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3.4k · Jul 2013
My Mother is Dying July 2013
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
My Mother is Dying July 2013
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 prayer uttered, answered and unanswered,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
She ever possessed to the atmosphere,
For sharing, for recalling, for retelling,
One breath at a time.
~~~~~~~~~
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...
3.3k · Oct 2013
I am just like {you, man}
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
I am just like {you, man}
Created June 1st, 2011

I am not gay.
I am not straight.
I am not curved,
or warped or woofed
I am bent, cylindrical,
a burnt human.

but not weak, nah!

tempered stronger than
furnaced scarred,
hard-stained steel,
a fire shaped child of El.

The sum of,
the product of,
the multiple divisions of:

my hard-on
experiential, existential
hand to hand
combat learning,
life's red copper burnishing,
and my very own
genetic, tantric
commanded tablets,
my natural earnings,

and I guess I am just like
{you, man}

obedient factotum to the
twists and turns of the
curve ***** and spitters
life pitches at my head,
that end up as
body blows.

multiple contusions outside
worn with pride inside,
I award myself a
medal of honor,
and elect myself,
Most Valuable Person,
an All Star of David,
for having survived
one more battle scarred
game day,

and I guess I am just like
{you, man}

when I awake,
in the raceway courses
of my veins,
the speedways to my
heart and brain,
runs the bitter herbs taste
of fear of how
I shall yet again,
earn this day,
my body's keep and shelter,
earn some table scraps of
peace of mind,
that I may lay
myself down to sleep
if ever so briefly,

and I guess I am just like
{you, man}

When I prowl the mid of night,
the fever of combat fear,
my skin sears,
and there is no narcotic
that anesthetizes
even surficial  
the anxiety,
the ailment of
melancholia
that hallmarks my soul,
the overflow of which
spills over the ****
of my vocabulary

So every new day
is a new year,
and I start the diet
of my soul
yet again

and I guess I am just like
{you, man}

Once I was a soldier
who wore the
black and white stripes
of the uniform that stretches
to the four corners
of the world.

I used to sway to the R&B;
of someone else's tunes,
prostrate fell to my knees
speaking someone
else's words,
touched my forehead
to the ground.

but the melancholia that
sterling hallmarks my soul
never disappeared and
renewal was a gift
denied and refuted,
by the lack of clarity
to which I was not
part and parcel

and l guess I am just like
{you, man}

Took a new oath,
swore allegiance
to the alliance of
I don't give a ****
and acceptance of
the infection of
flawed humanity
inside of me
lies buried in the
permafrost of my mind,

So every new day
is a new year,
and I start the diet
of my soul,
yet again

The first new words
daily uttered,
chanted with vehemence
of an out loud prayer
to no one but we two,
me and you, man,
unashamedly clear and enunciated
not mumbled,
not muttered,
seven parts blessing,
three parts curse,
are these words.

l guess,
I am just like
{you, man}

Found and founded a brotherhood of me and
{you, man},
one mantra,
you and I are just alike,
now we have a new
holy romantic empire,
we are human
{you, man}
slaves to
nothing,
no one
but each other.
How I used to write...when I was....
Continue reading...
3.3k · Jan 2018
I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה‬ ’ehyeh ’ăšer ’ehyeh)
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2018
I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה‬ ’ehyeh ’ăšer ’ehyeh)
I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה‬ ’ehyeh ’ăšer ’ehyeh)

for Eléa

the requests are assiduous, regularly arrivaling, some shy,  
some heinous demanding and denouncing,
inquisitors inquisiting this revelation,
as if it could be bought in a Five and Dime,
with a childlike whining insistence

just  exactly who are you?

this is not my name above,
but one of seventy the Father gave himself

He named me in a fit of efficacy and whimsy and in and from, a fit of a deep veined mystery

You Raise Me Up

all this on the ****** side of corny, and would not blame you
if you moved on…

so nominated in honor of my mission, to travel with you in
all the travails that ail,
to raise you up to raise me up and thus salve the universe's cracks,
fill the crevices and the ****** scars invisible,
with the precise refreshment that make my life,
a slave to your thankfulness

I am the wetness of a mother’s lips upon
a thin red tear on a child’s skin,
I am the the rock hard father’s shoulders grasped by a child’s arms, the child does yet understand that human is illusion,
