting me be reborn in hope ever so small,
daily, like you

The misbalance of life,
where the justice scales
seem weighted all wrong,
for in the glory of human word
is a world real and imaginary,
this poetry, this art,
so weighty this god gift to humans,
in its beauteous weightlessness,
gives me shelter so brief,
gives me shelter so grand,
that though my greatest burdens accursed,
so much suffering surrounded-sounded,

these shared words
and the ones
you gift me,
makes all these woeful waves
tamed and becalmed,
the scales of tribulation lose

Through these words,
breathe through them,
once again,
rest and strength,
restored and returned
in ever small lettered says
and your incomprehensible
Glory,
in humans,
thus stored for shared safekeeping,
is mine to share and shared.

So many the mysteries,
but this above all I cannot comprehend,
how can so many not see,
how so many abuse
so carelessly,
that greatest gift
after life itself,
the restorative words
so plentiful,
you have planted
within the earth of our
human existence.
for our fellow poet, Timothy, so long overdue this, my guilt finally expiated...ten times better than the best, he...my obligations won't let me leave as fast as I want to...

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/763485/timothys-prayer-answered/
3:34am
Continue reading...
2.9k · Nov 2013
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs*

my woman, she's a
snuggler and spooner.

burying herself on my,
no, in my
double barreled chest,
her blonde hair,
my field of gold.^

she landscapes my life,
paralyzing me with the
simplest of gestures.

she sleeps holding my thumbs.
locks me up.
locks me down.
so I cannot transcribe
the lines of poetry mindful,
landlines shut,
land-mines of verse
unexploded,
till these now,
hours later.

a few notes ago,
a few days ago,
heard an octet,
eight voices singing of
five letters, five vowels,
a  e  i  o  u.

you can hear what I heard too.

after you listen,
better understand
vowels are the butter of language.
the anointing oil of connectivity.
more than a line of code,
they are the keys to the code,
that make words and life musical.

I suppose we could mange without them if we had to.
spsz v cd mng wthot thm ff v hd t.

but not so well.

I suppose we could manage
without opposing thumbs.
learn to type with my nose,
paint with my toes.
but not so well.

here is how it comes all together.
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs,
never give them more than a
never thought, passing over, assumed.

oh yeah, on some tv show,
you can buy a vowel.

these glues are the things that
give me the chance to tell this:

this poem it is a bit about me.
this poem it is a bit about her.
this poem is really about you.

I could live without
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs.
but I could not live
without her landscaping my chest.

but
when I share this knowledge
with you friend, it becomes a
verified, realized, acknowledged truth.

So you see this poem is about
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs,
but really about you.

In fact, I am thinking,
that if I did not love the title
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs
so much,
would entitle it instead,
a wholesome democracy of love.*

you, a registered voter,
vote then with both all the
a  e  i  o  u  and opposing thumbs
at your disposal.
Notes:
^ So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell
As her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Sting "Fields Of Gold"

~~
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYbFJJnJ9Q4

Aug 5, 2009 - Uploaded by roomfulofteeth
Roomful of Teeth premieres Judd Greenstein's "AEIOU"

~~
Indebted to james-bradley-mccallum for the phrase that deserves a poem of its own,
*a wholesome democracy of love.**

Born at midnight, realized at 2:45am,
When my thumbs read the
Declaration of Emancipation.
ha.

Yet and still
Vowels and thumbs
Can live without
As long as we our have
Hearts to point the way...
Continue reading...
2.9k · Dec 2013
Shouldn't we all be studying?
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
Shouldn't we all be studying?
Shouldn't we all be studying?

dedicated to M M Jones from Montana,
where I guess big skies make people think
about big questions and young poets thrive.


the butterflies of child-awakening
to the certainty
that school and
shame and embarrassment
were only minutes away,
once again,
is as fresh as
the flowers my love
buys every Friday,
fifty plus year later.

I would awake,
climb into bed with my mother,
telling her I did not feel well,
that my
stomach felt gray.  

I could not tell her that
the mocking I received by
my richer classmates at the
multiple lines in the fabric
of my corduroy pants
where she let my pants down
made me cannon fodder
for what we call now
bullying.

I could not tell her
of the heartbreak
when somehow the parents
of my supposed suburban friends
forgot to
pick me up for the weekly swim,
leaving me to watch
the sunset fall as I sat
on the stoop of our old house,
tucked away in an out of the way,
unfashionable street,
the shame still wet.

I could not tell her
of how two bothers tortured me
as I sat in the back seat
of their station wagon,
spitting seeds
on me like curses.  

Their older brother died of cancer
when that was still unusual,
and the mother wrote
a beautiful book
about his life.

I still hate them, those two,
fifty years later and it gives me
unusually great pleasure to
announce it to the world.

So I studied.  

Not my schoolbooks,
but lovely and ***** literature.
Friday afternoons, three children,
me the baby brother,
(anonymous, for they nicknamed me
brother as if  I was nothing but
checked off category)
to the library went.

Five, five was the max
they the austere librarians
and their coda of holy silence,
would let me withdraw.
(god I can see my library card still).  

By Friday night,
I had finished one or two,
ruining my eyes in
the lousy lamp light
in the living room,
falling asleep on the couch.  

this, reading addiction,
which afflicted the entire family,
I did well into my teens.

I have stopped reading
which amazes the very few
who know and care.

do let us re-pose,
let us repose,
the question:

Shouldn't we all be studying?

the answer of course is
yes and no.

my studying blue period
is long since ended.
now, my biographer,
will call this my red period.

for red are the memories that my remembrances
come back to me.
crystal is the clarity
of the indignities
I recall, though red,
is the anger
at the shame and
abuse I took.

now I can write what I have always held in my heart.  

those two awful brothers,
who loved to torture me,
I was glad their
wonderful brother died.

so this is my red writing period,
when the studying of a kind,
has long since ended
but the smell,
the memory of
fresh textbooks still can
make me nauseous.

Yet, I still study life around me,
as I clean countertops,
walk deserted beach isles
in early September...
this studying,
is the product of years
of studying the inside out
of me, and turning that study
fruitful into poetry.

why?
why am I writing this at 2:00 am on a Sunday morning?

I did not pose the question.

but it posed me,
and the dialogue in my mind came
sugarcane fresh and tumbling out
and will be both
recorded and recoded
("in the truth will out eventually" file)
after a fashion.

these days I sometimes study
my older poems,
whose titles I recognize,
but whose content
I cannot recall.  

so double digit delight
when I
meet again old words,
wondrous and trite,
that make believe
that all my studying
somehow paid off after all.
When I stumble on a young poet on this site, whose poems delight me, I will bring them to your attention. When you discovered me,  they forgot to tell you about this bonus feature, I guess.
Continue reading...
2.9k · May 2013
iPad Love
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
iPad Love
iPad Love

4:49 AM, and by the light of the silvery moon
and our iPad screens turned down low,
we snuggle side by side, our fingers glide so softly upon each,
each of our own devices, this technique,
it could be an app, teaching how to caress a human being.

No need to tell you in sound, out loud,  
how you turn my heart upside down,
I'll just post a note of appreciation on Facebook,
you will see it faster, and besides, you got your earphones on and
could not hear my sweet nothings if I screamed them in high definition.

The newspaper arrives on the electric "doorstep" -
no longer will do we venture outside in
pink bathrobes and curlers, or boxer shorts,
a legal gesture of neighborly disdain.
Americana, losing another icon, as well as  
insuring the unemployment of thousands of newspaper deliverers,
boys and girls, on bicycles, their first job, now obsolescent.

Your feet, so cozy and warm, touching mine,
the sensation, lovely and fine, duly recorded in a poem
that on my iPad I scribble, as my typos disappear, out of sight.
your ear, I nibble, something you hate and I love,
but electronically, it's done with no fuss or muss, and
I don't even have to move!

Sadly, I can find no app that will bring the warmth
of a cup of coffee to my night table, and the gun metal casing of
this invention is chilly, but still Steve, with almost God like vision,
you brought us closer in ways prior unimagined.

So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.

Nothing, something, even as thin as my iPad 2(!)
will come between us and the holiness, the uniqueness of
the human touch.

2011
Continue reading...
2.9k · Nov 2013
Missing the whistle of the teapot
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Missing the whistle of the teapot
Missing the whistle of the teapot.
A big tin thing, dented, spouting
Warnings, careful baby, I am
Really hot.

The hum of the microwave,
The machine noises of coffee being made,
Them noises just ain't the same.
There is no poetry in
Whirring hum, beans bump 'n grinding.
They don't talk to me.

But in the middle of night,
When I rise, get dressed,
Still put on mismatched socks,
My t-shirts inside out,
The same jeans been wearing for weeks,
Cause they are right handy,
Lying on the floor, feeling so good,
Covering up my old fashioned
Keds.

Someday, I guess there will be
A machine that hoses us down,
Shampoos the mind while your fingers idle,
Then becomes a wind Chunnel to dry us up.
Will it have octopus arms
To dress us, having  looked at our daily schedule,
Taking into account the weather channel forecast,
Where n'  when we gotta be?

I suppose that if I ask nicely,
The replicator will make me perfect coffee,
And even whistle if that's what makes me happy.
But as long it don't try help me write,
That ****** function, that ****** need,
Human,
And only I can
Whistle while I write.

6:13 AM
Continue reading...
2.9k · Nov 2013
A Living Finish (Sunday's newspapers come on Saturday - Part II)
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
A Living Finish (Sunday's newspapers come on Saturday - Part II)
There are metallic, life-like statues of human figures scattered through my city, often on park benches.  You must look twice the first time you spot them, and sometimes, each time, as they are so nat-ural, that they fool the retina image of man.*

The traffic light,
red to green,
yet my limbs,
froze fruit solid,
release catch stuck,
unflippable,
somehow plastic freezes,
mobility skills rusted
by December's hampering
cheeky cheeks,
a seasonal reddish copper
discoloration of the extremities,
a harmony of no sensation

A comet stuck in
pedestrian neutral,
collided/jostled by
starry eyed
Fifth Avenue
street walkers and tourists.

my presence sensed,
touched, yet avoided,
unnoticed,
like streetlight,
lamppost, mailbox,
I am, a body,
at rest,
unseen
but on display
in the art gallery of
Manhattan's Lost and Found

In the section of the paper
where the
unimportant local news is
sliced n' diced
into single paragraphs,
of human interest,
tidbits, amuse bouche,
items of
major minor interest,
The New York Times
reported the discovery of an
unauthorized lifelike
bronze n' copper sculpture.

eyes of polished nickel,
heart of stained steel,
rendition of a man
so lifelike y'all do a
triple take, smile,
take a cell photo,
phone a friend

his embodiment can be found
on the rounded corner of
Columbus Circle, @59th St.,
where you enter Central Park.

upon a bench,
man clutching Sunday newspapers,
a pair of scissors,
coupons cut,
scattered at his feet.
a homely but comely,
****** expression,
one of bewilderment.

A tiny plaque on a brass plate,
at his feet,
hints of his progenitor and human origins.

