Poetoftheway

May 2017

Nat Lipstadt

Of Baseball, Poetry and the Human Condition

Of Baseball, Poetry and the Human Condition

~~

From “The Art of Fielding.”* by Chad Harbach

"You loved it,” he writes of the game (baseball), “because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with a special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about the Human Condition.

The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not."*

~~
thus, the circle grows ever small,
binding the obvious and unblinding the oblivious

more than the mere, poetry in baseball, for both forms of art,
knowledge intuited from watching the catcher's body weave
this way and that, a dancer en pointe, arms raised in worship,
addressing the heavens with a body's broad brush strokes,
all to catch with concentrated skill, a lazy, towering popup,
climaxing oft with an exclamation point
a perilous desperation leap
into the dugout encampment of the inimical opposition

yeah, you knew that,
tho verbalizing same,
before the age of thirty,
presumed maturity,
was not an act of the sane of heart,
or the sound of mind and body melded

what you dared not admit was that the conditional principle,
was primal and not tangential, though perhaps,
some itinerant fathers foolishly mumbled incoherently
of a life linkage parallel motifs
of
that desperate beauty, the ferric magnetic irony,
that our full access pass to envisioning the finery,
imaging the stuff of our own daily creation genesis,
whether concocting undisciplined disassembled parts, words,
into a line, a stanza that froze your lungs from
the boredom of the regularity of heaving and breathing,
was in no way different
than the curvature of the boy's arm
in desperation outstretched, seeking spectacular safety for
a well hit ball of cork into a worn leather mitten and thus
confirming his humanity to the watching tribal membership

and these momentary moments of momentousness,
will live forever until we die, judged of equal stature,
a soldiers stripes, ribbons of his theaters of service,
medals of the honor and the errors of his own
human condition

May 2017

onlylovepoetry

she always make the first cup

she always make the first cup,
for the pleasure of pleasuring
is but another love poem
in disguise,
she, a prolific writer in dance,
in her own right nights

never enough milk,
yet never tell,
nonetheless,
my lips loud kiss each other
the exhaled aaah
can be heard just far enough,
to reach her kitchened, richened ears

who enjoys more that first cuppa,
she or me,
is a debate reinvigorated daily,
the judges remain secluded,
happily refusing to a verdict issue,
necessitating a new trial,
no mock this one,
for it is a daily-born creation
a Hawaiian java creamery of just
another love poem

5/13/17 7:24am

May 2017

Nat Lipstadt

Who Knows the Defintion of a Poet?

~

who knows the definition of a poet?
~
for my friend, S.Y,
who I will embrace with both hands,
both eyes, when he hands me a signed copy of a book
that answers the question

weighty subjects deserve your best work,
expressions of affection and introspection,
need careful reflection, a proper set up for the
tumult inevitable when delving in the unopened recesses
where the answers kept

so, of course, the writing commences well after 1:00am,
when the darkness of night clarifies the process,
for I work by day but live by night,
when summoning up my one tool no one can take away,
the joy, the relief, the spectacular exultation of
rearranging the aleph bet in new ways,
when the quietude of reflection transports me
across the continents in visions of what will be

I don't know if I know the answer, perhaps, any answers,
but when this man demands
the ebb tides of soul to depart,
to make him stand alone on the shore of endings,
forcing him to acknowledge his reckonings,
lonely, only humanity and frailties

I hear a voice gruff growling and me laughing-
"cut to the chase, make your point, get out of people’s way"

so in your honor, this simp fool who asks questions
no human has any business, the answers knowing,
will one last stanza grant and give and
yours to keep,
and commence countdown waiting for that day of welcoming

from the underground comes a chorus of voices,
in one voice but many languages, chanting:

all humans are poets
who acknowledge and freely confess that the
blood and stuff, the kisses and the touches of family and friends,
parent and child,
are the ***** and the egg,
the beginning and the circulation of the never ending,
the open entrance that penetrates the berm surrounding real life,
all these are the root and the stem and the blossoming,
of poetry writ large, for they who have these in their possess,
are surely by definition certainly

humans, poets

~
5/14/17 2:05am

all poets are human,
all humans are poems
Happy Birthday Steve!