human is human, however strong,
it is the allusion of human limitations
that is our magical

I am the present re-borning come with a morning glory,
the time when the Am and the Pm  future merge in a name
without tense,
past present and what I may be is simply what
I am

when the past is but another sky bright star, untouchable,
but winking at you, to you personally

I am the touch of the untouchable,
a messenger commissioned to remind you when
the reminders are too far apart,
or even too close
and thus make a breathing space
in between for the living and the missing

I am the
no difference
between a newborn’s soft skin cells
relentless multiplying,
that offers the same precise sensation of the
grandmother’s delightful wrinkling cells of smiles of her
relentless dying,
for all, one and the same,
the child in her is you, baby

I am the fall before the rise, the first that defines the last,
the standard, once obtained, nevermore unobtainable

I am the first fruit of the summer,
a tongue blossom, a burst of memory, always recalled,
always the same, that begs for forgiveness for there are no
new words to describe the profound finding of the
simple pleasures that sustains the blessing over all things new that
are recurring and truly
renewable (shehechayanu)

I am the crinkle in the eye, the one that hides in the fine lines
and upon the lips,
when you purchase the hope however fleeting of a
$2 Powerball ticket,
the very same hope preserved when you laugh when you lose,
for there is contentment in knowing one may hope spring eternal,
yet again in a finite
three more days for and too another lousy two bucks fantasia

I am the ruse of happy satisfaction of a man
in the dark of alone at home,
staring at his sizeable bank balance
and the happy knowledge that its loss  it will make it greater someday when it  happy converted to memories and photos that  are worth a thousand times its multiplicity
if only,
or when,
he knows how

I am that pain in the left side of your red sea-parted soul that cannot be dismissed but is religiously ignored,
that you alone know of
due to its persistent existence, and because it is just tolerable,
it is a sad but comforting pain,
an acknowledgment that a companion travels with you
and that in someway is ok and you exist

I am the water on the night table that extinguishes the dry throat of recurring visions in eyes that always end badly
and make the bed’s welcome a fearful thing,
which is a fearful thing for in good sleep is the
re-naissance and re-formation and the salvation
that was given to you as a gift inside thy mother’s womb,
and that
it is I,
whispering the hum of easy soft lambs,
soft breathing you
unto welcoming rest

I am the poem that must end because of our
frailties and impatience to live in
the reality of human touch,
that must be put aside for any novocaine of words

I am the one who can only be alive
when he raises you up and
you begin a new poem all your own,
and then exit it too, willingly,
to embrace the raising up of living

and that is the
who I am
that I am
raising us up
Continue reading...
3.3k · Nov 2013
Contrapuntal Poetry
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Contrapuntal Poetry
Contrapuntal
— adjective, Music.

- pertaining to counterpoint.
- composed of two or more relatively independent melodies sounded together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


If we set this site poetic to music,
there would be two
contrapuntal melodies.

A harmony of disharmony,
met and matched by a
single refrain,
a harmonizing voice
meeting the needs
of the sopranos, the altos.
the low of the lowest basso.

I am in love,
life painting me beautiful.
The dawn is cracking,
opening my heart with love.

I am a heartbroken shell,
in a living hell of neverending.
There is no light
in my bed at night, bulb broken.

Let's write of joy,
celebrate reunification, singularity,
of our place,
our happy collision,
our universal location.
For where you are,
I exist,
no where else.

Less than nothing,  
gave and given in,
found a lost plateau
where there is no substance, only
pieces of broke,
pieces of ache,
pieces of brown glass

I live you.
I die you.

There is but one color, and it is the color of us.
There is but one color, and it is colorless.

There is one vow for two,
the vow is one!
Keeping it,
natural, easy,
time is unrecorded,
forever is immeasurable.

There are no vows ever kept,
only lies,
passing promises of vanity.
Never is the only time
that can be recorded.

A new world symphony
that never ends.

What then
the unifying
refrain
uniting joy and pain?

Write it down.
Write it up.
Write it and believe.

We will listen,
and care,
having been there,
both ways,