Artist: Unknown,
Materials: Organic Metals
Title: A Living Finish
Continue reading...
2.9k · Mar 2019
poetry, planning and prayer (and answers)
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2019
poetry, planning and prayer (and answers)
-for Zukiswa Mvunguse~
and for
~ Jul,
who once again,
loved each line best~


having already deduced that:

“the unplanned is his plan,
it’s his faceted flaws
that refract his coloratura”^

the titled alliteration teases him into thinking
there, is more to be said,
more to be prayed,
the unplanned lesser lesson is as-of-the-yet unlearned,
and the sunburst of a full fledged
lying-in-bed born from a static spark of kinetic energy,
awaking in an unfamiliar bed
or a too familiar state of mind,
begs for birth and vainglorious death-by-anon/amity
of another poem  

I have written poems commissioned,
“write about suicide,” asked a friend,
“take this word and artfully knead it,” once, was once an oft request,
twisty manipulate your scheming resources into
finely assaying a field rock raw,
laboratory mind-mine it into an essay that delve dives
where you fear to treacherous tread,
resultant, an awkward prayer, now, a valued mineral

no poem is truly planned and no prayer ever truly answered,
but as you compose, pushing the last, next word
ever farther to the right,
you self-confess, expecting no absolution, that the poem,
this one as well,
and the next, and the next, and the next

has always been planned since your inception,
always a prayer asked, and in creation conception,
answered even if not directly answered,
for
in the bare minimum asking,
is the answering,
is the planning,
is the poem and the prayer,
is his owned
alliteration
spontaneously born at 7:57am on
Sunday, March 24, 2019
^ https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3021583/being-a-poet-is-not-planned/

read her poems. https://hellopoetry.com/Zig1/
#poetry #planning #and #prayer #answers #lipstadt
Continue reading...
2.9k · Nov 2023
“This old thing?” (of gratitude and gratifications)
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2023
“This old thing?” (of gratitude and gratifications)
~ one more for patty m. ~

slept late after dancing with my devils, from,
from the wee, until a pealing pearl from the Earl of Dawn,
recovering from an intrusion~invasion~brain~regurgitation,
and it’s nearly 9am, sipping my first cuppa Hawaiian,
& woke to a repost of a ten year old wondering plea(1)

makes me think “This old thing,” poem, like a fav
frock/suit that still drapes perfectly, and yet draws the
***** admiration and drippy drawling yummy compliments,
gracefully, gratefully demurred with them three words,
& it’s 8:39am, Bruce pitching in with “Born in the USA”

recipe for a new thank u Gawd poem to make room for
a fast~break diet for an old man with a rebuilt ticker, this
very emission~transmission of a verbal politesse writ going
some where, cooked on a medium slow burner fueling dressed up seeds of heartfelt appreciation made of ancient oat grasses

birthing a poem~child of thanks to the Lawd for one more day,
opportunity, the five sense’s delivery gratitude and gratifications, and the desire to intertwine the sights, music, a crisp blue November Sky, the need to bleed brew these words into a fulfilling,
second moment mug, for the pearls and Earls

of poetic humans


10:01am
Thu Nov 2 2023
(1) Do You Know Why Men Cry in the Bathroom?
#lipstadt #this #old #thing #gratitude #gratifications
Continue reading...
2.8k · May 2019
The Dirge of Memory
Nat Lipstadt May 2019
The Dirge of Memory
~for better days for the poet betterdays~

mournful tunes play silently, but still too often,
eyes wet but in corners kept, recurring then the
memories, keepsakes, letters, books, small trinkets,
not dusty, but dusky, resting on in-between ledge of a
mountain-sized twilight of well lit shadowy haziness,
edgy dark brilliance, a comprehensible contrast non-comprehendible

tunes that bless with equal measures of grief,
comforting, by memorable card flashes of good relief,
a dividing line, hazy and frequented crossed, a sort of path,
with no destination signaled, as if the path itself was an end,
to a meaning, a solution, with no clarity divined, a division
of sight and insight, providing an ill fitting reconciliation

mourning is electric, morning is electric,
letters, words bottled up in evaporating perfume bottles,
seeking the comfort of dissipation unto a larger atmosphere,
the scent in everything tangible, stronger still yet, in intangibles
that can erode but never ever fail to return instantly when voked,
by vision, odor, a particular child’s smile, line in a poem volunteered

recovered, uncovered, a post first writ to be written, discovered,
when time and place coincidentally breathe together, at last,
beckoning you to places where memory serves only as a pleasuring,
upright mind marker, decorated in chains perpetual reforging,
absent pain, gleaming dreamings full-replacing longings for pasts,
new verses composed, passing, a grand addition to a child’s legacy
loss can only be tempered, reforged, and ultimately used for our  own betterment when the heart commands, now write!
#the #dirge #of #memory #betterdays
Continue reading...
2.8k · Jun 2013
The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)
The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)

Summoned for to break the fast
of sleep-and-dreams that can no longer last,
As the clock to noon draws nigh,
I happily paddle off to the cabinet
Where the cereals that I CHOSE,
Since I am now a grownup,
faithfully await, calm and in repose.

The refrigerator, in nearby proximity,
sources a Stony-field yogurt,,
A yogurt that I CHOSE,
light and sweet with processed fruit,
due to the miracle of Aspartame.

Distracted, back to the kitchen for
Some multi-grain slices to hail and toast,
Which I prefer dry (no butter)
and ready for anointing with oils of
Strawberry jelly.

To the table return ready to sound
The horn of plenty,
When I see the ****
Breakfast Fairies have struck yet again!

Cousins first to those that reside in nearby dishwasher*
The nefarious fairies guard my health
tho nobody asked them too!

My Crispix, with its malty sweetness,
And the ***** aftertaste of sprayed-on "enriched vitamins,"
has been smothered neath layers of
Granola, with cranberries and nuts,
Contaminated with a hint of cinnamon.

My processed yogurt,
vanished, without a trace,
replaced by their bacterial cousins from Thrace,
which is in Greece,
who, tho white, taste like plain yogurt sourpusses,
Even when littered with blueberries,
Nothing can replace the taste of my
Artificial Sweetener!

Dry toast has been sheeted and shined neath
A tribute of fattening butter,
rationalized by a commonality,
"Everything is better with butter..."

The last indignity is that my coffee,
Not the light brown I cherish
When kissed by whole milk,
Now muddled and muddied by skim milk, so named,
Cause they skim off all the taste.

Because they are fairies,
With fluttering wings,
Hasty retreat they beat,
But I know where they hide.

The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.
* see "Men Going Off To War (a/k/a Washing The Dishes)"
Continue reading...
2.8k · Mar 2015
Endless Short Love Story Bus Poems / The First Misstep is the Best
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2015
Endless Short Love Story Bus Poems / The First Misstep is the Best
oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other
I love this poem. I do.

Lyrics to "Ain't to Proud to Beg"

I know you wanna leave me,
but I refuse to let you go
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,
I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me

Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me, girl, don't you go

Now I heard a cryin' man,
is half a man with no sense of pride
But if I have to cry to keep you,
I don't mind weepin' if it'll keep you by my side

Ain't to proud to beg, sweet darlin
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go

If I have to sleep on your doorstep
all night and day just to keep you from walkin' away
let your friends laugh, even this I can stand
cause I want to keep you any way I can

Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go

Now I've gotta love so deep in the pit of my heart
And each day it grows more and more
I'm not ashamed to come and plead to you baby
If pleadin' keeps you from walkin' out that door

Ain't too proud to beg, you know it sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Baby, baby, baby, baby (sweet darling)
Continue reading...
2.8k · Sep 2014
je pense bien à toi (i think well of you)
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
je pense bien à toi (i think well of you)
je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

Have not chatted in awhile,
me rutted in NYC,
a city of constant tear down
and sometimes flashy urban human
renewal...

While you,
you getting on with life,
growing up, growing down,
buying clothes for a new school season,
or growing children,
or boxing up now grandchildren memories of memories...
falling in love, writing poetry all about it...

You,
in Nepal, Malaysia, India,
Seattle, Portland, and the Florida's panhandle,
the US Midwest sainted hinterlands,
the South, that makes one love water,
water that has travelled from the faraway,
island continent of professorial Australia,
Did I forget the Philippines?

worse sin committed,
is that in
your poetry
I have not toe dipped,
quite the long erstwhile,
after loving it with
obsession devotion...

so just a Saturday afternoon
note penned just to you
and you alone...

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

So by way of apology,
craft a poem for you exclusive,
more than each word, letter,
every syllable, tongue tasted
for conjuctivity,
breadth and thus discovered
notes of red soil, raspberry, lemon,
even a hint of sweet masquerading as a
salty kindness in our veins,
our unique vintage of connectivity

Your hand to my lips raised,
grasped twice, by mine both,
slow lifting with stature, affection and respect,
kiss it and whisper just enough for
we two to hear...

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

even this seems weakly insufficient,
but care taken nowadays,
a new economy of words,
write less, think more, and
give up the truly deserved words only
as a mark of my fondness and respect

these come on no schedule,
often months in the making,
so forgive-me-not my unsweetened silences,
accept them with easy knowing that

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

the summer man wintered in discontent,
his journey now disrupted by forces exogenous,
stealing his vision, jailing him in between
walls of indecision, knocking down
his own twin towers,
but carelessly not making provision
to tell you well and often enough

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)*

Sept. 13, 2014
Thank you SALLY for reminding me of this long ago poem 6/21/18
Continue reading...
2.8k · Oct 2013
You Kidding
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
You Kidding
You kidding

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.

We belly kiss,
Fist bump,
High five, talk jive,
Tell each other grand stories
Of dragons in pizza parlors.

Each of us,
Trying the other out,
To ascertain just what
Stuff we are made off.

I love to put him to sleep,
My fingers, rhyme writing like Pradip,
To the turning tires of mom's Toyota van,
When the tired is a steady stream
Of word mumbles of which I understand
A word here and there, but an epic poem
He recites, a verbal dream, a slippage
To that place where three year old bones
And crying go when they pass the point of
Exhaustion.

Rub his cheek with circles of forefinger,
Stroke his head with full palm of my hand,
Close his eyelashes with gentle fingertip kisses,
Take the toys from his fists without any resistance,
Sure signal time for both of us to nap.

His surprises endless,
His cunning now legend,
Alternating disguises tween
I a big boy,
I a baby,
As the situation arises that will
Get him what he wants,
A masterful manipulator.

Which is funny cause I still do that too.

But when he stops me in my tracks,
It is when somehow the brain that has
Just crossed the thousand day alive marker
Says the profound, the uncanny, the
Philosophy of the world weary that is something
That I think just about every thirty seconds.

It is when after some particularly wild reverie
I compose, of seals that swim from his Frisco bay
Around the world to mine, on Long Island
Pacific to Atlantic, and after ten minutes of
Escapading with Batman and his mates,
He looks me and takes me down with this
Almost clear-spoke sabered wisdom,
But in the juvenile voice soft sleepy, of a babe of three,

you kidding(?)

Half statement of fact, half a soulful-questioning,
How does this three year old comprehend
The essential difference between dreams
And reality, that is separated, wheat, chaff,
Milk curd, cheese, the spider silk line that differentiates
All of life essentially.

Yes kid, I am kidding,
I tell that to myself every thirty seconds,
To keep me sane, straight, true,
But I whisper it to myself grownup style,

Who ya kidding?

So it appears that when they say
Out of the mouths of babes
They were talking about adults
Who are hoping they can still be three,
When wisdom and silly are just the
Same-thing.

You kidding(?/!)

