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  Dec 2020 Poetoftheway
Nat Lipstadt
~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
  Sep 2020 Poetoftheway
Where Shelter
a tall masted sailboat plods its way
across the picture window, under power, moving slow, 5 minute mile,
seagulls trail behind, periodically dive bombing the roiled wake, thinking, surely, men’s finding machinery may better than their own,
we,
taking anything to make the new days poems & troubles easier

so it goes, the interplay between man and a natural world,
so it goes, finding fish, our sustenances, a dance perpetual,
so it goes, divining spirits sensing a vision, bring me music,
a spiritual so apropos that who can doubt God’s existence?

”With the water
Sweet water, wash me down
Come on, water
Sweet water, wash me down


Tried my hand at the Bible
Tried my hand at prayer
But now, nothing but the water
Is gonna bring my soul to bear”^


so the birth-day begins, sunrise poems & troubles sure to follow,
in serenity commences, perhaps a sunset bookend to match,
but in between, surely poems & troubles, all of life’s stuffing,
signs and guides, surely, at least, the day’s poem is completed...




—————————————-
^ Nothing But the Water (II)
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
first poem of the day


Fri Aug 21 2020
8:40am
S.I.
  Sep 2020 Poetoftheway
Where Shelter
the words don’t come easy (Poet’s Nook)

~for the postman who always rings twice~

<>

nah, they come
too easy,
from me, for you, doesn’t mean
they’re cheap, quite the opposite!

hard earned, been through the
washing machine so often,
they claim recyclable status

ok, so they are worn, edges raggedy,
they don’t care, nor do I, cause you
can’t find me any that never been fired

in the kiln of experience that came before
the crucible of my eyes, that says to them
welcome back! old friends, easy and familiar

stay for a few minutes, before you must get
snatched by some younger person’s heart,
send them along with my thanks and my

fare-thee-well, bon voyage, stop by one more
time, if you pass this way, I’ll be in that place,
Poet’s Nook, in our atmosphere of inspiration

where we have cohabitated, cogitated, and
wept together, co-created, and dreamed of
new combinations of our old souls’ cross currents

8:11am Sep 10 ‘20


In the Nook,
S.I.
  Sep 2020 Poetoftheway
Nat Lipstadt
<>

with time whittling my days down,
the plurality point of my days long since
surpassed, my poems to the wayside
fall as new generations seek the voices
that are nuanced to their ear, tastes,
I remain, for the more obvious, more now than ever,
forever for the poets who sign their emails to me with:

I close with much gratitude


spoke or unspoken,
you-see I-see your poetry nuggets in everything,
the extraordinary ordinaries!
that delight the weakening eyes, move the ****** muscles
upward and outward, those nuggets by that,
one can grasp
the nexus of existence in words few and singular, open/close,
and the filters that mark life as word worthy,
salutations of words like:

Gratitude

and all that matters is this simple, my friends, my children,
that I go down in days full of gratitude
for them, for them.
  Sep 2020 Poetoftheway
Still Crazy
the desk drawer was open, extending an invite,
cheap blue handle scissors, easy see, on top,
robbed of excuses, went around the house, all my
personal goods, mission oriented, trimming away
loose threads wherever they were hiding in my life

no expert in love, for sure, but struck by you people
linking love and dying, over and over, like they are
hyphenated, siblings, separated twin children, that
long to communicate, checking each other out on the
internet  anonymously, cause these two linked in ways
not understood, loosely tied, a threaded linkage, can you
please explain?
(mysterious)

is loved only fully realized,
when it phoenixes?
burnt, slowly agonizing,
arisen, resurrecting,
is it one cell endless
dying, re-splitting?

Paul calls,
asking:

“and you wonder why we, why you,
why I am still crazy after all these years?”





12:04am
Wed Sep 9
plague year
  Aug 2020 Poetoftheway
abecedarian
“the irrepressible impossibility of not-writing”

not my phraseology, cut/saved/pasted from the tens of thousands
of words my eyes imbibe daily, waiting for a Fulfillment Center to
deliver a perfectly completed poem matching, equal to the Ah Ha!
uttered when he first read them, understanding the need, the surging
urging when a chest concaving with irrepressible bursting purpose,
just has-to hasty expel, never considering the possibility that I, I do not have something worthy of stating, right now, an inside insight...
  Aug 2020 Poetoftheway
Nat Lipstadt
(Inspired by and dedicated to John Edward Smallshaw, and his "Spice")


I am a summer-man,
Because I'm blessed to sit by the sea.
Let it and the other two Musketeers,
boon companions to me,
Sun and Wind,
erase my discomposure as I
reside in the Poet's Nookery.
Let them have almost
all that troubles,
but not all.

I am a summer-man.

On the bay, on the beach,
I see birth, I see death,
osprey nests, carcasses of
mussels and horseshoe *****.
This, somehow reassuring,
the cycles,
this circularity,
the tides and inevitability.

I am a summer-man.

Student of languages seasonal,
Peaches, plums, cherries, poetry
and loving Woman.^
This, the  summer alphabet-soup
of my multiple tongues.

I am a summer-man.

Sancerre and Pinot Gris, super cold,
Paul Simon, Nina Simone,
with proper aging,
getting  hotter,
Salsa and Afrikaner hints,
super louder,
Even "Still Crazy After All These Years,"
that-who-wud-be-me,
chills outer.^^

I am a summer-man.

When ever this lad's writes appear,
it proves once again,
there is no truth that his  
name was once Dr. Seuss
In a prior life, even if
each is signed by
Ogdiddy Nash


I am a summer-man.

Disrespectful of the calendar,
if I can, try to make
summer season stretch-marks from
May to October.

I would add April,
but the IRS is already
****** at me.^^^

Though the cherry blossoms of May
now gone away,
the lilies of June
arrive, but but for a week or two,
soon, like my mom, withered away.

Acorns in August^^^^ have arrived too swiftly.


This summer, beloved,
and love of summer,
deep-rooted.

Season of my Peter Pan Poetry Galore Festival.

A love,  incapable, impossible, of ever
growing old, ever growing cold,
it cannot wither.
It is summer heat reminders exposed,
how it misses its man,
that hide in the flames of
the teasing, popping, reminding
Winter fireplace's crackling popping
^ See "The Summer Alphabet of Woman (I Speak Woman)"
August 23 2013

lipstadt-man

^^ See "Made the bed backwards"
August 24 2013

^^^  See "Caesar Has No Authority Over The Grammarians"
August 22 2013

^^^^ See "* Acorns in August (Sonata for Summer Cello and Fall Piano, No. 3)" August 19 2013

——————

* Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel

April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again

June, she´ll change her tune,
In restless walks she´ll prowl the night;
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight.

August, die she must,
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;
September I´ll remember.
A love once new has now grown old

————
Tonya Maria

Tonya Maria  I am a summer-woman,
Because I'm blessed to sit by the sea.
I too display the summer season stretch marks.....
The sea, my lover, owns every inch of me......
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