Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
He is here.
He is near,
A free floating electron,
Available for children's parties,
When the balloon maker bores.

Cut and paste me,
Drag me to a browser,
For my annual physical check-me-out.

For a silver dime,
He'll make up ten rhymes,
Money back guaranteed.

Not amusing sufficient?
What did you expect?
At three thirty three am
A perfect poem,
A perfect life?

I know not of gossamer,
Of sprites, muse's delights,
I know what I got,
I also know where in the world
NML, a/k/a Nat, be at.

Here be here, up all night,
Reading your poems,
Saying his prayers.
For god only knows,
There are a hell of a lot prayers need saying,
There are a hell of a lot prayers need answering,
Poems that need writing,
And poems of yours that need
Loving....




http://maps.apple.com/?ll=40.766837,-73.952954
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2015
"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
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Some poems never end,
Nor were meant too.
Alliterative phrases, invitations,
Add a verse, a word, even a sound,
An exclamation of delight,
A stanza in its own right.

Unfinished work, forever additive, collaborative.
Modify mine, pass it on,
Free to steal it,
For ownership passes to you,
with your first reading,
And lost when you close it,
Stamp it and release it into the atmosphere.

But some poems do. End.
Unique and distinct,
Pockmarked-faced at birth.
Owned by my initials,
Never to see the shelves of a
Lending Library.

Like this one:

Cannot remember a single day
When suicidal thoughts
Were not heard clearly above the fray
Of jingle-jangled, responsibilities
Demanding my immediate attention.


The end.


NML
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2015
~~~

"When she was a young girl, Clemantine displayed the large courage to endure genocide. In this essay she displays the courage of small things: the courage to live with feelings wide open even after trauma; the maturity to accept unanswerable ambiguity; the tenacity to seek coherence after arbitrary cruelty; the ability to create tenacious bonds that have some give to them, to allow for the mistakes others make; the unwillingness to settle for the simple, fake story; and the capacity to look at life in all its ugly complexity."

David Brooks, NY Times, July 7, 2015
"The Courage of Small Things"
~~~

and you ask yourself
could I write this any better,

and you no/know/no
the answer well before the asking

but these combinations of letters
don't mere resonate,
they sound bells, all kind of bells,
wind chimes, mean car alarms, church bells, door bells,
sounds of nature soothing,
harsh noises so terrible
only humans can devise and extract,
not found in nature

the ringing sound of
the compartments of your brain,
clashing for predominance,
each with their own agenda,
and you silence them and write

thus compelled,
to review, define truths egocentrically,
examine your spatial perceptions,
ask the better, important question

do I have the courage of small things?

The easy answer is a runaway
yes or no,
the certitude of a familiar self-
(confidence, hate, righteousness, loathing),
the sadness of deprecation,
the pleasure of surety

and you know,
even the fools know,
neither are true answers,
only easy ways out

you chew and chew each small courage,
acknowledging insufficiency on any scale,
some here and there, maybe as good as average,
some here and there, far worse than most

in only one do grant yourself a passing grade,
and even that,
barely, minimally

"the capacity to look at life
in all its ugly complexity."


for here you are,
measuring and minding,
tallying and totaling,
in full public view,
knowing what only you know,
if, you this small courage, possess

I answer diffidently, fearfully, dangerously,
treading the line

in this above all, I must be a striver,
for all else,
even the simplest life,
is complex beyond reason,
see the ugly, say the ugly out loud,
permit to admit

for without this first step,
threshold, door jamb, Styx crossing,
you will never be able to summon,
you will never possess
the starting line courage of
asking and answering,
running when the starter pistol fires,
in a manner
unexcused, undisguised, fully disclosed,
and find the
beauty in
simplicity

