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Nat Lipstadt Feb 2024
a quote from Samuel Johnson, or Dr. Johnson, the storied eighteenth-century poet and essayist who once said:

“The sole aim of writing is to enable readers a little better to enjoy life, or a little better to endure it.”

<>
our “sole aim,”

Oh what burden the doctor places on our shoveling pens,
to be earthmovers
that dig trenches, uproot earth,
that lies and hides our faces, entombing our hearts,
eliciting and erupting emotions that cannot be contained,  
nor controlled,
indeed, deserving of replanting in
our shared selves, transplanted into a communal flowerpot
of our multi bursting colored commonality

lift my composing tools,
peer into
winter blue skies guarding the towers of
Manhattan isle, longing for guidance.
lusting for specificity of direction,
how,
how, to easy our burdens
with carefully selected and
careless wonderful words,
words that deal out caring uncarefully,
with a graceful recklessness of abandon
that open thy tears,
lift up the edges of your lips,
so that my duality is your duality,
the burden shared.
the burden eased…

to cry and laugh simultaneous,
lift and lighten,
a momentary distraction,
a cut flower in our vase,
that lasts but brief,
yet with each gaze repeated and
repeatedly,
well stains us with
eyes uplifting
8:03am Feb 4th, 2024
how quickly the new year molts into a
normality, resolutions tarnishing but still intact,
and any blue shade of sky, even the least
baroque and most pale, hints that summer warmth
is nearly visible…
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2024
"I will create as I speak."

<>
these profound and most serious of words,
vibrate within my chest (really!) as I
tongue test them, having just awoken
and a Sabbath ~Saturday looms before me,
naked and full of
potential.

I am hopeful, and unafraid, by the clean sheet of twenty four hours that covers me nearly toes to head, a singular occurrence,
normative
would be dread of the shroud of lists of items of urgencies that demand outage justifyingly,
urgencies crying out,
attend to me now!

but this day different, a sleepy peacefulness
compromises my interstitial spaces, and an amber color of
calming quiet fills them, no raucous splashes,
no errant droplets hinting at the fullness-yet-to-come
when the tanks of
empty are quietly, with a silent sigh of finality, announce the profundity of sufficiency and satisfaction facing
undefined emptiness,
that these contradictory sensations are
harmonious extant
within me for the foreseeable momentary.

Dai!

this single syllable Hebrew word for “enough,” issued in one breath, like “the end!” hits me with a slap of sensibility as a closing lid on this just about to possibly boil *** of emotions and internal combustion.

two last thoughts burr me mind before signing off:

the contradictory nature of the blanket of
an unscripted openness of a day ahead, and the
totality of its fulsome satisfaction it offers,
do not confuse me.

no scholar I, it occurs that the word Dai,
unlike any other, has a root unknown to me,
but internet of godlike humans had anticipated my query and offers me irony and reassurance that I am so not the first to wonder and know this satisfying confliction of this two headed Hydra send-story, sensatory, balanced imbalance
for the root of this common word used daily to say:
“enough,” “stop,” or “that's sufficient.”

comes from the root is DaWaH דוה which literally means
“to flow or extend outward.”

and though
*
I created this poem as I spoke,**
I only reiterate what my ancestors already knew
thousands of years ago!

by the bye,
the Hebrew phrase "I will create as I speak,”
is well and better  known to you as:

Abracadabra.


Dai!
Saturday
Feb. 4 2024
6:39am
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2024
“a decade old is forever new, for
truth is never old.”
Pradip Chattopadhyay 


this man, ten years of inspiration, ten years of friendship, here,
on HP,
provides nourishment to my lagging body as it nears eight decades
of Earthly occupation, for
his eyes and heart and his mastery
of the songs of the tongue,
have wrenched me straight,
we, attentive to the tears
he makes me weep, for his insights penetrate my insides,

even now as one, unexpectedly, reflects midst
yet another first poem of the day, my eyelids blink away
the wet,
my brain revels at his pithy, how he corrals,
encapsulates the daily smoke and fire of life,
it truest value,
in words that make one wonder,

what admixture of mineral, chemical, history,
adventures, atmosphere, parentage, spices,
love gives him these super powers to gentle
seize the moment, size our souls, causing my
cheeks to wide smile, while mine eyes sheds
monsoon droplets of feelings so deep, that
my repaired heart oxygenates my very soul,
making me high, my mind reels that a day will
come inevitable
that one of us will be unable to sit by side,
swapping tales of granddaughters, and
other earth meaningful events, to walk his
streets or he, mine, finishing each other’s
couplets.