Yes I am.
Just a kid,
Kidding you, kidding himself,
Pushing his very own stroller,
Writing crazy stories he calls
Poems, lovely little things,
As soft as your skin, stories of him,
That always end,
With belly kisses and a
you kidding.
Columbus Day
Oct. 14th 1492
When I "discovered" the Americas.
You kidding?
Maybe.

According to
HP this be, my three hundred bad and seventy third poem.
If they really knew,
It would be asterisked,
As follows:
*who ya kidding?
Continue reading...
2.8k · Nov 2013
Up on The Roof (Nov. 2013)
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Up on The Roof (Nov. 2013)
My father, gone fifty years,
A transplanted German,
Arrived early, in the 1920's,
Fleeing the worldwide depression,
That decided to follow him to America.

Traveling salesman, raconteur,
A busy man who decided he
Found the right girl at age forty,
But by the time I was teen,
He was, then uncommon,
An older man, an older father.

Raised three kids,
Working six days a week.
Unlike the other fathers,
White shirt and tie every day
Even Sunday.

No backyard in the city,
To toss a base or football to his son,
Though he wouldn't, couldn't,
While his son grew,
Grew up worshipping
Three Gods:
Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and
The bold, the bald Y.A. Tittle,
Heroic sports figures.

The son who went to Yankee Stadium
For the first time,
There he saw the color
Emerald  Green in the Bronx,
In The House Ruth Built,
Whispered Hallelujah,
There, courtesy of someone else's dad.

Goatee he wore, and on Saturdays,
Wore a black jacket, striped pants
And Homburg hat to the synagogue.
Custom of his Hamburg upbringing.
The only one, the only dad,
Of course, dressed that way.
Proud of his style, his heritage,
Helping me not to fit right in.

Yet twinkle twinkle did his eyes sparkle,
Such that all the other children loved him,
Better and best.

But I was the son with the unlike,
The father, unlike any others.
Age thirteen, he's asked me this:
Now you are a man, I wish of thee this,
Accompany me to synagogue every day,
As is my custom, and all your father's,
Twenty generations before me.

When he passed, the stories of
His saintly deeds, his help,
How he saved, brought many to
The United States of America,
Including his five sisters and their families.
During, after WWII, became legends,
all the while, trying to make a living.

One time, I was listening to
Rock n' Roll, on the radio,
In the den, study, his home office,
Where
The Stereo,
proudly sat.

Chased me out,
Paperwork to do,
But stopped me first,
Listening to the song.
That happened to be next.

When this old world starts getting me down
And people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space

On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let me tell you now

When I come home feelin' tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet
Up on the roof
I get away from the hustling crowd
And all that rat race noise down in the street
Up on the roof

On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let's go up on the roof
Up on the roof

At night the stars put on a show for free
And darling, you can share it all with me
I keep a tellin' you

Right smack dab in the middle of town
I've found a paradise that's trouble proof
Up on the roof
And if this world starts getting you down
There's room enough for two, up on the roof
Up on the roof

Up on the roof
Up on the roof
Oh, come on, baby
Up on the roof
Oh, come on, honey
Up on the roof
Everything is all right
Up on the roof
Say that, "It's alright"
Up on the roof
Oh, we gotta go up on the roof
Up on the roof
The Drifters - Up On The Roof

He listened carefully,
Pronouncing with an austere smile,
"That I like, now go."

Now fifty years later,
Having failed spectacularly as a
Father, family man, having never saved a
Soul or life, I remember the outcast days
Of my growing up years,
With a different kind of father
Than all the kids who
Played catch, had big suburban homes.

I never understood much,
Always struggled to be one
Unsuccessful in fitting in,
In my high school yearbook,
They outed my anomie,
"Either apart or ahead of us,
Nat stands, uniquely individual."

So here is a poem, an apology,
No, more an anthology, an anthem,
Of, and,
To my pop, for resenting, misunderstanding,
How
You were more than unique,
How you were special, in ways
No teenager could see.

I am have written some of this before.
Tender apologies, but when I awoke this
Post Thanksgiving Day, at
6:00 Ante Meridiem,
In not my bed,
In not my city,
Pandora surprised me
Real Good,
With an old song,
Up on the Roof.

These words,
The ones you are reading did not drift,
Nay, they spilled out in shades of
Tearful regretful guilt-filled,
Pooling tears that cannot n'ere erase
Prior youthful errors, grievous sins.

Of course,
They like to surprise you,
At the end of their song,
Twisty surprise ending.

I will say it, not you,
In some ways, not all,
I grew up to be just like him,

And for that,
I will give thanks,
Not just one day, every day,
Until it is among,
My last thoughts passing,
Proceeding me,
Preceding me,
As I depart this globe.
Nov. 29th 2013
Miami, Florida
Continue reading...
2.8k · Nov 2018
strike my eyes lovely
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2018
strike my eyes lovely
strike my eyes lovely


for S. B.

by way of introduction,
when you have gone to confession,
freely admitting you have nothing left for others to harvest,
no seed to plant a new crop, and lies and laughter, interchangeable,
there is no poetry left, not even raisin scone crumbs,
one good friend informs that a forgotten five month old poem,
a computer has selected & resurrected, for distinction

so months later you snicker for you have been seriously
self-kicked away from writing, all your vocabularies,
trite and yellowed overused, and you read
really good poetry and are
slapped-seen-outed by the impoverishment of
your own no-winsome word-smithy,
no delusions, even this, but a-quick script, more a thank you note,
and it’s the only lasting quality is the
genuine nature of its intent
but the poem itself falls bottom of the cliff, short on quality,
a victim of your dissatisfaction

let me explain better

she messages you while the time difference works in her favor,
she reads while you sleep the sleep of the soul-exhausted,
she, scoffing at your claims of motivation deprivation,
as she cherishes this forgotten one,
with words that cannot be ignored

the poem
                 strikes her eyes lovely

daggered, this morning phrase cannot go unchallenged  

for this a compliment that any poet would
weep for, be inspired by, stung into action,
provoked, ego flattered and challenged to-do more-better,
what writer could want for anything more!

who can own this ability  
accept this ultimatum of success, a cross-word crucification

to strike down lovely
the readers eyes, almost all once,
almost excuses me forever
for trying and failing so many times

you smile
but not in the chest where
lovely
needs to strike you

for if you cannot strike the readers eyes again and again, then...
let the moment gleam, and then disappear,
again and again, stored but not restorative

11/21/18
Miami
#strike #my #eyes #lovely #nat #lipstadt
Continue reading...
2.8k · Sep 2013
Partial Poem Pastries
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Partial Poem Pastries
Half of a stale croissant,
A cupcake with no icing,
Partially consumed slice of cold pizza,
A special computer file,
Called old and cold,
Some files nothing more
Than titles on a snowy screen.
A smorgasbord of delicacies,
A mason jar with a lidded hole
To keep the prisoners alive but in,
The insides of my refrigerator brain.

Where the partial poem pastries reside.

Some jots and dashes get microwaved,
Served up instantly, hot n' piping,
Read me read me now for I am
Ready to be served.

Ah, the others, miserable creatures in a
Special Victims Unit,
In a ward where the doctor has no more
Release forms to sign,
Dream on, awaiting a super nova,
A comet tail, a torn screen window corner,
To engineer an escape.

Kitty, my kitty,
Give me your tired, poor scraps of prose
Yearning to be free,
I have a place for them, where
They will reside unhappy, but free,
In good company,
Waiting for the day they get to see the
Statue of Liberty.

Until that day, when,
Your happy love poems yearning to be whole,
Say, "now I have the ending,"
To let them breathe...
Now I have the closure,
That is the opening,
I will guard them closely,
As if they were fragments of mine own
Blood, sweat and tears.
Kitty Prr · Jul 11
Arrrghhhh!
Arrrghhhh!!!

Sorry just had to get that out.
I have three partial poems,
What the heck am I supposed to do with three partial poems?!?!
Continue reading...
2.8k · Jan 2014
A Singular Proposition
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
A Singular Proposition
Singular

definition:
extraordinary; remarkable; exceptional: a singular success.

unusual or strange; odd; different: singular behavior.

being the only one of its kind; distinctive; unique: a singular example.

separate; individual.

Logic: a proposition containing no quantifiers, as “Socrates was mortal.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Singular Proposition:

you think you are special, exceptional,
you think you are unusual, odd,
proud of it.

extraordinary, exceptional, unique.

maybe so.

Here then is my Singular Proposition:

On the day that you unconditionally
accept responsibility
for the care and feeding,
for,
yes, the very
survival*
of just
one single
other

on that day,
you may call yourself,
singular,
in every sense of the word.*

Propositions:
I am a singular.
I am mortal.

Affirmed.
Jan. 12, 2014
Continue reading...
2.8k · Jun 2019
poems are cheap they say, the supply exceeds the demand
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2019
poems are cheap they say, the supply exceeds the demand
poems are cheap they say, the supply exceeds the demand,
all are product of criminal mischief, and Lord, I know,
I’m one of the most thieving, most mischiefing ones

when no one was about, I scribbled many notes,
transplanted from my eyes, for a bottled voyage
to fallow beaches for sandy seeding

no matter IF these poems are from your womb ripped,
****** red concoctions of life’s cute cutting edge inscriptions,
no one cares re your titanic love’s labors, your children’s betrayal

no one cares from whence and wherefore they birthed,
all words, low class and progeny, not prodigy, of demeaning circumstances, best tossed back without much foolish hesitation

writ with pen tip of broken green glass from a parking lot,
the point I broke once more before my commencement,
inked from a wicked witch’s melted green spittle pooling alongside

poets of no way, falsely prophesying falsehoods most singularly bad,
waste not-want not, time better spent than reading rhymes of stolen disrepute and cloudy ownership and ignoble authorship

unless you among a blessed few, who see a full blown poem in glassine clarity, birthed fully formed Elton songs in a mouth full of amniotic fund, you, put down thy laboring eleven instruments

if words you claim of new parentage, you as the mother dear,
know there is nothing new under the sun, even these very words,
scripted by Israelite king whose tomb gone, he, too, poet forgotten

join me in a needle park of junkies who tried and failed, nickel bag
smoking budget dope words, in cigarettes of mostly discarded seeds and twigs, hallucinatory inhaling the same vision again & again

you refuse, naturally, glamming in notional newness, your arrogance, a plentiful commodity of wood-be writers by thousands buried in wooden caskets, under wooden inscription-less crosses

and of the trillion readers possible, to coloring picture books and instant grams, all have gone to the labor-free glancing look-see
of a seconds-short, lengthy meme, 10 second videos, 140 limitations

of the greatest, of Shakespeare and Coleridge, reader’s fast-dying, sunburned neurons reply; “free ***** of his Love’s Labour’s Lost, and the Ancient Mariner, overdue, free him too!”

ancients mock you aware that there be no verbal combination yet to foretell, what Lear said, that’s the the idea, “When we are born, we cry, that we are come to this great stage of fools.”^

fools we are, for there be no fore, the tale already told, once before & more, vaingloriously does this poet’s false vanity speak, so, so boisterously,  
“why my tale, why my tail, is as new as the oldest fossil”
^ King Lear, Shakespeare
#poems #are #cheap #supply #exceeds #demand #lipstadt
Continue reading...
2.8k · Nov 2013
Dump: A Commissioned Poem
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Dump: A Commissioned Poem
Dump: A Commissioned Poem

Someone commissioned me to write a poem about the word, dump.  Not a pretty word, but a workingman's word, full of possibilities and mystifications.  Gratefully accepted.

so many, endlessly endless.
bringing paper, cans, compacted
words,
all in need of special disposal,
special handling,
individuation of caring.