both sides now
we are
write
alongside you.
"I was very very goodly broke,
and contrapuntal insanity was a
partial cure."

"A Perfect Day (in the city)"
7:22AM

Somehow in my mind these two poems are linked.


Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.
June 18th
#lipstadt #contrapuntal #poetry
Continue reading...
3.3k · Aug 2013
Motet & Motet II
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Motet & Motet II
Motet: an unaccompanied choral composition with sacred lyrics; originated in the 13th century.  Suggestion: look up on YouTube, the Hilliard Ensemble.*  Jewish tradition says that there are 36 righteous souls on Earth, whom for their sake, God preserves the planet and its inhabitants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Motet II

August 2013

Last night,
I lay with God,
Again.

We made love inimitable,
As if it were the first time.
The music of purity, voices ensemble,
The only commonality.

Afterwards, heaving, sweaty, in bed,
He reminded me that I had already
Written of the motet, long ago,
But permission granted to
Love it, write of it, once more,
As I He, and He, me...

Because after-all, the motet prayers belong to Him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Motet

Nov. 2010

Ce soir, I am prepared, My Love,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen.

The motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.
Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

These voices doth
wrack my fibers,
seethe and contract,
my internal power plant
implodes, heart attack.

Glorious generations of singers,
O woven voices that harmonize,
your motet is
umbilical to my lyrical,  
calming chemical reaction,
I am servant and
you are my server,
uplift, calm and provoke me.

Sing out loud God's
ephemeral, unpronounceable name,
cover me with the fame
of His naturity,
love me with divine kisses,
release unto and within me
the essential oils,
oils by which we breathe,
ancestorally transfused,
oils once called the
blood of the soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my past harmonies of poesy,
you shared, lost or just deleted,
tribute unto tribulations human:

I recorded, ven diagrammed,
sorrowed tales of souls waylaid,
debts foreclosed, dues unpaid,
tales of non-fictional agonistes,
suffering a tutti frutti of sarcastic
Earthly  Delights.

Wrote writs re some poor souls,
Prado preserved,
by threading and dying,
on a cloistered tapestry
woven by Adonai worshipers.

With those selfsame oils,
they painted anticipated memories of
Heaven and Hell,
the ones of which I write,
far too oft.

But this night,
In my customary hour
when inspiration is my only tongue,
in the lean hours after midnight,
afore dawn's orangerie of
morning skyed break fast,
I am risen, nourished and
uplifted by the motet's synthesis,
by what I hope to see,
by what I wish to hear.

For I watch,
porched and perched on rooftop,
in the company of
urban spelunkers and debunkers,
all of us desperados,
differing reasons for despair,
yet together,
a human minion-minyan of ten,
we search Jerusalem,
from the Battery to the Cloisters
for glimpses, hints of human angels,
the thirty six^
ministering to the
homeless and dreamless,
to us all.*

Ce soir, I am prepared,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen,
the motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.

Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

Reveal, reveal to me the identity
of your ministering angels!

As the thirty six preserve me,
motet me on eagle's wings, and
return us to you Lord,
that we may be returned.

Renew our days,
as they were before,
when the motet
was bright, organic,
in each of us.






----------------------------------------
^www.neveh.org­/winston/wonder36/36-08.html
Motel is Hebrew for sweet. Minyan, a gathering of ten (minimum) Jews in order to pray collectively.

In the PRADO , The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
This is without doubt one of the most enigmatic paintings in the Prado Museum. The left-hand panel of the triptych represents Creation and Paradise, the central panel the sins of modern man, and the right-hand panel illustrates divine punishment. The obscene poses, strange characters and impossible buildings that populate this 16th-century work create a delirious world that anticipates the Surrealist movement.


In my youth, I was too young to know love, for I thought it was me thst mattered.  In my old age, I was sorrowful for not having loved enough, knowing that it was me that mattered. Nowadays, I only speak of God in tongues, for now I know but just a few words to speak, woman, human. He or She who has read this in its entirety, will have seven years of luck.  Very few of you will, for you have yet to listen to a motet.  Should you do so, I will carry you heavenwards on a ladder of these words. Promise.