to think that I awoke with no intention of
composing this paean, but his brief pearl
knocks my head side to side,
and with the
tears, come words,
that age, or an entire
decade,
cannot restrain,
retrained to modesty,
for regarding my friend
Pradip,

my boundaries expand and cannot be
contained, even by my delimited vocabulary,
the paucity of my skill, the insufficiency of
the adjectives acquired over a lifetime, but
do my unequal-to-the-task best efforts,
but without choice, but compulsed, compelled,
one more time, to say,
to my new day,
perhaps my last,
I love this poet~man.
this is one of my truths.
<>
Wed Jan 17 8:31am
City of New York

<>

read the poetry of
https://hellopoetry.com/pradip-chattopadhyay/
<>
truth is never old.” Pradip Chattopadhyay  lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2024
easily,
with an optimism misguided,
that both volume and quality
of what lay within was
infinite,

a beaker that could never
be drained, nor overflow,
brimming and believed,
in the always
of a
next poem!

know better,
known worse,
and the only poems that are birthed,
all flawed, lesser,
the curse of worse,
time wrenching
the best words away,
alas!
spend, spent, sent…
it was writ as a hope,
now, a  false prophecy
and woe
misbegotten


<>>

Jan. 13, 2014

a  flawless poem

if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get


if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know in my possess


lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his ash,

his flawless poem,
at long last
flawless anniversary
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2024
fewer words means no greater appreciation


well you know, I’m not one
famous for brevity, after all,

why not use three words for
every one sufficient, satisfying
the egotistical statistical curve
of the illnesses of literary illiteracy.

exactly.

but brevity in thanking,


the swift surety of a few
chosen, well aimed, words,
is the arrow in the bullseye,
that is taped to my chest,
directly over my heart,
that part, from which we
ship and receive
immense gratitude
countless kindnesses
and proofs positive,
that our two hearts yet beat,
marching in more than
unison,
nay,
marching in a

unification
greater than any
distanced separation!
Feb 6, 2024
nyc
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
sad fact and none truer,
despite my accumulation
of millions of trinkets,
and millions of lottery tickets,
useless word combines,
acres of scripted scripture
of scrumptious scarred
scribbles,
and dollars,

I boast not of my good fortune
for I am a waste not~want not
tykee type, no spendthrift me,
and my phone and writing tablet
date from the Paleo Age, technically,
and one’s batteries live in the
red and yellow light of the
dying lightening edge of the
OMGF,

1%

otherwise known as nearer to death experience.

carry chargers everywhere but my
batter usage habits have eroded my
charging life and happiness for us
a mere clean
green clean 20%

you see or maybe
you don’t,
my devices
have endured countless
drops and falls, just like
my body at this tender age,
and the male man ~~😵 female connectivity
of plug and plug hole are deformed,
bent so that charging is a struggle moderne,
a dance of avoidance of an earliest death

Living on the edge of 1%
changes a human, one thinks
constantly of the fragility of the
electric grid, and how the hell
we will charge all them unwanted
EV’s with insufficient charging stations,
not to mention all those spanking brand
new power plants we are rushing to build
NIMBY

(cmon, you can’t be unaware of this
contraction, for it is the guiding principle
of urban design, today)

anyway, my tablet is in the bathroom sink,
whose rigid porcelain angles allows for 
a conjoing  of the cord into that
flux capacitor hole to make tentative
kissy
kissy noises
and by the light of the
early morn,
said antique Generation 1 ipad
will be restored to usable status
for yet another brief moment
in time
and another
bad poem

this choring is a skill honed bendless endless
experimentation as to how
to insert a Peroni shaped
(beer bottle; no, not not a Pony Man plug shape)
into a lightening squarish O, and witness the
miracle of ******* of
Yes! Yes! YES!
(thank you Steven Spielberg))
a semi functioning de-vice,

vice being the exactly right adjective

my mind is weird, true,
but I draw on my experience
to share with you the specialness
of being in the  elite,
them
1%

so you can be less envious.
you satisfied boors,
awakening refreshed after
eight hours sleep and a green light indicator
smugly informing you are an overheated hoi peloi
member of the
100%ers

yes I’m done!
why does my software
keep asking me that?
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
sad fact and none truer,
despite my accumulation
of millions of trinkets,
and millions of lottery tickets,
useless word combines,
acres of scripted scripture
of scrumptious scarred
scribbles,
and dollars,

I boast not of my good fortune
for I am a waste not~want not
tykee type, no spendthrift me,
and my phone and writing tablet
date from the Paleo Age, technically,
and one’s batteries live in the
red and yellow light of the
dying lightening edge of the
OMGF,

1%

otherwise known as nearer to death experience.

carry chargers everywhere but my
batter usage habits have eroded my
charging life and happiness for us
a mere clean
green clean 20%

you see or maybe
you don’t,
my devices
have endured countless
drops and falls, just like
my body at this tender age,
and the male man ~~😵 female connectivity
of plug and plug hole are deformed,
bent so that charging is a struggle moderne,
a dance of avoidance of an earliest death