I split myself into multiple personas.
blue, green and some other color,
divine myself into receptacles for the sounds
you write, that must be read aloud, slowly,
in order to properly, allocate,
to dispose,
of.

sustainability.
not the planet,
something smaller,
more
man-ageable,
man-agreeable.

your verse!
you in verse is multidimensional,
yet unified,
one theme,
single answer to a questioned couched
a thousand different ways,
a thousand different poem titles!

how can I sustain myself?

sustain
— verb (used with object)
to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure.
to bear (a burden, charge, etc.).
to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding.
to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way, as under trial or affliction.
to keep up or keep going, as an action or process: to sustain a conversation.
to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life.
to provide for by furnishing means or funds.
to support (a cause or the like) by aid or approval.
to uphold as valid, just, or correct, as a claim or the person making it

you are in the dictionary,
did you know that?

now I will answer in a free man's verse,
written without hesitation but with plenty of
tears and tissues
and rememberings of his own
wasted days, major successes,
bathtub ships,
righted
and passengers saved.

Words written in a single breath,
no exhalation just simple purity,
best wishes that any man can have,
if daring, he reaches inside and,
rips himself open,
saying it's ok, and meaning it,.

so here I am
standing looking you in the eye,
sitting with both arms draped
over your body,
saying
dump,
dump it all on me.

Cause I got a billion words that rhyme with
comfort.
Bring me the past and the future uncertain.

I already told you
never read a poem I did not like.

got slots for cans paper and compost,
got slots for fear, heartache and a big ole wide one for
pain.

got a heart shaped dump
that never closes.

The city council complains,
your name ain't Moses,
you are a city boy,
why you hanging in the wilderness for forty more,
didn't you do your time?
ex wife that brutalized your soul.
two sons who barely speak to you.
let someone else take over,
and I smile saying exactly,
I got experience,
I got Kleenex,
don't know nobody else better
Boy Scout
Be Prepared.

See,
even you can dump on me
effortlessly.

So.
ask not what you will bring.
cause I got an opening for anything you can
dump,
and land fill of me that has so much space,
billions of acres and neurons that will lay fallow,
until your poems, plaints, sailings and wailings
fill them.

so that is my poem,
dump,
even,
I like it.

May even dump some of mine on someone
like you.
after all
who in this world cannot use some
sustaining.
Next word, please
Continue reading...
2.8k · Jun 2013
Yo! Yo! My Drug of Choice (Damn Poets)
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Yo! Yo! My Drug of Choice (**** Poets)
Yo! Yo! My Drug of Choice (**** Poets)



Yo! Yo!
Member of the troupe?
You up all nite?
You always hungry,
Making trouble, rite?
You one of those?

**** poets!

Exist on strict diet?
Pleasured-pain,
Constant-continual surges
Turn into urges,
Full-time suspense,
Juices always flowing.

**** Poets!

Yo! Yo!
You one of those?
Never knowing,
What? When?
The eyes gonna invert
Retina images into words
Brain signaling, semaphoring the fingers
Yo! Yo!
You don't get nine months,
Maybe nine seconds,
Then mother-birth another verse,
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!
Remember your first real high,
That moment
No absolution, no return.
That moment
When you admitted, confessed,
to yourself:

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

Yo! Yo!
So you do recall,
The exact moment,
God-spark-within, ascendancy gained
You lost control,
Wept words instead of tears!
A ****** poet ******!

Yo! Yo!

Sophie's Choice.
You chose writing over breathing,
Worshiper of the purest pleaure,
******* in deep the smoke-high of
Head-nodding discontented contentment
Stealing anything you saw
For to satisfy the need, the craven
Craving.
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!

Don't you're ever sleep?
Hear that the city, the state,
Gonna methadone your kind
In a special program
Teach you only language to sign.
**** poets!

I am a ****** poet.

The first step taken.
Admission.
Poetry is my default rest position,

My drug of choice.**

5:07am
June 12, 2013
cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's tongues
Continue reading...
2.8k · Sep 2013
Plant a Woman
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Plant a Woman
Plant a Woman

"When a woman plants a tree, she plants herself."
John Muir

See the photo, on a stone walkway in a park on an island, somewhere in New York State

Years after first encountered,
Returned this day, purposely,
To trod this bricked-path
Where a solitary brick, these special words carved.

This brick, a patient lady-poem in waiting,
Required a search-and-locate mission,
To verify my memorized eyesight,
Freed to release these words,
Years in the forming, from whence first espied.

When a woman plants a tree, she plants herself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Much less than obvious,
Import of said statement,
Complex, notes, scents, questions...

Perhaps this is the thus, the why,
Why this po-effort, somnolent, yet disquieted,
In recesses, drew lines on the wall, with one line
Slashed across, for every month,
It gestated, unborn, but not offering to die,
It did not come effortlessly.

I am seed of man,
Planted within woman.
I am a tree of  iLife ,
My seed planted within
You, iReader.

I am as much woman as man,
Perhaps more so...
Wrote you, told you,
I Speak Woman^
Perhaps more so...
Even better than man.

No shame, I rise with the dawn,
To bake the bread,
Alongside her, her secrets, she has, need learning,
Her bread, raisins, cinnamon and secreted inside,
Wisdom of loving kindness.

She scatters seeds with recklessness,
Who can know where wheat will be needed,
Someday, her children exiled?

Forest investor, tree planter,
Futures she sees, where others see but wood,
I follow her lead, for I cannot but fail to
Prosper, when on paths tread,
Formed, excavated by her footfalls.

I give her rubies,
I give her gold,
When I ask where it be,
She laughs and says adorning the tongues
Of the hungry and in need.

So I give her more.

Indeed, I plant my seed inside her daily,
Let her plant trees as she desires,
Her forest, the refuge of my old age,
So she plants trees, as I
Plant a Woman.
Thanks be, that her trees,
Come from her *****.

Now I understand Mr.Muir.
See the photo. (Took it down, a pic of the brick, on the path, with that quote inscribed)
^ Nat Lipstadt · Aug 22
* The Summer Alphabet of Woman (I Speak Woman)
--------------------


With help from the Book of Proverbs.

A woman of valor–seek her out,
for she is to be valued above rubies.
Her husband trusts her,
and they cannot fail to prosper.
All the days of her life
she is good to him.
She opens her hands to those in need
and offers her help to the poor.
Adorned with strength and dignity,
she looks to the future with cheerful trust.
Her speech is wise,
and the law of kindness is on her lips.
Her children rise up to call her blessed,
her husband likewise praises her:
‘Many women have done well,
but you surpass them all.’
Charm is deceptive and beauty short­lived,
but a woman loyal to God has truly earned praise.
Give her honor for her work;
her life proclaims her praise.
Continue reading...
2.7k · Jun 2023
The Picture Window
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
The Picture Window
The Picture Window

The vista view never changes but daily.
The naked eye, registers the same distances,
resting objects unmoved, modest alterations
by wind and water are noted, but for intent,
for purpose, the watercolor one would paint
be invariably unvarying as a Swiss Alp.

The  subtle nuanced worldview, where the sky
stretches from ceiling to a foot above ground, as
I lay prone neath the coverlet, vista always subtly differing,
from its prior reincarnation, self-reflection demands to know.

Alive & Awake? Yes.
Breathing steady? Yes.
Toes? Still can wiggly to & fro.

My soul?

Presumably ok, as I write, because I write, the
picture window into to my insight, though oft blurry,
yet intact, making discernible the changes in light,
temperature  and heart rate, as the body/soul contraption modulates, just as the gradient of daylight shifts lighter and higher, with a rising sun bringing more clarity to our interactive encounters with our environments..

The picture window internalized, much the same,as
the vista, subtle modest changes, colorations variegated,
are registered. Today is mostly cloudy overcast, and shall remain so for the foreseeable future, which be about two days hence. Not unsurprisingly, methinks, the future tends to be cloudy.

Beyond that peripheral, no one can say, our macular envisioning only gets weaker,time is a tough taskmaster
and uncertainty is it’s own principle.

But I can say, forecast from well under the comforter,
that more than less, where less is more, this picture window,
ex and in, shall remain, unchanged for the remainder of my years that fortune shall provide, and will & would grant me awakenings to the ex-sight and in-sight of a sculpted landscape, of negative entropy,  where disorder minimal.

My musings end here, unless you still wish, come the morrow,
what the marrow the day reveals, what the window will spill,
new and exciting, subtly unchanged, and always different.

Caution: The injection of caffeine may dramatically alter
the windows perspective, as the exogenous always trumps the
endogenous.

5:50 AM

P.S. Making coffee clarifies: If the vista in +/- unchanging,
then, all my personal, own horizons are immortal as well.
Sun Jun 4
#picture #window #lipstadt #vista
Continue reading...
2.7k · Oct 2019
Oh Eliot, Poor Eliot, Your Fans Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2019
Oh Eliot, Poor Eliot, Your Fans Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad
Oh Eliot, Poor Eliot, Your Fans Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad^

<>
we tithed thee with donations plenty,
here a dollar, there a fiver, a coupon for free chips,
worthy of somebody’s eternal gratitude,
that would be you,
da Duke, Duke of York

the largest online free poetry site,
a million visitors a day, why you must be
the richest poet online billionaire, right?
you,
da Duke, Duke of York and

occasional poet...

in return, all we occasional poets demand
steady on instant access, immediate satisfaction,
after all, a part time job deserves your bestus-best,
just like every other large online site, that never crashes,
we’re not like just the rest, we are
p o e t s,
occasionally

so keep the servers engines, well stoked with Newcastle coal,
keep them up and running round the clock,
using only alternative energy,
of the unceasing sun light of merry old England!

quit that other job, you must,
instead of giving up on us,
give in to us,
a poetry break, a writing recharge,
though please add a limited liability
clause to the FAQ’s,
that poets’ lives must deal with the hiccup
occasional

you, da Duke, Duke of York,
newly now, an appointment royale as Major General,^^
you, the very model of a modern major general
possessing information vegetable, animal, mineral and
technical,
who knows the Queens  of England, who,
maybe even now is telling tales of your heroics with the hordes of
hysterical
occasional
poetical
globalists
demanding
light brigadests
charging the redoubt

and
when you have a moment spare,
a haircut, please.