do I have the courage
to do the summming up
of my smallest things,
that together
are truly
courage writ
large?

~~~
July 8, 2015
8:00am
NML
Please read the article in its entirety

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/07/opinion/david-brooks-the-courage-of-small-things.html

if you cannot access, message me and I will email it to you...
Nat Lipstadt Jun 16
the propulsion of compulsion is indefatigable,
it cannot no more, be ignored, as if it is forming
a holy commandment, number 11, you must
write when so ordered, denial is temporary
i n s a n i t y, and the backlog of nuances be
comes longer and longer by the instant

the provocateurs, them eyes, those eyes,
even the ears and tongue join in to instigate,
the cabal of influencers who peddle no product,
demand no payment but total obeisance and
sometimes low-class instant fufillment, for here
I am in servitude,@ 4:33am, by dawn’s early light
(no **** for real), propelled and compelled by
the creative, the spilling urgency of the need
to expel notions of potions that flit between the

frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cingulate gyrus,
and prefrontal cortex: (I told  you, it’s a cabal!)
all  firing
up neurons like electron spark plugs, and only
I can see the sparks colliding inside as letters,
words, phrases, none lazy, all demand long life,

or the Perpetuity of the Momentary”

it grows lighter by the minute and the sporadic
lights across the bay wink morse code secrets
to the observant, and Noyac’s  tree line has
become a distinguishable and distinctive
land mass to which I crossed last nite via &
upon the South Ferry, when all these conflicting
concepts began a painful birthing delivery,
the coagulation of the flighty, merging and
transforming into my child, in my bed, through
the picture window that has so oft been complicit
in the ganging up on my very, very old and restless
brain

but, uh, this ecrivez, this motion that the momentum
of the momentary desiring & deserving of monuments
to the perpetual
won’t be stilled and hours later, with it’s invisible hands
around my throat, it yanks from within what did not
exist ten minutes prior, but always existed inside me
as a jumbled puzzle, gestating quietly till a swift kick
of birthing pains insufferable accompanied by her
raucous dreams, awoke me from ******* and rhyming
Rem Sleep, to now, this moment, named forever as
4:57am and this noisy newborn, covered in embryonic
fluid (wonderful but disgusting really) is all ready pealing and peeling
off suggestions for brothers and sisters, this arrogance
is untenable, but the babe laughs at me, for it knows that
there are hidden, voluminous files of titles awaiting their
turning time of final conception

no longer nighttime, an early forming day, it too,
covered in its own fluidity, awaits discovery, for
the lights from across the bay have gone to bed,
turned off but the greatest, more powerful
brighter discharges
of the Sun Gods

The Bay’s waters are still, though my woman is not,
muttering, still dreaming out loud, as if she wishes
to foment
turbulence, and desires a boat for safe conveyance
across the dark seas of the night to the searing bright
June summer day that the Greek seers have forecast,
and then that moment, like it’s older sibling, will demand,
it’s very moment of personalized perpetuity, its own
unique naming,
a full recording, a welcoming by the Preservation Band,
amidst the glory of its mother mornings colorings of
palest blues, puffery of cumulus whitiwhispers all tinged
in my favorite, flavored color, creamsicle orange,
and the calming power is self evident for the rustling
back and forth of raucous dreams have ceased, and I too
am no longer possessed by the moment, until soon
when the hands creep slow round my throat by a new
moment, and all is lost, all is gained and a newest poem
is brought from the womb of my ancient past, my currency
of the next minutes and the wealth of words that are
available to us all! demands one of us, perhaps you?
to commit its actualized existence into reality

I bid you a soft adieu, for the chores of existence
those demanding pests of drudged biblical
pestilence
can no longer be kept
waiting

nml
5:21am
Sun Jul 16
2024

writ at you know where…
writ in the “moment”
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2015
This is a poem that I didn't plan on writing,
didn't want to write,
but ******
you can't control
psychic blasts from
out of nowhere,
triggers without
warnings
~~~
Six hours ago,
received a message,
  (see below)
another one,
from a fellow poet here

dear god,
it knocks me
six feet deeper
than the six foot grave
that I was already
sunk down in

Lest you think,
this poem is about me,

here's hoping you don't read it,

(since its likely to be
long ,
now, so out of fashion,
most have hopefully skipped ready away)

cause it *is
about me,
courage and
how
I came to write my own
Declaration of Independence

savings lives,
a life all along
part time happenstance habit,
sometimes called
giving a ****,
gets me in to trouble
especially,
when I'm the one in trouble,
cause any normal person,
thinks foremost first,
who the **** is
gonna save me?


my nine lives
long ago used up,
but was hoping
nobody important noticed,
could squeeze a few more
resurrection revival miracles,
from a body that is nearer to
seven decades
than the mere two,
of most of you

so out of work, told,
you dude, don't cut it anymore
worrisome noise, expected, now realized,
was sleep depriving,
cause
I got
mouths to feed

tea and sympathy,
please don't feed me,
cause what I learned
from a life of
giving encouragement,
is the final story,
the way its gotta end,
is at the place
where your sign name to,
the one, the only,
dotted lined destiny that can be called
successfully concluded,
by drawing down,
one mo' time,
your very
own
residuals for believing,
even when your driving
on fumes,
you manage on

which is how I came to write
these ten words, a summary of my future
Declaration of Independence