Continue reading...
3.3k · Jun 2013
When I Was Sixteen: Heartbreak Poems Writ After Midnight
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
When I Was Sixteen: Heartbreak Poems Writ After Midnight
Heartbreak Poems Writ After Midnight

Poems writ after midnight
Effervesce intensity, how can it be, both an
Awakening, a dreading, a deadening?
Volcano in the chest, bullet in the head,
Cry stifled, but heard blocks away,
Almost reaching a house where you live

Poems writ after midnight
Presage dread of day soon to start,
Come forth more effortlessly,
Spill, soil, stain - simultaneous - pillow, cheek, us.
Rivulets of senses aflame,
Police cars and fire engines scream warning, coming,
Roaring warning lights of silent pain, heard blocks away,
Almost reaching a house where you live

It's June and from hallways and town streets,
Your shadow will disappear, graduate, not from, but to
You-know-where, the place where
Emo music is born and screamos die,
Same **** place that
Poems come from after midnight

Offered emollients, creams, stupid words,
Drugs, hugs, catch phrases that never soothe, irritate hurt worse,
The only word in the universe of words
I can't explain
A four letter gift my lover 'presented' and
It is pain

Read somewhere some poems never end,
Now I understand that better,
Cause there are no bandages, stitches that can close,
Cause there are no pills, switches that can shut off,
The ripping sound, the cutting noise, the raging inside
Heard blocks away, almost reaching a house where you live,
And dying in the same **** place that
Poems come from after midnight.

5:16 am forever
See: Some Poems Never End
Continue reading...
3.3k · Dec 2013
September Summer Suspended Animation
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
September Summer Suspended Animation
This was written a few Septembers ago.  Walking on the streets of a now deserted beach island, only the leaves, in various states, to keep me company.

September,
walk with me,
under bridges of wedding tree canopies,
still green aplenty,
tho subtle marked for change,
making summer illusions,
environmentally unsustainable.

September,
stroll on pathways
of lesser, off the track, shaded lanes,
the sun blocker trees wear new necklaces,
brown and yellow diamonds,
a coming attraction of
their denouement,
their denudement.

The September trees are:

Ever so slightly stooped,
bent with weight of a surety,
knowing with high certainty,
their future, bleak,
bowed and drooped,
discouraged by the
cold travails soon to arrive.

Living in the recent past,
I am dressed inappropriately,
white tee and shorts,
past pretender,
still dressed in my
Gap issue summer uniform,
summer suspended animation.

Island streets are de-humanized,
gone home are the children,
newly fallen leaves have,
their place, taken.

The leaves are:

magically organized along
the sidelines of empty streets,
quiet stadiums of would be
kid's touch football fields.  

browned, crisp and soulless,
first greet this solitary stroller,
like a cheering throng of ghosts,
celebrating a sighting -
man, as a seasonal fossil,
one that still is living
and worth reminding, yet
human too shall pass when
his fall arrives.

the leave's cheers make over
into jeers and mocking laughs:

Oh humans, they say,
your summer songs naive,
mais tres charmant.

On Crescent Beach,
the driftwood sadly forlorn,
looking more adrift than ever,
for no one passes to express
admiration at the past seasons
Nouveau Expressionism,
an objet d'art lonely,
for the beach gallery shuttered,  
raising questions existential.

Is driftwood on the beach sans
human admiration,
art, truth or refuse?

I am looking backwards as the
Earth moves forward.

My own axis, my eyes,
conscientious objectors
refuse to be pressed
into service of the seasons.

No, no,
to involuntary servitude,
to rotation and revolution.

Nature's witnesses,
trees and leaves write
their own poem,
of foolish men who:

Bow and droop,
discouraged by the
travails soon to arrive,

Delaying their own fall,
finally shed summer delusions
like leaves upon the ground,
summer poetry silenced,
summer suspended, no more.
an old summer~fall poem, revived, out of season, like me. See August 25
I am a Summer-Man
Continue reading...
3.3k · May 2014
One more for the road... all on that day, dog ear'd
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
One more for the road... all on that day, dog ear'd
for AR and Maria, oh heck,
for The Crew

A dog ear is a phrase that refers to the folded down corner of a book page, a dog ear can serve as a bookmark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_ears