no, that is not a request,
naturally

<>

10/19/19
Noontime NYC
natalino
^^Messers Gilbert and Sullivan

^ Oh Dad, Poor Dad,
Hung You In The Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad
By Arthur Kopit
Jonathan
Well, I made it out of lenses and tubing. The lenses I had because Ma-Ma-Mother gave me a set of lenses so I could see my stamps better. I have a fabulous collection of stamps, as well as a fantastic collection of coins and a simply unbelievable collection of books. Well sir, Ma-Ma-Mother gave me these lenses so I could see my stamps better. She suspected that some were fake so she gave me the lenses so I might be...able to see. You see? Well sir, I happen to have nearly a billion sta-stamps. So far I’ve looked closely at 1,352,769. I’ve discovered three actual fakes! Number 1,352,767 was a fake. Number1,352,768 was a fake, and number 1,352,769 was a fake. They were stuck together. Ma-Mother made me feed them im-mediately to her fly –traps. Well... (He whispers.) one day, when Mother wasn’t looking...that is, when she was out, I heard an air-plane flying...somewhere, far away. And I ran outside to the porch so that JI might see what it looked like. The airplane. With hundreds of people inside it. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. And I thought to myself, if I could just see...if I could just see what they looked like, the people, sitting at their windows looking out...and flying. If I Could see...just once...if I could see just once what they looked like...then I might...know what I-what I... (Slight pause.) So I...built a telescope in case the plane ever...came back again. The tubing from and old blowgun (He reaches behind the bureau and produces a huge blowgun, easily a foot larger than he Mother brought back from her last hunting trip to Zanzibar. The lenses were the lenses she had given me for my stamp. So I built it. My telescope. A telescope so I might be able to see. And... (He walks out to the porch.) and...and I could see! I could! I COULD! I really could. For miles and miles I could see. For miles and miles and miles! Only...
You take the time to build a telescope that can sa-see for miles, then there’s nothing out there to see. MA-Mother says it’s a lesson in Life. [Pause] But I’m not sorry I built my telescope. And you know why? Because, I saw you. Even if I didn’t see anything else, I did see you. And...and I’m...very glad.
Typed by: Jeremy Mash 2-16-06
#poor #eliot #your #fans #hung #you #lipstadt
Continue reading...
2.7k · Aug 2013
Oh That Woman! There are Kisses to keep...
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Oh That Woman! There are Kisses to keep...
Fed me an omelette for dinner, oven-roasted tomatoes,
Smoked mozzarella, my fav, sliced so thin and layered in.
A focaccia roll, watermelon dessert.
It was her poem for me.
But that love devil kept refilling my glass, with her beloved
Summer rose wine.

I cleaned up for that's our deal, the one she never asked for, but is only
Fair in love.

Made it to the bed and Pandora.

About 30 seconds later, someone took my tablet from my arms, from my closing eyes, kissed me, and when I awoke at 4:00am, I recalled this from my sewing box.
Now, the poem*

There are kisses to keep

(Oct. 2010)

as I am laid to sleep,
there are kisses to keep,
gently placed on my
neck and head,
as I am tucked into bed,
travel packed,
well stored,
like important facts, safe kept,
as into the nether world
of the subconscious I am swept

Mid eve, tween nine and ten,
this runner's forward motion
is stopped short of the goal line,
but his mates, second surgers,
carry him on her shoulders,
his body do they extend,
victory celebrated with
eyes shut and
body prone,
his dream skills
well honed,
with kisses to keep,
he, dispatched to the battlefield,
Poetry Gods to meet,
daily actions,
submitted for peer review,
and perhaps!
promoted and gifted a daily add-on or
perhaps! Death's tenure secured?

Unwavering to sounds of song,
ancient paths retread,
till the front edge
of danger reached,
the TSA soul search commenced,

the child of ten times six,
drugs taken,
memory enhanced whispers of
revolution(s), circularity,
in headset stereo whispered.

his comrades George and John,
wounded to the death,
nighttime friends
greet this nightly stalker,
sojourner to the middle nether-lands,
with water and refreshments

Doth he survive,
Doth he return?

Of course he does,
dear friend and **** fool,
this nighttime essay,
his just reward
and another curse for
your forbearance

His safe return,
wounds
In need of tending,
kisses he receives from a
grateful nation of one,
kisses to keep safe as he
forwards on into
daytime battle of
interest rates,
to multiple fronts dispatched
and in ten long hours
he passes thru Ontario,
turns round, heads down
to samba in Rio De Janeiro,
and on his way to
New South Wales n' Sydney,
stops for herring
on the wharves of Oslo,
washed down with a pint
from his favorite pub in London town

He is short and caught?
He is long and wrong?
For sure he is stressed,
head messed, and when the whistle blows,
the words of his
prior excursion, the night version,
call and comfort,
for he attended again with the relief
of fresh and new
kisses to keep

Words of this ilk
have been penned before, by me, I am sure,
but too bad for you
and me too,
newer versions will continue
to appear, in order that
I may deserve
fresh kisses
to keep.

This will end when one of us dies.
August 2013
Continue reading...
2.7k · Jul 2020
In Their Own Words: “All I’ve ever learned from love is....”
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2020
In Their Own Words: “All I’ve ever learned from love is....”
In Their Own Words:

“All I’ve ever learned from love is....”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So come, my friends, be not afraid.  We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made.  In love we disappear.  Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door,  there’s no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for.                                     Leonard Cohen

All I've learned from love that it appears on its own timetable,
and, all I've learned from love is, it is the purpose. Harlon Rivers

“is crazy and this is infinite and ever so sobering wondrous possible"
Medusa

It is a paradox of two people - in debit to one another though each may never realise;
and neither one of whom would ever consider recalling the debt. Gideon

A headlong charge into a vast unknown that promises fufillment of every lacy, perfumed dream, but may instead deliver wrenching wounds that only another love can heal. Lori Jones McCaffery

every fantastic mistake I ever really made! Drunk in shallow bar light with a woman of my wicked dreams who laughed as loud as me at our shared ****** jokes we both got. We loved for awhile and then wandered and still loved forever as we found other dim bars with more wicked dreams.                                        gray dot (unknown)

All I have learned from love is to give more than one receives unconditionally.                                                ­K Balachandran


"love is the great equalizer: ignoring age, race, education, wealth, religion, disability, and sanity... simultaneously capable of lifting all to the highest highs and dragging all into the deepest depths. In love there is no pride or ego." forgotten

that just beyond is a hidden trail, where a magical river of the purest water flows free. Here and only here, my heart can be revived, and my mind is stilled by the silence I find. Love’s call is gentle. Joey

“that love is as love does.”
victoria

All I ever learned from love is the meaning of the word, "unconditional!”.           SE Reimer

Sometimes we fall in love, and sometimes love falls on us.
Stephen E. Yocum

it is gentle rage, come like sun through clouds, to feed parched earth....one word to set life a tingle, the first smile of a golden
boy's day.  The last caress before sleep, the letting go of a dying
friends hand and the gathering together of companions for food
and laughter, love comes in many guises, has many faces and is
lifeblood to the soul hiding within.                   betterdays

where the beginnings end and the ends begin.    Elizabeth J.

The burial of fear and all we’ve ever known In hope for a new flourishment.    Dante Rocio

that life flows in abundance of peace, harmony and balance when I
surrender to live in love.                                                            ­    Cné

that love assuages hurt and heals the wounded...it rings with melody
and dances to the heavens.  It’s the divine giving over of body and mind;  it's mystic transcendence an overwhelming feeling of pure ecstasy.                                                         ­                              patty m


that love is a dunghill, and I'm a crow that stands on it and caws.
                                                           ­                           Thomas W Case

Acceptance.  Acceptance of myself and of the ones I love.
                                                           ­                                    Kelly Rose

It is easier to give love than to accept it.         Walter W Hoelbling

was what I learned from her...Love is above, beyond what we all wish, we had to touch the sun, the moon, the stars; everything we have.                                                                            Temporal Fugue

that it is unique; it makes the softest body, hard, and softens the hardest heart.                                                           ­     poetontheroof

Our hearts tied but I don't know how.                       Anonymous

Love has the ability to surpass life. Even though you are gone I still can’t stop loving you. “Love leaves more behind than death ever takes away. “ -unknown.                                        Love Storytelling

to never go searching for it. That's it, I guess.                      Aparna

has been gleamed through the sacrifice and service of a few extraordinary souls.  For true love is borne of sacrifice, and
it compels us to serve.  Without those elements, it cannot exist.
                                                                 J Klein and Sons Pen Parish

it requires curiosity to truly uncover; it is an emotion
that makes us uniquely human.                                        Angelique

that sometimes it hurts and sometimes it thrills, but
love that kills your pain is always worth the dying for.                 r

it is a gift from God, most precious and not to be abused or taken
for granted.                                                         ­ South by Southwest

how to hurt.                                                           Andrew Crawford

is that, it comes like lightning...it jolts, it makes, or breaks a future;
it hangs around, no matter what, if it's meant to be...yours...
all i've learned from love made me a tree, with fruits
with a blend of sour and honeyed truths, it is heaven...
when bared, shared... reciprocated.                            Sally A Bayan

that it is hard and it hurts but we cannot live without it... there is no storybook endings. You take the good and bad and make it what you need.                                                            ­                     Melissa S.

The burial of fear and all we’ve ever known
In hope for a new flourishment. Dante Rocio

that I can’t, won’t, don’t want to ever live life without Love! ♥️ Feeling Love Sparks everyday forever and always ♥️ Loving Love Glass Slipper Girl

to accept it when it is given, to share it when it is felt, to cherish it because it is a gift and that whether it hurts or it heals, it is far better to have experienced it than to not have.                                  BLT

that love is...forever studied; gravity, it is akin to the sense of gravity;
it can never be explained, felt, or experienced, but never grasped in ones hand.                                                            ­              wordvango

that if you have it, you should give it.                                  amanda

how to turn up my face and surrender to the rain.  
                                                         ­             Clementine Valerie Black

that God is love expressed by Jesus, and I'm my best when I imitate Christ.   Christos Victor

the most over analyzed, overwrought word that remains after thousands of years, completely
inexplicable.                                                   ­             onlylovepoetry                  

it's a strength and weakness, ecstasy and agony, a belief and fear (of losing), emotional contradictions yet so intrinsically precious to be worth living and dying for.                          Pradip Chattopadhyay

the emptiness of smothering empathy for all that lives, feels and needs.  It's to bear eternal suffering...                                   Traveler


red.                                                                                                     Fog


to give, far outweighs the take.                                        Mike Hauser


that it lifts open our minds' eyes, overturns our fears in this vast expanse of the unknown - it etherally reveals our connection
Melody

how deep is my ignorance.                                              Joel M Frye

that love has nothing to do with ***. It has everything to do with sick kids at 3am and holding back your friends hair when she pukes in the gutter crying over some ******* who just dumped her. It's selfless.
                                                       ­                                                 Acme

noth­ing compared to what I've learned from pain.                 v V v


the things I’ve never learned.                                               M-E

that is the cancer and the cure; the detour and the straight line; proof of reincarnation and death everlasting; the intersection where extreme selflessness and selfishness meet, becoming indistinguishable; it’s shapeless, nearly invisible, and yet known to everyone; a verb, a noun, a conjunction between and a preposition to a beginning and a dead end.
                                                            ­                               Nat Lipstadt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thanks to all the participants, so far...(see the note below)
This is an open, living poem; anyone should feel free to message me to add, amend, or delete; just message me directly; won’t modify if you just comment.

one more thing don’t ask me to add an old poem that is only tangentially related: write a max of two or  three sentences that
clearly and directly responds to the title...

format is.deliberately sloppy, just like the subject    
matter.

and the original version (2017)

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2187204/all-ive-learned-from-love-for-leonard/
#their #words #all #learned #love #lipstadt
Continue reading...
2.7k · Sep 2023
My Doctor has a Sense of Humor!
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
My Doctor has a Sense of Humor!
The Doctor has a Sense of Humor!