The hardest thing to do,
being strong,
for everyone else


no matter the state of your state,
lifetime habits don't die,
just go underground for awhile,
spent my independent soul's currency
taking care of others,
getting little in return
only the greatest
Un,
the Un expected,
high of the
reciprocal of kindness

bumps and grinds,
had my fair share,
always bounce back,
coming out better, stronger and better,
but they've put new obstacles in the course,
which makes it that much harder

so wrestling with this contra-diction:
that to be independent,
is the sum of dependency of others
on the works of your hands

when a message arrives
a penetrating light
that strips your gloomy inward lookings,
outward,
the re-direction, a gift of a reminder,
Perspective

once you offer to be depended on,
you can be never go back,
you gone and purchased (and sold)
a one-way ticket,
with no expiration,
the only
kind
for sale

so I refill my metrocard,
one more time,
but the machine doesn't accept
anybody's else's words of encouragement,
then you pocket dig a little deeper,
deeper than the six
you already in,
and pull out,
amidst the
lint and schmutz,
your last dime,
laughing all the time

for you know better than most,
to be independent
is to swear allegiance
to those who
depend on you,
writing down a poem
of sacred honor,
and herein nominated, seconded
and signed,
as your very own
Declaration of Independence

cause kids,
I read the original Declaration
from 1776,
which concludes:

"We mutually pledge to each other our Lives,
our Fortunes and our
sacred Honor"