May 2017

Nat Lipstadt

Jeez! HePo? Elliot!

sheesh Eliot,
half the poets miffed at your
unintended deriding,
but sexism in poetry a knife made
from a man's rib dividing, again?
too cruel to contemplate for defending

perhaps the site hijacked by the NSA,
doing the bidding of ten old white men?

as recompense go to thy server,
code in an alternating name starting today,
ShePo somehow springs to mind

Mother's Day an excellent commencement
to begin our regendering

P. S. everybody knows I am a girl, right?

It occurs to me,
perhaps not everybody aware
of the inside joke,
the e-joke,
Nat is short for
Natalie

May 2017

Nat Lipstadt

The Underground of HP

The Underground of HP

~
I do not joke

underworld, underground,
a subterranean nether-land,
a dark net
of a peculiar type of
wonderful human trafficking

all pathways are Venetian style,
each traveler rides in a tricked out, camouflaged gondola
of their own reckoning and design,
upon "rivers of good company"^

***"dude - ain't no such thing I seen
on o dropdown menu
provided by the House of York***

you are correct and yet, you are
correctable.

the way in
to this far more real world
than the surficial one
where you currently reside,
but only half alive,
is where poets speak
in the pentameter of plain english,
exchanging kindnesses and
magic tricks, tidbits of loveliness,
poems of sheerest nylon delight

their private revelations,
their second skin
home to shared state secrets
that are close guarded,
confided confidences, confident completely,
that nothing can rise exposed to the glare of the casual observer,
the accidental tourist,
who writes but
of and for the occasion
for self-glorification

the way in you ask?

don't make me laugh.

no one will extend an invitation -
memberships do not exist
you must invite yourself.

look to the frescoed, vaulted Vatican ceiling,
see the Creation of Adam,
a single finger-extending,
breathing life
when touching his/your reciprocal,
his/your creator

this is the way, the way in,
to self creation.

make the reach of your life,
stretch your soul across the terra firma of invisible terabytes
with the touch of a single fingertip

down below is where
the super stars reside,
who count not the vanity of quantities of cheap likes,
but who delight in the
rivets of insights,
well hid in the spaces between
line and letter
and dark secret messages,
trafficking in the best of
humanity, kindness

expose yourself, accepting your self
welcomed you will be,
accepted.

down below is where the real work gets done.

the realization, the actualization,
where the top of the tip
points down, the crown,
of the inverted pyramid

where poems are the
blood and stuff,
the kisses and the touches,
the ***** and the
opening into the berm,
the root, the stem, and the blossoming
of the real world of HP

^https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1913140/in-the-river-of-good-company/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1915543/how-to-be-a-successful-poet-on-hp-in-two-parts/

May 2017

Where Shelter

The Prism Through Which We See Clearly

The Prism Through Which We See Clearly

~

light saws our untrue selves with acute angles,
piercing our holistic pretenses, daily disambiguation features,
our sheltering disguises into our essence refractive elements

this is not a cute rainbow poem - run from here

it is a dissection of our true nature
why belabor, why elaborate?

through the prism
you color-coded self, tracted,
a mapping of your intersections,
what each color speaks, needs not an explication,
your hidden humanity comes to my eyes, in full revelation

at last I see you clearly

the lost and black withered limbs,
the stirring, leaping, enflamed flaring, never ceasing, breathing elements that mark your singularity

did you know your eyes are constant singers?

through prism, each note heard distinctly, as it rises uplifted,
your song, mine for observation and weeping exhalations,
your song, the production number of thy own composition,
through prism, our interior visual disinterred and released,

here I must cease, for what seen, grievous weeping deepens,
from the glory and the pain my blurred wetness overwhelms
the clarifying crystal useless when tear coated

through the prism,
before the full length mirror,
my own, unowned, never could be owned,
'mirror mirror on the wall,'
warped weave of tissues, mine,
the song sounds, mine,
from lungs disgorged
myself, diagnosed and displayed

of what I see, spitting speech
ceases and desists,
the only thought permitted, repeated,

where is my shelter now?**

5/13/17 6:49am

#prism #through #which #we #see #clearly #whereshelter

May 2017

Left Foot Poet

be well

nobody knows
the troubles
you've seen

nobody knows them all,
maybe some here/there,
scattered pebbles, strung together in a too tight choker,
as if two hands grasping your gasping neck,
as if you needed a reminder
of your own hands in slow mo,
cutting off of the oxygen supply,
to merest trickle,
the insufficient
be well

hell
no one knows the precision past, decision nature
of thine owned Sisyphus boulder,
the one you alone shoulder

so you grin~grimace inside,
when they sincere, but casually bell,
un-beknowning, un-thinking
wishing you one mo' time,
an extra seasonal

be well
~
ah, well intentioned,
but you're getting older,
tireder from the loader,
each time it's tossed your way,
falling to the pitted bowls bottom
all these
be well wishes

it's like a glass of water trying to
fill a well mostly dry,
quench a bonfire of exhaustion,
that only grows stronger,
feeding on its own inexhaustible supply
of good wishes innocently poisoning

I have two* sons.

I hope they

be well

12/16/16

#be #well #leftfootpoet