<|>

give a surgeon a scalpel
and an excuse,
and the artist emerges,
for creativity is a good surgeon’s
natural habitat

Sure, sure, there’s a plan,
with best and acceptable outcomes,
but when messing with a real heart,
a sly *****, with numerous deceptive guises
at its disposal, you never for sure never know,
despite all the advanced imaging techniques,
exactly
what you will find once you go
spelunking
in caves of life and death

so, he takes a bit from here,
and a bob or two from there,
there a cut, here an incision deep,
Old McDonald provided a body,
or a canvas, and the Doc
is happy.

So I uncover holes where he
probed, redeploying the healthy,
like a good designer, Doc rearranges
and repairs, a travelogue of splicing and dicing,
his handiwork

Now standing over you for many hours,
can get tiring, though each ***** be
different, unique even, but leaving
a little marker, a stylized signature,
is well, is the rightful discretion of the artiste!

So you can imagine my surprise
when the tubes removed (ouch!)
the bandages ripped off in a
signature move of a delighted nurse whose
loves seeing grown men cry from lesser trivialities,
you cannot imagine my surprise
when I discovered my new tattoo,
upon my chest front and center!

Herein please find your heart repaired,
and revitalized:

Please Note!
We guarantee our work for minimum 15 years
(Aug. 3, 2038),
but our disclaimer
we assume NO  responsibility after that
if you should
happen to live for 30 YEARS or more

Dr. P.
I have a signed (by the Doc) heart-shaped pillow with
the surgical plan drawn on it
#lipstadt #doctor #humor #dr #p
Continue reading...
2.7k · Nov 2013
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Let me explain.
This poem is about sleeping, dreaming,
the failure of my inadequacies in poetry to heal.

Three years after its birth, it is exactly what I am feeling this day.
It is long rambling and you won't stay for the whole movie.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erudition is perdition,
dreaming in words, accursed,
death to the visionaries,
release from visitations
of over-staying, unwelcome guests,
Johnny Cash, Jesus,
Forefather Jacob, Bobby Dylan
and their whiny,
smug-smiled missives
on behalf of the
all knowing, dream invader powers,
who
just-happens-to-be-know-it-alls.

These guys,
sub rosa angels,
electioneering,
hand shaking  
you into dreams
that make you wonder              
unceasingly  

I have renounced chants n'
dreams that
wander                              
meaninglessly

so if there is no
repeal of the stupification
of the human condition,
just invent words that  fool
willful and mostly please
nobody

don't ask and don't tell,
then we can agree
that a life,
its peculiar
Hallmark Card of grief,
cannot be
disambiguated

yours is yours,
different from mine,
single poems cannot solve
multivariate equations,  
un-blow mind sensations
that circumnavigate my mind    
as I edge along the
borderline tween the
United States of self-realization,
and a State of Mexico
drug-induced, seductive and
self-administered pat down,
a colorless, tasteless, dreamless
evening in the company of
a rest-once-and-for-all,
sleeping pill

Repudiate yourself,  
privately you
hyperventilate,
but others willing to borrow
those surfeit of rapid
misunderstood breathes,
stored in brown paper bags,
that will be divided
most ingeniously by the
Misappropriation Committee
for wordy oxygen tanks,
desperate for refilling

Recant, Renege,
Renounce, Repeal,
Repudiate, Retract,
I herby foreswear
all previous poems, please
Return them

Back, send them,
so, I can end them,
desist any new arrival of vaniloquence,
direct 'em to  the trash box of inconsequence

My wrongful w-rightings
are now cashiered,
my cool is in mourning,
my plateau is flat but
upsided downded,
words drownded,
both sides now, spring silent

Tried to swim to safety,
to Spanish Harlem
but no hablo espanol,

In Miami, they done me in
for the crime of
insufficiently thin,

In Ghiradelli Square
they deemed me too blond
not 'ciscan enough
yet, in Frisco fairness,  
done deported me,
making me to choose
tween Los Angeles and/or
Orange County

So, poet poseur, where you gonna run too?

My better half sleeps,
my left half weeps,
so conditions normal.

Satan laughs,
offers me ***** or poetry,
knowing full well that having
foresworn, addictive wordmongering, liscentiousness
that a single letter
would stupor me into a
drunken poetry slam at
St. Paul's Church,
into Satan's collection box
of wordy sinners,
where lost souls, ex-poets,
prevaricate
vainly, in hopes
that anyone will let them
transubstantiate
in order to avoid their
expiration date
on Stub Hub

surrendered the master key,
turned in my ID badge,
opened inner sanctum no more,
poetry boy is ratiocinated,
peril dispatched, swear that I've
excommunicated the voices
determined to disintermediate

the compromise I've reached,
help is contraindicated,
ex-officio is my new grace state

please, devices decontaminate,
otherwise, poems disintegrate,
excoriate them, don't wait,
to disassociate'em, insufficient,
remove them from hard drives,
yank'em one and all!

let the diet begin,
no more food for thought,
no more dreams
wrought and recorded,
permit the ambient calm
of the still of the night
that engulfs,
to harmonize with the flatline
dreamless sleep that the
mind monitor machine
etchingly, quietly records

let hours of research
be rewarded,
by my imbibing the product of
laboratory pharmacological
fine tuning

***** S.,
what outrageous ego
let me suppose that in
mine own words,
I could improve upon
your lovelies,
with now bland homilies,
recitations of my anomalies

What id sexed my brain,
was I completely insane,
to imagine that I could
improve upon:

"and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the
thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,
'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream:
ay, there's the rub"

Finished: Nov 27, 2010 4:44 AM
the same mood haunts me, three years on...six months on this site today
Continue reading...
2.7k · Aug 2013
Caesar Has No Authority Over The Grammarians
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Caesar Has No Authority Over The Grammarians
Caesar Has No Authority Over The Grammarians*
(Caesar non supra grammaticos)*


I am licensed to drive.
I am licensed to broke.
I am licensed to be birthed.
I am licensed to marry, divorce and someday I will be
coroner-permission"end" to die.

If I so choose, I can be state approved to cut your hair,
have my own business, weld, own a dog, panhandle, play tennis in Central Park, dance in my own cabaret, even commit suicide legally.

These United States were a refuge for my foreign born parents,

Bless you both for privileging me such,
you gifted me a country where my voice, clear and unashamedly,
unguarded can speak here unafraid, for our
Caesar has no authority over the grammarians.
Tho the IRS gonna come after me, and king phony Barack,
Gonna eavesdrop on my privacy,

As long as I can write my poetry free and clear, untaxed,
won't ever mortgage my soul to any government hack
I will carry my U.S. passport in my left pocket over my heart,
Till they take my freedom to speak away.

Then I will get a gun for free speech is worth dying for...
Another oldie I found in the sewing box where I keep my poetry, my freedom to speak and my gun.
Continue reading...
2.7k · Nov 2023
strong at the broken places, my whole blood
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2023
strong at the broken places, my whole blood
“If people bring so much courage
to this world the world has to ****
them to break them, so of course
it kills them. The world breaks every
one and afterward many are

strong at the broken places."

A Farewell to Arms,
Ernest Hemingway

<>
struggling with so much,
then this scripture of writing sent
by some unfamiliar, a providential
provider; and I am realized, this man
is broken in ways you have no idea,
can~not comp~re~hend  

understanding floods, healing
required, for I too have been killed,
my trust and beliefs, trashed,
too many fools who think that
moral equivalence is a thing,
that the unspeakable is justified,
hatred makes me so broke so low,
how,
justification is not justice,
nor an excuse to do whatever

cross the street, and believe,
that drivers will honor a red,
a stop sign, but plenty think
this don’t apply to me, not me

getting on the back of a line
is for fools, people who cannot answer
the arrogant question of the insistent
“Do You Know Who I am?”

I know who I am, yet the ponderance
of evidence says that is not enough,
I
am insufficient,
I am less
than human,
I am
undeserving,
because of my
ancestry

And I will spare you the precise definitions of these statements,
for it should be unnecessary, you should be nodding in agreement, clear eyed understanding, intuitive, in your own broken bones felt!

But,
my bones are broken, and the healing needs a source, a “see here”
directive, explain me how my insane madness is not a proper
responsa to the
weight of hate
my eyes see, seen,
and that my own
eyes
are not lying,
but believed.

but intuitively understood
that my broken bones can be
healed, each in their own way,
so I will retire, perhaps return
when, even if not fully recovered,
sufficient to care enough,
ready to be rebroken, again,
for this! this! is my
true poetic ancestry

thousands of years have not broken us,
and never will, for it is not fear that will
prevent our resurrection, for we immunized,
for what unimaginable have we not known, and yet recovered,
this,
I believe,
my healing will be quiet, solitary, removed
from the distractive noises of invective infecting,

but I will be present,
for my children, and my children’s children will
look to this ancestor and learn that his blood
and bones deeds them the self-healing properties
that always has and always will defeat those
who seek to destroy your future

1) the DNA of your ancestry
inherited inherent in your bone marrow  
and bone tissue is continuously remodeled
through the concerted actions of bone marrow cells

2) Stem cells in your red bone marrow
(hematopoietic stem cells) create red and
white blood cells and platelets, all of which
are components of your whole blood.

so here is our truth:
when,
The world breaks every
one and afterward many are
strong at the broken places!*
our whole blood will replenish us
Sabbath Eve
Fri Nov 17
10:00am
in the ***** of my birth
#strong #broken #places #whole #blood #lipstadt
Continue reading...
2.7k · Aug 2013
Resubmitting For Your Consideration: The Numerical Quality of Friendship
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Resubmitting For Your Consideration: The Numerical Quality of Friendship
I posted this poem  a few days after I joined HP.  As  is oft the case, poems you are especially proud of, fall to the wayside, under the onslaught of the constant waterfall of new submissions.  With the usual exception of Ms. Lori C., one of the two unofficial High Priestesses of HP, in my estimation, this one, was pretty much overlooked.  Despite some comical jaunts of late re bras and beds, real inspiration has escaped me ever nice I penned "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay (Razor Blades, Pills, & Shotguns" last week.  So, with your hoped for solicitude, I resubmit it, hoping it finds a wider audience and dedicate it to those of you who I number as friends (you know who you are!), despite the fact that our only shared embraces have been techno~electronic, and yet the quality of your kindness is beyond measure.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Numerical Quality of Friendship

The quality of friendship is non-quantitative.
Yet, I ask you to number it, and me, this way.

With tape measure, determine that:
The length of my arm's embrace will always be
longer than long enough, and when distance magnifies sorrow's gains,
my shoulders measure wide enough to pillow your wearied head.

The depth of my pocket is finite for by definition,
a pocket is but an open doored, three walled shelter.
My pocket of shelter is forever open, forever deep,
and forever is infinite.

Trust that when bowed and bent,
upon my shoulders climb and together we will be tall enough
to touch the season's new fruit upon the tree of life,
and with one tongue, taste the unimaginable!

Do u think that mercury can measure
the warmth of my tears when love sears my heart,
or the heat of thy skin when it heals and cauterizes
wounds salted by the mistreatment, by the bitters of the weak ones,
who rejoice when they scald others?

Size me up.
What is my volume?
What are the boundaries that
length X depth X height
state must limit my capacity to cherish, to heal,
and even to forgive those who deserve no forgiveness?

