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  Feb 19 Path Humble
Nat Lipstadt
I suppose I will never lead the ordered life my father led.
And I’ll never live in the kind of house he lived in, with its rituals,
its dignity, the smell of polish.

Leonard Cohen

<>
the orderly of an individual life,
guided by the guardrails of family life,
superimposed upon it by a calendar of religion,
that layers into you with a cyclicality of communal ritual,
that rules, guides, tides and hides you subliminally, the individual,
in ways that forever alters how one comprehends the meaning of
belonging

the oven~heated, banging smells of the kitchen,
the hubbub, frantic sounds of a Sabbath eve prepping,
vacuuming house cleansing, far more than just a cleaning,
the young boys in their jackets, white shirts, for Friday night
candle lighting, the girls in Sabbath frocks, assisting Mother,
but by
Saturday morning sermon time
those boy’s shirts
were always untucked, sweaty and always less white,
from running around outside synagogue from playing Ringolevio,
for which you were justly critiqued by a mother’s glare-stare

this play-within-a-play poem,
played out in homes nearby,
for community was very defined by geography,
and the candles of Sabbath oft visible in every home as
Fathers & sons returned home from Friday Night services
where the Sabbath’s peace was welcomed like
a new bride.

but the knowledge that this scenario was occurring in
homes around the world in almost identical custom,
lent a larger perspective to even the youngest, of a
belonging

As for me, I passed on that life,
not as well as it was given to me,
but as best I could, or honestly, desired,
but because I the individual inherited these
ways, words, knowledge and sensations and deemed
failing to transmit would be a grievous denial of a heritage
were I to not gift them this order,
the dignity of these rituals,
the pungent smell of a polished home,
a life of intuiting

belonging,
be longing.
some of you know that our paths nearly crossed
by virtue of the intersecting diagrams of the circle
of three degrees of separation, and our similarity of
upbringing  overlapped in ways that molded instant
recognition of our commonality and community…I
saw both the house and the factory, when visiting
Montreal in the 80’s

“Whenever I blow into Montreal, I manage to take a look at the old house. It’s that large Tudor-style at the bottom of Belmont Avenue, right beside the park. It looks the same. Maybe the elms on the front lawn are taller, but they were always monumental to me. I wouldn’t hold on to the place or the factory and properties that went with it.” Leonard Cohen
  Nov 2023 Path Humble
Nat Lipstadt
~ 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?
Path Humble Sep 2023
“where time is the fly and age the fisher of men”

<>

”until I fell forward
into fall where time is
the fly and age the fisher
of men, then when winter
begins all will be forgotten,
where time is the fly and
age the fisher of men”


excerpt from “The Fall” by Rick Richardson

<>

that words from a different ionic state, jump as embodied ions from screen to the throat, evicting a guttural current of exclamation, you believe even with the half-heartedly palpitations from  remainder of my damaged pumping heart, that these words were always intended, just for me…

boy and old man coexist, the pottage of memories stirred,
and the time is fly, and I drown in the miracle of greenest grass of
Yankee Stadium at age eight,
oasis, heaven, a child reborn in a sea of Bronx concrete,
and the swallowing up of my boyhood is forever marked henceforth, the hook has caught me, and I am of the age
once and forever


not a fisherman, but a fisher of men’s souls,
mine own is my best bait,
hooked line and sinker, and
wisdom and words
elude and delude always, 
 like summer is perpetual and aging a construct,
time does not fly, but slowly laps and waves
eroding our myths and ourselves upon a continuum with
no ends

~postscript~

<>
yet I believe,
in miracles of
fish and loaves,
and that our individual continuums
will exist beyond the artifice of constraints
of
mortal time and that poems are
the forever chemicals within
our
bloodstreams,
even when our blood no longer spills


yet I believe!
a tribute to one of the best poets around
  Jul 2023 Path Humble
Poetoftheway
presumably presumptive
as you got zero clue  of
what stuff God made me,
where I lay me down in
the cool of moonbeam light,
unsure if another sunrise
will heat my body to awakening,
surrendered to the unknowing
knowingly, for I am so sure of
so little, that I query with every
torrential rain, why did I deserve
this un-expectorated baptism for
which and why, what I got, no clue

piety poet of the way spends his every
waking glance thinking stinking, why?
All the angels look away, forbidden
to barest hint minimalist to protect
and provide this rank random single specimen specific of living kind, his
purpose for which creation came his way?
so I’ll save you instead and the trouble of thinking for the correct answer to the question posed,
hell sure, you my confidante of this
confidence man,
a lousy truth teller,
and an even worse liar

write, God?
  Jul 2023 Path Humble
ogdiddynash
man cave versus she-sheds.

A man I know, finished his basement,
a skilled builder, he built it himself and
installed the masculine items prerequisite,
recliner and pool table, refridgerated mugs etcetera.

When asked how
he was enjoying
his privy isle
he replied, it’s ok,
but haven’t been down
there much lately,
seeing as the pool table
is used primarily
for folding laundry,
and the recliner
reserved for her
unmentionables.

he has
shed his man-cave secondarily to
she that rules,
Cardi-be-Cleopatra,
she rules, the empire,
now it’s her she-shed,
he openly cried
real manly tears
to me, fellow member
of hu-man-unkind.

one more,
just another
finished man,
a home & cave-less
bro…
  Jul 2023 Path Humble
Nat Lipstadt
And So the Day Begins (Bring Them Home)

~ With love for T.R. & S.R., my friends ~

<>

Their spirits, sensed, well kept,
in a sudden breeze, a sudden sneeze,
at the precise exacting, millisecond,
when skin, mind intersect, coinciding,
Mine, Theirs, and wet eyes and
smile traces arrive unbidden but both
together, always simultaneous and I know,
full hearted, full throated gasp grasping,
my soul and hands, touching, clasping,
in the kitchen odors, morning coffee,
early daylight across my face sweeping,
on the tongue, their taste on mine,
and I am present in this moment
as they are too, with me forever if
but just for a heartbeat, maybe two,
stilled yet, my heart trembles as it fuses
with Them and Everyone of Us is renewed,
and so the day begins,
Oh Our Children!
remembering, a point on our journey,
our always unbroken continuum.



<>

7:17AM
July 22
Two Thousand and Twenty Three
but one more day until…
mine eyes wet, can’t be dried,
and all around no one notices,
but there is contentment even
in that,
as it is my private momentary placement,
in Heaven on Earth,
all together,
merging…
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