~~~~~~
we fold a page corner down,
here we pause in this poetry book,
for now, a marker of incompletion,
or not

a passage, a phrase,
whole stands on its own,
but today crew,
slated for an exit,
a return-to-someday,
but aside, aside, discarded till...

all on that day
run to the mountain,
the mountain wont hide you
run to the sea,
the sea will not have you
and run to your grave,
your grave will not hold you
all on that day

so I, sinnerman,
injured my book,
I hurt that page
disgraced, act of disgraceful,
but

I am injured
and don't have no cares

but come the day of
return
the day I hope to must to believe in,
twice as much,
all on that day,
when the sea,
the mountains,
and the risen dead,
have me back,
to my proper place

even though
will be dog tired,
to that dog-eared page,
in that worn old notebook
return,
pick up
my sticks,
my pens,
that have no erasers,
start again

just where I know,
just when I don't,
but this why I know,
but to that dog-eared return,
the page where
I died,
I shall return,
all on that day

~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to all on that day?

Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to all on that day?

Run to the moon, "Moon, won't you hide me?"
Run to the sea, "Sea, won't you hide me?"
Run to the sun, "Sun, won't you hide me all on that day?"

Lord said, "Sinner man, moon'll be a bleeding"
Lord said, "Sinner man, sea'll be a sinking"
Lord said, "Sinner man, sun'll be a freezing all on that day"

Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to all on that day?

Run to the Lord, "Lord, won't You hide me?"
Run to the Lord, "Lord, won't You hide me?"
Run, run, "Lord, won't You hide me all on that day?"

Lord said, "Sinner man, you should've been a praying"
Lord said, "Sinner man, should've been a praying"
Lord said, "Sinner man, should've been a praying all on that day"

Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to all on that day?

Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you're gonna run to all on that day?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4h55nVbt4c
Continue reading...
3.3k · Dec 2014
Are You My Poem?
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2014
Are You My Poem?
t'was not so long ago
in simple human years,
but eons, in poetic ones, that...

visions of fruited plains,
dimpled mountains,
candied wall-nutty natives,
easy lifted from his
eye's casual glances,
reformed to scribbled essays,
while daily walking on the
concrete steppes of his city,
gems of glass shard sidewalk sparkles
and bluest mailboxes were
raptured word tableaus,
rupturing easy with
volcanic force,
his body's planet,
mantle breaking,
crust-conquering poems,
breakout pimples waves,
molten and easy flowing...

he knew not then
what well now he knows,
the exhausted trembling
of asking,
the slowing wearing pace of
heartbeats of constant query,
the wonder of
wondering incessant,

Are You My Poem?

awoken by the body clock
in the wee, streaming,
rem sleeping hours,
asking the no longer
faithful friend,
his bathroom mirror,
is the accuracy of this
stubbled mess,
the white crusted lips and eyes,
is that my, my nowadays,
answer to

Are You My Poem?

he waits,
he, a red taillight speckle
among many, wait watching,
on a Brooklyn minor bridge
over a minor inlet
one of many, on a longer isle,
as the bridge lifts its arms,
opens its middle belly,
waving bye to a
passing-through freighter,
perhaps
destined for
happy springtime Morocco,
perhaps,
the Malay's divided isles,
wandering wondering
one more time,
if that's his etching,
line drawing poem,
passing by, bye, bye,
so each breathe forcing,
escape-asking,

Are You My Poem?

sometime ago,
a grown man,
his voice changed,
like a teenager,
writing now in but the
simplest terms,
plain jane poems,
in the cadence
of spoken words

for all the fancy phrases,
exhausted,
the sewing box of
precious alphabets,
emptied, leaving only
the tyranny of
hello, have a nice day, how are you feeling,
that's nice, goodnight sleep tight...

there were fewer poems
therein contained,
ceasing to fear,
no need for constancy of asking,
but failing in crafting to craft
even then,
trying but no one answering to

Are You My Poem?

one or two true,
asked,
are you busted,
the nib nub rusted,
your silence, long pauses,
worry us, your poem lovers,
if spent,
how deep is thy rent,
let our concern heal,
patch n' fill,
the cuttings,
the empty grooves that pockmark,
hope wishing asking,
sir sire man,
are you still hopeful,
interrogating,
asking the world,

Are You My Poem?

weeping from the
believed warmth
of their caring,
they too, knowing,
that life has its ways
of choking your voice off,
compelled to advise,
still and then and now,
the constant in my equation,
extant yet,
extant yes,
a voice that still rises
at the end of the
periodic element interrogatory of

Are You My Poem?

the poem answers,
muddled, muddied,
everyday life eats you up,
instead of you feasting upon it,
the tempo, the style,
all now humbug static interference,
but every know and every then,
a long winded answer dances
it's way from the core,
answering well
the question less asked,