If you measure me well and proper,
if I meet the standards that qualify me to be called friend,
then friend me here, friend me now,
friend me for the qualities I posses,
and number us a unity among the few
who are truly blessed
by a quality of friendship that cannot be measured,
for there is no scientific instrument that can quantify
limitless.



March 2012
Continue reading...
2.7k · Dec 2013
The Solitary Earring/Cufflink (Where do we survivors live?)
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
The Solitary Earring/Cufflink (Where do we survivors live?)
The solitary reminder,
a sole survivor,
hopeful-placed,
forgivingly encased
in little boxes decorative
hidden in plain sight
throughout our home.

Single and incomplete,
the lonesome leftovers,
openly hid upon bookshelf,
desk corners, fireplace mantels,
storage units of the
I am unlost,
I am unfound,

Raise your hand,
stand up and say
that is me,
that is me.

Minor treasure chests,
of carved wood, seashell real,
acquisitions of trips
to faraway places,
these boxes, they themselves,
visible but unremembered,
just there, no cares,
no one knows,
when or why.

that is me,
is that me?

Space fillers, memory taunts,
grandchildren's playthings, delight,
when they someday come visit,
weather and parents permitting,
finding keys for locks, doors,
from three homes ago.

Can they unlock me too?

Boxes hoard the things
we have lost, but cannot discard,
can't sacrifice, gotta keep,
an admixture of buttons,
dried flowers, faded notes that
once upon a time mattered,
shook someone's world...

Some kept in hope,
others, sequestered, lock-up,
jails that we are both
jailor and jailed,
the joke being on me.

Should we, you and I,
exchange these
cases histories of lost hopes, memories,
it would not be surprising,
if when opened,
the contents identical,
even if you are in Manila,
Leeds, places of need,
and yet,
we would be shocked,
asking,

*that is me,
is that me?
If you like this, and as of yet not read
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/always-fall-in-love-with-a-poet/
take a minute, for it the best of me, perhaps,
the best of you too...
Continue reading...
2.7k · Sep 2015
The Correspondence: Messages Between Friends (Ernesto and Myself)
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2015
The Correspondence: Messages Between Friends (Ernesto and Myself)
I have copied and posted most of my elecronic conversations of just (!) the last few months here between
Ernesto L. Gonzales and myself.

I have edited out some very few particulars to respect both of our privacy, and yet it is intensely personal.   Respect that please!
He developed a few such intense relationships with others here which
having only learned of recently of the details, make me realize, ever more cognizant what a special, caring human being was the DedPoet.