NML
~~~~~
July 4th, 2015
"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, 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,
Put it in your mind,
Relish it and be proud;

YOU CHANGED MY LIFE
AND I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL."

July 4th, 2015
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the first such similar message
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1140915/21-hours-ago/

April 4th, 2015

21 hours ago
received the message below,
from a fellow poet, here,
now somewhat, more disappeared,
resting in the shady quietude of
Elliot's servers

a mere 21 hours ago,
a thunderbolt telegram
of virtual dots and dashes,
well received

21 hours ago -

"there's a reason
I got to know you,
even though that might
sound silly.
In a way,
you saved me
two summers ago..."

this message,
teaches me to remember
the power of words
supercharged,
be careful what you
write,
you just might save a
soul...

could not feign
the pain
unintentionally recovered
while looking for
clues to myself,
this purported savior

but from now on and within,
when I see a message
time stamped
**21 hours ago**
I'll be
better ready
for the
explosions of myself
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2015
Nat Lipstadt     3 hours ago

your answer to my caring but simple "checking in with you" inquiry, overwhelmed me and I have required days to fully comprehend the textured life of a man who see everything in color combinations that deserve recording in whatever medium his heart chooses. Time was needed, time to summon up the courage to reply with smithy-crafted, wright-shaped words that honor your honed skill.

my heart is gladdened by your inescapable ability (no, you cannot escape it) to perceive the values of life external and internal, that make your poetry a symbolic representation of all that is fine in the most aweome title that one can award ones self, human.

I am well aware that life has never given you a flush in the cards you were dealt. Nonetheless in e v e r y word you have written you have betrayed yourself as a loving man, appreciative of nature's gifts, and reenforcing them with fresh perspectives.

i make no pretense anymore; all poetry writing is a personal ledger kept, by which we daily, almost constantly, measure ourselves and record the small moments that sum up who we were, are and who we desire yet to be. Thus, indifference by others, no matter why, oft leads to a misleading sense of lesser self worth.

I well recall years ago reading your poetry here and ******* air in gulps as I basked in your lush attentiveness to the world in which we co-exist.
I even praised myself, by keeping your company.

You do not seek praise for self, but our shared gods have made our paths cross, so that like Abraham arguing with God not to destroy the evil cities of ***** and Gemorrah, if he can but find even just ten worthy men, so do I pray to anything, anyone, anywhere, I pray, if almost for selfish reasons, that your urge to write, to share, to see beyond the loveliest surfaces of our world and let others rest upon them, and to gift them to an almost,  undeserving  but needy world, never finds the Isle of Surcease.

If one man presses his claims upon the scales that judge your life, then all the weight of worth I load upon one side, in your favor, to beg you, let this single man's devotion to your cause, living with all the good and the sad that is therein contained, be sufficient to persuade that you must never suffer easily the delusion that your poetry is lacking  in any manner to prevent your sharing.

If not here,
then tell me where we can find each other's "instant messages" of recorded moments, that you uniquely supply.

I cannot ever obtain a good understanding of your perfect storm of the last seven years, but what you shared here and in every word you have ever writ, like my prayer here and the ones I have yet to utter, let them all, letter by letter, rise thru and up like the mists of dawn, travel gently upon the slow currents of our rivers, to reach you well received and by any deity,  willing to let us lend a hand.

Re demons, we defeat them or at least negate them, even temporarily through writing. Another reason to share your work, if even one sole solitary reader, gasps for air when reading you, if but one sheds tears at the human kindness you to continue to disclose in the quilt of quality of your works, to lift one soul's weighted-down heart, you have to, must,
feel obligated to share.

I have no more words to plead, so I will arrogant demand of you to accept this one fan, one devotee, one lover of your skill at capturing and then releasing, your words ever glow in this man's essence, as both necessary and sufficient.

forever yours,

nml
My message to another poet whose work was simply magnificent, but who has ceased to post and woefully, has deleted too many...

October 23, 2015

5:30 am
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2019
the woven intercept

the crescendo soft ascending,
commandeers our riveting,
we do not surrender, taken, nonetheless,
our deference to an elegant wand wave,
combo hopeful and all encompassing, the helplessness

both well understood

the progression higher, steady on,
a rapture going to a defined ending,
concluding voyage occluded, for now,
but the setting sun rays us a plan, a path,
teasingly, soto voce lips moving, “this way”

follow on the unsteady water

restraining resistance failing, flailing weakly,
it is both early morning and late afternoon,
the light warms, but each, a timbre different,
the pitch and intensity tho one and the same,
yet, order confused, still, we are given-in

giving in unwillingly

absolution unrequested, but awarded anyway,
shelter from the storm of safe and warm,
children begin first school day, but adults
know better, beginnings full of risks unforeseen,
the season changes, normalized, but would be refused

if we could

the waiver offered, the woven intercept read,
emotional intelligence so fragile, on and on,
sidekicks, lovers, connected by a dotted line highway,
the space between permitting anything we want,
but contradictories say, wanting everything, impossible

but the viable solution singular

how do we leave it then? we leave it thus, clarified,
separation is a kind of attachment, voidable, when,
kissing comes calling, from all around the world,
the crescendo ends, we each have read the intercept,
it concusses, interpretations differing, yet we don’t care

lying through embracing lips


our tune is a mismatched matching,
a vision ending and yet anew hatching,
this is love, understanding, undefinable, undefeated,
a changeling definition, paths possessing multi-endings,
loving is the unceasingly, desirable imperfect struggling

unique, singular just like everyone else’s

9/4/19 9:07am

nml
(she'll know)
Nat Lipstadt Mar 31
mine own psalm musings

living between two broad, sea-emptying rivers,
a Majesty’s sentries to mark the differentiation~
division tween divine and a moderate human’s
moderating steps, as his stride shortens as the y/tears
lengthen, and it is accepted as an inevitable musky must,
no matter how the sweet spring day refreshes, the newly
planted trumpeting shards of bright yellows daffodils
pinch his yellowing eyes, few notice the tiny tears of
discrepancies of an annualized emboldening, a grand
heavenly rebirth and a slow man’s body self~editing,
shedding of a life’s~ending~of~story psalm musings


the man looks for the terrible swift sword, but its
failure to grace us with an appearance, is but a
modest disappointment, for a deferred delay is but
a causation to eke out a few mordant, pungent, caustic
reminders of all that is yet to be, to be accomplished,
though the smirking lips of the necessity of yet, one
more unloved poem extant, tilting the Earth’s axis
benevolently toward the open palms of his beneficiaries who
,

you,

are among them numbered, is but, a green shoot in a city’s
hopeful earth planted, by summer, will shed seeds to come
thy way, as an evocation, a good consternation, a joyous
provocation, an asking kingly~gentle, a royal polite inquiry,
would you care to add a a verse to this eternal verse?
before time shreds it too into a yellowed crumpling,
and to the earth it is returned, for the mine of this
psalms is only generic, genetic,  and what is mine is well,


and truly yours too.


nml
<>
March 31, 2024
NYC
9:16am
Sunday Mourning Service
Nat Lipstadt Sep 25
for patty m(mombo)
who will be laughing
out loud, spilling her sippin’ coffee~
after she reads this~

woke up o f f c i a l l y “fully rested”
per the devices that monitor the body,
   hoping
that’s all they do, unless they are
writing this?

don’t think but can’t be sure,
cause the poems planted here,
were seedlings elsewhere, and
the Gatherers, my senses, be working
   overtime
as we (me & them) trapse
through life picking up the discards,
of songs. tv pundits, (see title!)
overheard snippets of street
conversations,
your poems & comments,
(as I walk among you)
almost everywhere,
anytime
anyhow,

to add
days to
my life span
because

the poem notions
hit me so fast,
hanging fruitfully
needy
for picking, need
more time to love
them so fulsomely

so maybe one or two
are Rem insertions by
my Apple watch, but
not many cause I write
in a funny style!

my son asked AI to write
poems in the manner of
his dad, and it replied,
“can’t help, his poems are
too weird, not reproduceable,
borderline crazy(!!!!);”

give us someone easier
like Whitman or Plath
or Leonard C., no problem
doing dat”

so this poem was an off chance remak,
heard in passing by my digesting ears,
and like Noah’s Ark,
loaded up with alphabets 2 x 2,
set sail to your receptors to bark at ya
awake baby

with hopes
that you rise and read this,
laugh way
out loud,
and suddenly you tutu,
feeling well-reset, rested and very
a very,
moderate modicum more

appreciated enuf

nml
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2015
~~~