Are You My Poem?

spent,
the poet
lol's,
for his truest friends here,
answer the pondering,
in deed, indeed,
you, near and dear
poet brothers and sisters,
you are the answer,
to words looking now,
a tod-toad-tad silly,

**You Are My Poem!
I am alive, not kicking much, but present....and this is my thank you present to those who ask, where are thy poems hiding?
Continue reading...
3.3k · 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...
3.3k · Sep 2023
there’s a poem I need to write…
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
there’s a poem I need to write…
that’s all I know, title, subject undisclosed,
new morn amourning arrives,  when writing~writhing
hunger, comes and remains till fufillment,
sometimes, nagging, sometimes roaring, completion is
the satiation satisfaction when the pouring/
spilling is from within to without, topping off
the nearest receptacle with hugger-muggery,
beauty jumbled, elegantly jagged linen creased

the it of it, must be done, so my heart un-seizes,
breathing to nearly next to normal, yet the distance there
incroyable, inch or mile, meter matters not, until closed it’s a
chasm rupturing,
 fingers grasping my temples, to hold the
jumbled tumbling innards within, redirected towards my
screaming fingertips, hoping, relief will come sooner,
making room until the throat and lungs engorged,
when~with this selfsame need returns
on the morrow
if, when,
my eyes open,
and yesterday itself
is a writ,
a realization accomplished

~~~~~~~
perhaps, you recognize yourself?
perhaps, you reconcile yourself?
Tue Sep 28 2023 +82
#poemtowrite #lipstadt
Continue reading...
3.2k · 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...
3.2k · 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...
3.2k · 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...
3.2k · Oct 2013
True Stories #1
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
True Stories #1
True Stories #1

This is the first of what will be a series of little vignettes.


When I was fourteen,
I was the alienate hipster rebel
In a private school hellhole.

Hair long, tie knot never pushed up,
Unbuttoned button-down shirts,
Camus lover,
Siddhartha disciple,
Small acts of disdain,
Expressions of teenage hell-pain.

One day, the principal
Threw me out to get a haircut.
Went to the nearby barbershop,
Which was in the underground,
Subway stop.

Returned to school where It was
Pronounced unacceptable.
Twice more this charade-escapade,
Went on, till the barber cried and would not
Charge me anymore.

Shorn like a lamb,
My mother roared like a lion.

The next day, the man in charge,
Who would marry my second son,
Three decades later,
Called me in and sort-of-apologized.

From that day, I never respected authority,
Only learned to fear tyranny.

See photo of my latest protest!
Someday one of my descendants may stumble on this "poem."   I am storing these kernels of me, here.

Also explains the roots of this poem!

Nat Lipstadt · May 24
Growing Down: Used to tell 'em not to cut my hair too short

Used to tell 'em not to cut my hair too short,
When I was young-old,
Nowadays I just tell him cut it short,
so it
Spikes...Yikes!

Makes me realize,
Vanity is one of my
Oldest friends,
And also, one of my
Oldest enemies.

I like Bob Dylan's songs,
Like him better these days,
When younger voices cover him,
And I hear his word-songs differently.

Oh I love to laugh,
Especially at myself,
Silly boy in the mirror,
Who the heck are you Grandpa?
I am,
The Times They Are-A-Changin'
Nowadays, I'm  growing down
Continue reading...
3.2k · 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...
3.2k · 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...
3.2k · 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...
3.2k · 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...
3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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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3.1k · 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
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3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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
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3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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...
3.1k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · Jan 23
Immortality by Clare Harner, 1934
Nat Lipstadt Jan 23
Immortality by Clare Harner, 1934
Do not stand
          By my grave, and weep.
     I am not there,
          I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
     Do not stand
          By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.
— Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Stand_at_My_Grave_and_Weep
Continue reading...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · Sep 2013
Two men, one poem
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Two men, one poem
Two men, one poem.

This day, on this site.
Two men wrote to me.
One called me brother.
The other, an arrogant *****,
Called me little.

One shared his life,
With humility and gratitude,
That I lost it. Wept. Baby like.