Represented in a center alignment to better honor this man,
this poet, my brother.
~~~~~

The DedPoet  Jul 4

Taking your suggestion into consideration, I stumbled across the fact that I went from past to present. So instead of
Gangsters dont shed no tears,
I changed it to But gangsters dont cry,
With this and the last two lines,
Which I also changed by eliminating
And as a man I cry,
Simplified to
As a man I remember,
As a man I cry.
Crying being that which I could not do as a youth, with the experience of life learning to cry later brings about realism and evocative feelings toward the reader, tying them with the poem, becoming a not so forgetful piece.
Nat, Your words of I want you to live,
They began a slow change in my life, today
Ibam in full fruition of that. I am alive, living, working, getting better, taking what was given to me, conquest of my demons. Yes Nat, I have arrived, humbly but with much confidence. Your influence had a great deal to do with my personal and poetical growth as a person. I have matured because you gave a ****, because you knew deep down I could beat everything life had thrown at me.

Know this Nat,
Put it in your mind,
Relish it and be proud;

YOU CHANGED MY LIFE
AND I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 4

Humbled silence. FYI was fired last week, no surprIse, may "retire" or look for a position, undecided...

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 4
What's the situation with the kids?

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 4
I have my girls right now. She got pregnant and bow she needs me. Go figure. Anyway, im enjoying life drug and alcohol free, getting into working condition at work. All is as it should be, despite the problems I used to let become mountains.
Fired huh? Could you survive on retirement?
And if find anotjer position, do you feel that you would still be willing, able of course, but willing is another matter when you mentioned retirement as an option.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 4
I am soon to be..my youngest son worked with me for...and seeing him re-established is  important to me.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 4
What is your proffesion exactly?

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 5
Bond broker/trader

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 5
It took a day to get this right. A broker!!! Wow!! A poetic bond broker???? Wow. Im still shocked at that. Friend, you roll with the punches in life. Your son matters most, and I see that as well. Your note from yesterday helped me to focus more on my children financially. I got the time thing down, the icecream and food, but they need so much more. Yeah Im still learning, but Im learning exponentially. Anyway, I still plan on shaking your ha.d one day.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 5
Nah, a big freaking hug

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 5
Shhh. Your privacy protected

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1252193/six-**...

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 5
I could give a cheesy poem saying yes Nat changed my life, which was my first idea. Then, to be genuine and give ou some insight to my new journey and outlook I wrote Saffron Son Settling Into Memories and is dedicated to you friend.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 18
Well if your offer is to edit my poems, I respectfully decline. I can spell despite the poems looking otherwise. I post directly to hellopoetry, the words come out so fast that its hard to edit. I have been writing nonstop in progress for a book. They have their own editors, lol.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 18
No prob

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 19
All u need to do is line them up better. Invest in an inexpensive tablet...

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 19
Or *******, I will

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 19
I have a phone, one that I borrow. You know Im **** poor. I haven't posted in the longest while I have ever gone through. Tablets are far from my thoughts. I have pen and paper, bought from the 99 cent store. My daughter's mother, my ex, is in the hospital fighting for her life. And suddenly Im with my girls all day, everyday. Great for me, but I wish it was under better circumstances.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 19
What's your address?

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 19
Im too proud to accept any donations. I thank you from the bottom of my heart Nat. My email is... if you ever want to just correspond. I am taking control of the poverty in my life and when your at the bottom, theres only one way to go.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 19
What donation? ***! Self protection of my aging eyes and brain!

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 19
Ive been offered before. Money to help with kids, sorry if i jumped the gun there Nat. What would u do with the adress?

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 19
Send you a tablet

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 19
I couldn't accept that. I wouldn't know how. Never been offered anything like that.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 19
If you truly believed in my talent, if that was the reason other than mis spelled words, I would take it. I would take it gratefully. I'll tell you one thing, yours is the only that I believe in on this site. Granted there are talented individuals, but none try to better themselves and stay in an anxious state of repeating verses. You try to break them from this, encouragement and all. What do you say Nat?

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 19
I say just this,

brother.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 19
San Antonio, Tx. 78227
Ernesto L. Gonzales Jr.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 21
Nat, I just gave u all my info, could u respond and tell me my identity is ok.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 22
Just saw Not sure what u mean, "idenity ok". Can u explain?

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 22
Lol, not that my identity is worth much, but is was a little dark joke since you had not responded to me. I did get a little worried. Thats all. After all, you and I know bofh well that thsi is a risky thinf, you know, information And all.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 23
Np. Up at 12:48am til now thinking about the future

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 23
1. What type of cell phone?
2. Will your carrier allow u two devices on your number?
3. Just answer and no yada yada noise?

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 23
Its not my cell phone. Its my dad's. A regular three year old lg fone. But we do have wifi here at home for my nephew. Unlimited data.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 23
See if u can add another tablet device, on his plan...should be nominal...like $10/month

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 23
Actually the wifi would be enabled inside the house because of the wifi. I would just need to ask how, but I do know it is at no extra charghe. Nat, as a man in wall street, what is your take on the current situation with the dollar and its basis on petroleum in the world? Is it doomed to fail anytime soon?

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 23
Oil has stabilized around 50 bucks which is very reasonable. U.S. Frackers  can make money there,the Saudis too...and with new supply growing. And demand stable and but will surely increase, I expect price to hold the 50 dlr area and very slowly rise..as for the dollar, it's all about that bass...I mean I test rates! Ours going up everybody else's going down, so dollar will remain the king for the foreseeable future if the global economy just chugs along as it has and more so if the economy actually picks up to grow 3% or better consistently

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 23
Just worried about the alarmist calling for an imminent collapse based on China and Russia leaving the dollar to trade in ruble and chinese currency, if Im not mistaken, the currency war it is called.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 23
What are the advantages of a tablet anyway?

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 24
You can see what you are doing; the layout and formatting is very important. From a phone it never comes out right

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 24
Guess ur right, for and layout are so important to the overall effect of what your tryingg to convey.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 25
I took the initiative and put ten bucks down on a tablet. It will take a few months but I looked into tablets and found it to be a worthwhile investment. Thanks Nat, it will help me alot. You planted the idea, I will make it hsppen. This positive can do atitude is part of my new outlook which has done leaps and bounds for my life.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 25
P.S. Ive begun a study in earnest on Yeats, one of the greats I had not yet truly begun reading. Your lessons go far my friend. Thank you for teaching one who wants and desires to get better at this craft.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 25
we learn from each other. never forget that! the greates lesson in lif to learn is the eloquence of simplicity. now look, u just gave me a new poem to write

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 26
Nice work on the other piece. Dont want to he cliche but "eloquently stated". Yeah I saw that review. Lol. Tell me, what does a New Yorker do on a Sunday?

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 27
Id like to take the opportunity you gave me. I will humbly take you on your offer. Part of my evolution as a person is to swallow my pride and take help where help is offered. I have alot of writing to do Nat but as I get into the lifestyle of everyday working I see poetry fading and I have a need so deep to write as it has helped me along the way so much. If your offer still stands, I would love to take you up on the offer. Either way, a lesson is learned: Take the hands that help you up as opposed to holding hands to that which pulls one down.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Jul 27
I will get it done now that u r committed to the curves of living, yet see around the bend what could be....now the's another poem borning...

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Jul 27
Your wise, you know that? Yeah, it takes alot to learn the stuff. Youth is wasted in the young.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 3
Promises are nice bro, but I really dont care for them if its not something that you can do. I'd rather you tell me no Nat, your word is law as far as Im concerned. Dont worry about the tablet, it was a nice thought, but I dont want to see you in that light as not being able to come through. I want your word to mean something to me.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 4
just been busy with the grandkids for a 5 day vacation. don't u worry about thing baby!

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 4
Yours is the only one I trust here on this site, everyone is going batshit crazy about this or that. Poetry seems to he taking a second seat.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 4
Gotta sat Nat, you probably underestimate how much I look to you for guidance. Though i dont reach out much, your poetry in itself is an example I libve by. No *** kissing, simply take it as respect for your work, I see you amongg the best I have read of all the dead poets.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 6
Well been busy looking for work and arranging a life if that doesn't happen. but ur in the to do list!
P.s. Ain't dead yet but I could be by the time I finish typing thi.....

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 6
Not your greatest work, but if you are dead, you go down as one oc the all time best in my opinion. Gettingg my daughter ready for school. Clothes are expensive, wish tbey had uniforms. Itd be cheaper.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 6
I can't even imagine but in years u will look back and think those were the best of times

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 17
your tablet on the to do list, just got hit with other bills higher priority.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 22
Dont worry about it a tablet. Just be my friend.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 22
that was crossed off my to do list a long long time ago...

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 22
My to do list is short as well. I want to see New York, I want to shake your hand.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 22
I am completely serious. I need to know how much round trip tickets cost, room and board, etc. Ive never flown but its time I do.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 22
whoa. that's a lot of dough, who will watch the kids?

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 22
They will stay behind.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Aug 24
here's one problem. I live with my Gf in her apt...and I won't ask her ...change her mind, it's her place...

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Aug 24
I will pay my way. I have money coming to me on a house I just framed, did u forget Im a master carpenter? When my health permits I make good  money. Lol, which I hapoily distribute back into the economy.

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  Sep 9
So I called a number I saw on television for experimental drug for liver. Second time I do this, but what the hay, gotta fight. Im scared. Terrified, staring at my humanity like this. No words for the fear.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  Sep 9
there are words. you have them in your posses, just need to expel them without any veneer or hesitation

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  5 days ago
talk to me! what's up and give me the cell number asap

The DedPoet
The DedPoet  4 days ago
Its my time, I'm sick and dying, bed ridden and in the final stages of sclerosis of the liver, I want you to know that I have always thought of your poetry as genius, but I only have one request of you. The tablet you wanted to send me, keep it for yourself an begin a new outlook on your surroundings, you write so much about people here or familiar things tat relate to the site. I just wanted to see your perspective fresh with your abundant talent, your rugged and tired, your giving yet honest, brutal writer of understanding, I'm not for talk it now, my concentration is on closing doors and settling old problems with family, I have a rare chance to do this. You take care, God bless and goodbye.

Nat Lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt  4 days ago
I will call you again tomorrow. please answer!

*The DedPoet
The DedPoet  10 hours ago
My brother passed away Sunday night, we cremated him today. He left all copyright of his work to you.I'm sorry for the new. I will be posting a poem a week for him as he wanted. He had many poems that he wanted to save for publishing. Thank you for your time.
I never sent him the tablet.
Other things and expenses intervened and it fell to the bottom of my list.

I cannot pick up mine without wincing and that will always be true.

We spoke by telephone but once.
He called me at 2:00 and we spoke for an hour.
I still call his cellphone, even now, to listen to his gravely gravelly voice greeting, promising to call back very soon.

His overly effusive praise of my writing was left in after much internal debate, but it was the initial rooting of our conversation. I have only posted our correspondence of the last three months.  Much more preceded these messages.


I did not save his life as he so generously stated,
but will try do him justice as best I can.
#lipstadt #ernesto #ded #poet
Continue reading...
2.7k · Jan 2014
"quiver of constant smiles"
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
"quiver of constant smiles"
a man gave me that phrase as a gift today.
quiver of constant smiles

for well he could,
yet little did he ken
the nature of the present

because
I read the smiles as the
tween the spaces,
in between the words of
anguish that never goes away

how can this be,
how to make sense of this

well I am a father too,
of words and sobs
and ownership of sins
between sons and fathers,
who inhabit
the unfilled spaces within,
the drawers with their name
on masking tape attached

Your fathers's hell will slowly go by

Show me a man-father
whose lips
have not quiet quivered
when hearing those words sung

we ease the grip of

carrying them on our shoulders
when they are five at the
Macy's day parade,
running alongside their first
solo bicycle ride

we ease the grip of
the vise of

not seeing them for years,
or never again,
cause they hold you guilty,
responsible for their confusion

have too, ease the grip,
cause we got more than one
singular responsibility

so we dad draw,
a smile from the quiver,
that like those of the elves,
replenished magically,
strap it on wide,
mile high and move on

oh you teenage children, you babies,
with your endless angst and bravado
of drunken scar talk,
first love lost
and the hard course
of being sixteen

put down your tiresome blunt pens
that revel only in Self-intensity glorious-galore,
read of the self destruction
of love pains thirty years in the making
and fifty in the undoing

write of ancient inescapable feelings
decades in the vat, aging, but drunk in the
moment quick searing of
every life breath you take

and it's Sunday nite
and the work week hell begins
but it is no compare to the other,
but ****, you can't understand

so chant these words,

reflect on them well,
for soon while you dream sleep,
in clean, dry sheets and safe bed
a man will come for a peep,
to make the checkmark
on the all's well list

so chant these words,
a sad violin melody,
the single sole he ever hears,


**Your fathers's hell will slowly go by
This written unexpectedly, surprising the writer...
Continue reading...
2.7k · Jul 2013
Lilt of Life
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Lilt of Life
Preface:
Even old poets can forget new tricks,
So when toe stubbed and ah ha benedicted,
Causes you to remember what you once knew,
It feels even better, like being crazy
Once in awhile,
Or wearing an untrimmed chest Jason smile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Eons ago converted to a new religion,
The Church of Free Verse.

If life be variable,
Usually unrhymed
A pencil sketch of crisscrossed lines,
No fixed metrical pattern assigned,
Than even more so, my poetry.

Once I regretted that the children,
Crack addicted to rhyming,^
Used nickel bags and ******* lines
At the starting gate where all
Our associative poetry journey begins.

Perhaps, a tad arrogant, that diktat,
Nonetheless, unashamedly, nothing to recant.
Words have utility creative, souls innovative,
Free them guised as global explorers,
Make them up, then unleash them
Upon us, yourself, as detectives investigative.

Unchained myself like Houdini,
From water chambers and locks constraini.
What care I for poetic rules and regulations,^^
Got so many points, they tried to suspend
My government-issued poetic license.

Had myself forgot,
That a poem needs a
Frame of jungle gym sounds,
An aural aura resonance unbound.
Purposed to make the heart lift
Your ears say:

Say what!

It needs a tune,
An internal music,
It needs a lilt!
A cadence, that both
Marches and swings,
Even when'd urgent dirge
grief pours forth.

Yes my darling young ones,
Your writ of screams, like Bob Dylan's occasional schemes,
Celebrations of agonized lives of the criminally-pained,
Songs and cants of victims, love-cancer stained,
Require a whining, singsong beat.

{Poems so rad-sad that it makes this Jew
Genuflect and crisscross himself,
That he was blessed with a few good happy years,
In his reincarnated life of
A few centuries long.}

Learn 'em to sing their cries,
Harmonize the internality of love,
Or, even the infernal loss and lack thereof,
For it is the lilt
That makes, transforms a cry into a
Poem.

Even I on death's last stairway step,
When was called by the name of
Nate Hale,
My dying poem lilted, lifted and metered
"I only regret,
that I have
but one life,
to lose,
for my country."

Now you're thinking he is lost it all,
But you would be incorrect for sure.

He found it.

The lilt of life that makes him rise
And greet each morn,
Even some sorry starless nights
With a First Poem of the Day.

I lilt you, one and all.
If you think this mis-wrote,
My auto correct mentally broke,
Meant to type I love you,
You'd be
Right but wrong,
I just lilt you.
^ "People, Stop Rhyming..."


^^The Rubiyat is not where I'm at,
The Acrostic, amusing, but let it be
Someone else's cross to bear.
That the Cinquain rhymes with pain,
No accident, and Tritina is but half of a Sestina,
But twice as hard, you could look it up.
The Quatorzain another French device inane.
Shakespeare's sonnets, nonpareil,
But, refrained, quatrained, by Iambic pentameter.
Ok! Maybe the meter makes the poem lilt sweeter!

This poem Lilt of Life, I commenced, on June 10th,  when  K Balachandran, Poet Extraordinaire
Wrote me about another poem: Three poems were walking down the street."

"I dig the title, not only the lilt, it sounds esoteric..something more hidden in it,unintentionally!"

I put the word Lilt in a Poem title file, wrote a line or two, then it aged till July 11th, when it just wrote itself. So today Bala corresponded as follows:
"creative instinct, particularly poetic surge has roots in imbalance (though i really don't believe) of the mind. Yes, during the moments poetic urge becomes a sort of agitation,
this may seem true, how can one deny it.."
This agitatation of which he writes, we are all familiar with, I am sure. We emote, we wrote.  Guilty as anyone.  But it took a month of silent, back room, hidden from me,
cogitation,
to complete the poem, when it emerged from gestation period in a few minutes.  I share this with you as a public reminder/chastisement to myself that writing is both push and pull, agitation and reflection, a process,. By way of humor, I wrote Po-hymn, in 20 minutes, threw it out here instantaneously, and then did minor tinkering.  Why? I wrote it with tears in my eyes, agitated, and the only way to stop the emotive upheaval, was share it with the people here ASAP!  So it goes both ways, but net net, write it, then let it age a day or mores, then let it go, give it up, after some:
cogitation
— noun
concerted thought or reflection; meditation; contemplation: After hours of cogitation he came up with a new proposal.

Rambling the point of which is to properly thank him in view of all for reminding me
all poems, must possess some kind of lilt and being the inspiration for this baby.




7/11/2013
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2.7k · Aug 2017
the undulating structure of the sea, woman
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2017
the undulating structure of the sea, woman
the undulating structure of the sea, woman

~for Megan Sherman~

you message me a brief, sweet like of
my poem's structure,  describing it as
"undulating like the sea."

you deserve much more that I can now provide,
the hour late, yet your succinct observation
engages my retinas deeper into oceans of imagination.

but told to "turn off the light,",
a standard life intrusion,
so for once in my life,
perhaps brevity, may here gain the upper hand.

but probably not.
no, this poem does not undulate.

I live by the sea, and its habits, guises and habitués,
her stockings and high heels, and come hither looks,
well known to me. Ha! most nights it even feeds me.

as I compose, she hides quiet, fifty yards away, no more,
causing no trouble tonight, yet seen it don and unmask
a schizophrenia of multiple personalities most terrible
in minutes as short as seconds.

rage and frothy spit, begging she be allowed to
swallow whole men and ship, harboring monsters,
that populate the nightmares of one called Jonah me.

her murdering riptides and lunar tricks
that are mathematically calculable and therefore predictable,
even then, wise man still most helpless charmed by
the fake news of the surficial, gentile, ladylike, curtsying, cutesy lapping, waving oh hello waves,
drown us with the greatest of ease,
which is what I think you mean when you say
the sea **** be undulating, performing its best and finest trickery.

yes, the sea is a women and its fluidity, nonpareil.

Have you ever seen a woman undulate?
see my notes below;

when the sea or a woman undulate,
things too oft die.  

this poem is unstructured, its heartbeat,
arrhythmic, and now, well, lady past midnight,
indeed, unhappy, unsure of the why of this poem,
its purpose undefined but you said:

                          un   
du
                    lat
           ing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

causing the sovereignty of my un-conscious
to see a ballerina, her arms, moving unnaturally,
laying herself down to die

did I forget to mention
this poem was born on the ferry crossing the sea,
required to reach the island keep where
the home that I now lay prone in bed now writing
almost, soon enough,
"the end,"
having read your words, felt a poem instant birthing,
as the bow cut thru calm, undulating waves
while a storm in my eyes, the rancor of experience screamed,
my aminotic fluids joining the waters beneath my feet,
your words caused

and a ballerina waving arms swept me low,
asking, imploring,
watch me undulate unto death

and better now I understand the why of you,
for we both ****** addicts,
enslaved by the undulating
arms of our muses, and this then,
the nature of our
shared genius

so be wary of the sea, and writing, the ****** of poetry addiction,
given half a chance,
you will quite happily drown
when they both beckon,
come hither.


<•>
8-19-17 ~ 8-20-17
11::04 pm - 3:24am
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G_LHgXxz9VE

an amazing thing to see
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