Postface: This Thing Called Poetry

postface - a brief explanatory comment or note at the end of a book
or other piece of writing.
~~~

more and more will come,
'tis the nature of,
'tis the burden of,
this compulsion,
this undeniable, irresistible,
emotional chain,
a synapse from
connecting ganglions of nerves,
what we call poetry

each poem
a winnowing,
a narrowing,
the landslide of a moment,
a perspective erected,
a momentary monument
intended and left out overnight
for perpetuity's sake

a finished poem is
a broken telescope,
stuck on a single view,
a broken kaleidoscope,
forever flash frozen
upon a
permanent fruited plain,
a still life salad

walk a few footfalls
to the sandy beach,
humbling,
this vastness,
this billionth universe of
trillions of grains,
each a microscopic starship,
each a poem uncovered, exposed,
weathered and worn,
living among friends

a few taps onto this tablet,
table scraps,
leavings of chalk marks
of poetry,
same,
grains,
metaphoric, meteoric,
a billionth
of something both
dead and living

yet,
still and always,
a simple postface
still required,
a must have,
a necessary
a 'the end' official

sign your name,
your truest signature,
emblem
not of ownership,
but of completion,
here I was done
here I wax spent

sign my work,
so I know this grain came from
my weathered and worn
work, still living
and will be so known,
long after this body's form
as week is but
a few grains of sand

~~~

July 2, 2015
*NML
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
an aisle seat,
my choice,
I get to watch
Noah's children
board one by one

it is a miracle!

I swear the plane
expands
cause no way
we young fools all
fit
in this
silver cylindrical sliver
chamber of
aliens, skinny jeans, needy for haircuts,
wailing babies and kids

the captain says its time
to pull away from the gate,
pull together, hold hands,
pray for our deliverance
from turbulent winds and
mechanical malfunction
and the sundry ways fates
render us asunder

when next we see safe port,
dry land, nobody knows,

but this ship, a prayer,
built of titanium prayers,
this ship is earth bound
bringing home the lost children,
our return flight,
pinging bright
the signal of our existence,
to ease the brow of those
who mourn our premature departures

the stewardesses lead us in prayer:

"Georgia, Georgia,
No peace I find,
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind"


this is my happy ending,
this, my happy days,
I believe with perfect faith,
you and I will be reunited
on a dock by the bay,
perhaps even the one
beside my real name,
the hour when the ship comes in

June 6th, 2014

NML
This is my mystical sight
that sneaks into my brain,
stakes a place,
when love and sad fuse
and my fingers fly
as if -no- because I am possessed
by the greatness of what humans can do, be, see,
and believe

for those who know for whom it was writ,
I dedicate and wait with perfect faith for
that homecoming game when all are victorious

in the meantime I kayak the bay looking for signs...poems...anything...
Nat Lipstadt Oct 14
a quote of Al Pacino

<>
it took/takes
a lifetime to get close
to where the answer
possibilities  don’t river
rush past, and each eddy
seems like that’s the one,
the definitive affirmative, 
 jump in and all you get
for misjudgment, is a
sopping wet
for your troubles

but you keep on jumping
from job to job, roll from
role to role, cause
even if the
last one is not
a fulsome answer, it
is in possess of the
creative release,
the high that satisfies
till you need a
new hit, another hint,
of tapping into
the vein of creation
that enlivens and
declares, I am purposed
for this,
no matter
how long it takes,
and or the
errors of mistooks,

me I’ll keep jotting down
jumbled jimmied words
in new combine
until such time -and rap,
I can say well shoot
that’s a wrap,

eyelid hints at
a rest but at
the same time
it gives forth
a sloooow wink,
that best poem
yet to come
won’t likely arrive
until it
comes forth
in a last gasp,

a final exhaustion,
exhaustive expelling
and even might be
highly satisfactory
breadth of a last and
everlasting breath~taking
****! just got
t a k e n




nml
11;09 am
Oct. 14, 2024

— The End —