Honored me with trust.
Swapped spit stories
That bled into my brain,
And a tattoo appeared on my
Writing arm, one word,
Humility.

One boasted of his beans.
His bean counting reads.
Analyzed his trends,
Predicting by Christmas (!),
He would have this many.

His **** poems he informed,
Would be published.
What need did he have
For punk-u-ation,
His rants, his **** stream of words.
Better than mine,
Just cause his stuff I said,
Not my cup of tea.

What a crazy place this place.
Holy and *******, sided.
Humble humble, always humble.

He invoked, this arrogant one,
God's name.
Not knowing I talk to Him.

So I rang Him up and said,
How did a little peenus-genius
Find his way onto this
Holy Place, HP, of kindness.

He smiled in brevity.
Did I not create both,
Angels and devils?

I love God's brevity.
His commas, his question marks,
His pointed punctuation.

I love that He could create
A man whose sight of
Me, unseen, but found capacity
To love me in ways
Undreamed.

Because I peered in to the man's reveal,
Saw quality, value,
Saw humility.

So of arrogance, I said,
I would write.
But it is of humility
I will sing,
Of loving human kindness extraordinaire.

Of weeping endless.
At the joy afforded me
To read so many lovely poems,
Here.

If my poems never see the
Imprimatur of a publishing house,
It matters not,
For I have seen a human being
Weep real tears reading mine.

I have shed rivers of my own
Upon discovering yours.

Humble, humble.

If it is glory you seek,
You will find it,
All alone. Mastur-bating.

Me, I live here, in the midst of a
Good Company.


Sept. 7th, 2013
Nat Lipstadt  
I appreciate this, but it does not connect for me...many beautiful phrases and images, but I am left confused other than the general tenor...just not my cup of tea. Sorry


Unnamed:

Well friend I guess I will take comfort in my writing being published through the University of Arizonian and being invited out to the winter and spring release parties. Then I have two hundred and thirty eight thousand reads on my two writing sites that will reach three hundred thousand by Christmas I will try to go on God bless you.
Continue reading...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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
Continue reading...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
3.0k · 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...
2.9k · 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...
2.9k · 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...
2.9k · 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...
2.9k · May 2014
Wrestling With God
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
Wrestling With God
an old familiar,
an adversary of the first degree,
when we wrestle,
me and this god
disguised as an angel disguised as man,
the door to where we tangle,
clicks shut with a perceptible oval sounding,
a trumpet announcing commencement of the festivities,
that we are
Occupado

no stray observers permitted in,
the room entrances locked,
someone's two hands upon each temple,
(cannot be mine, for)
inside we combat literally,
"mano-a-mano"
hand to hand,
word to word,
gradually, continuously,
up close and personally,
one on
One

over the course of a lifetime,
each battle named,
famously borrowed and thus recorded,
Agincourt, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Leningrad, Ðiên Biên Phú,
for the record keeping purposes of our unforgiving ******-
historian

the rules of engagement somewhat flexible,
biting, choking, eye gouging,
kicking when down, not just legal,
encouraged, no holds barred,
when we wrestle,
the dirtier the
better

take turns declaring a victor,
for that matters little, truly,
just a record keeping notation,
the battle and its aftermath,
the waves of pain inflicted,
the casualty count engorged,
is the greatest glory,
dans une manière de
parler

though sent away the children,
our earthly goods,
designating them purportedly,
non-combatants observers,
yet 'no rules' meant
they could be accidentally drawn in,
non-combatant status does not prevent them
from being freely captured or
killed

the conflict ongoing,
no one ever calls for a truce,
for both unequal adversaries know,
no quarter will ere be given,
and though the tide shifts,
each individual battle produces as always,
a winner and a
loser

noisy affairs,
long after the battle,
the slain yet scream,
perhaps I am confused,
perhaps it is the day's survivors,
announcing that sadly,
they are still
alive

it must be the latter,
for here I am writing and recording,
and though alone,
I hear an ever growing louder,
gouging sine wave scream piercing,
daring my soul to leave my wracked
body
for though mortal wounded,
I am therefore
both dead and alive,
but which more so,
none can surely
say

this conflict remains
unconcluded
the pain in my hip, now
everywhere,
my Jacob, now, Israel,
marker
so visible even if itself,
unseen

3:59am
"The same night Jacob arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh."
—Genesis 32:22-32

For Maria, in her voice...
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2.9k · 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?
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