Living on the edge of 1%
changes a human, one thinks
constantly of the fragility of the
electric grid, and how the hell
we will charge all them unwanted
EV’s with insufficient charging stations,
not to mention all those spanking brand
new power plants we are rushing to build
NIMBY

(cmon, you can’t be unaware of this
contraction, for it is the guiding principle
of urban design, today)

anyway, my tablet is in the bathroom sink,
whose rigid porcelain angles allows for 
a conjoing  of the cord into that
flux capacitor hole to make tentative
kissy
kissy noises
and by the light of the
early morn,
said antique Generation 1 ipad
will be restored to usable status
for yet another brief moment
in time
and another
bad poem

this choring is a skill honed bendless endless
experimentation as to how
to insert a Peroni shaped (beer bottle,
(no,
not a Pony Man plug shape)
into a lightening squarish O, and witness the
miracle of ******* of
Yes! Yes! YES!
(thank you Steven Spielberg)
a semi functioning de-vice,

vice being the exactly right adjective

my mind is weird, true,
but I draw on my experience
to share with you the specialness
of being in the  elite,
them
1%

so you can be less envious.
you satisfied boors,
awakening refreshed after
eight hours sleep and a green light indicator
smugly informing you are a hoi peloi
member of the
100%ers

yes I’m done,
why does my software
keep asking me that?
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
But I know…

this blending of a warped (time) continuum,
the future resting on shaky table legs,
errors of habitual inconsistency,
one on top of a prior, on top of…

we pursue regrets, misdeeds, theorizing
that we can fix the wobbly mess we instigated,

that can we smooth the ruckus that
the unknown in surety is bonded to be
surly serve up buffet style,

we help ourselves to troubles so attractive,
like rice thrown at a wedding, dead seeds of
messes yet to come

old regrets freshly regretted, for we waste
not even
what we wanted then
even now!

for we do not proper value the passing of each momentary,
but weep and mourn the entirety of years corrupted by
wrong-headed mish-mash of longings,
swift stupid inexcusable acts of impulsive weaknesses permitted,
so that we dust
the dust encasing artificial flowers,
that are so faded that the dust mispermits one
to fool themselves
that they were once ,
burnt orange vibrant,

like the optimism of a sunny day gone and hoped for
just once more

yes, I know why…

<><> <>

*Burnt Norton by T.S.Eliot
*

“Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past.
All time is eternally present 

All time is unredeemable.


What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility   

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden.

My words echo
,
Thus, in your mind.
                                  

 But to what purpose

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

<><><><>>


postscript

the rushing to my ever nearer demise
the dust suffocates,
the regrettables
have no half life,
and I dust,
I know
if I do not,
I choke…
9:02am 12/14/23
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
some of us walk insistently,
instinctively, and instantly to
and upon the edged path,

this physical nexus & abstract mental locus,
a cliffside enticing rock strewn trail,
drawn of men, by men, for men

(yes, men are people too, still)

enthralling views,
down to the riverside,
where eyes intuit the
beauteous aroma of
precious precocious
precarious precipices
and the near-stench of
mortality

amidst
wafting scents of inane undesirable need,  
hints of destruction, or,
alternating eager relief,
like a ****** infused, instant attractiveness,
making weakness in the knees, all too real,
trembling with a delicious accented edge of
a fresh, familiar scent, fresh baked bread,
an all enveloping consumption need now!

to
crave what we fear,
to fear what we crave
our cravings are craven,

this twisted sense, annuls
our common sensibility, yet,
titillates our pleasured imagined relief,
releases, our unsated, even better,
our insatiable curiosity to tremble,
an entire body enjoined by vibrato~
enticing tremulations, shaken and stirred,
this danger choice releases something primordial,
escape? a reckless wrecking so deeply designed,
it has its very own designation…death wish

multitudes of easy choices afforded my senses,
and by accident, all mine chosen, all nearby,
I travel the esplanade près de the East River,
where even if calm is the sole visiblilty,
undercurrents and the unpredictable passage
of container wakes and the larger freighters
will hand you down, so easy, to become parcel
to a littered river bottom of centuries’ artifacts

but even more tempting, the balcony,
a hop, skip and a jump unlocked,
mere ten steps, no need for a running start
why it’s the “height of convenience,”
he ruefully winces, and not even any
TSA lines or inconveniencing “conveniences”

Why this calamity seems so desperately desirable,
Why this unabrogated feat so featured, nay, even
feted in our hot? cold? bloodstream

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.

Do You Know Why Men Cry in the Bathroom?
Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath

Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
Crazy Guy Sends His Poems to a Dead Guy

~for Joel Frye,and yes it’s true~


ah another trivial pursuit of trivial nuggets
bout yours untruly, that is a truly truly,
poets that
I’ve known here, but who have moved on,
it’s my obligation to keep them posted on the
au courant,

so slip them a poem or two,
when you ain’t looking to

make one wonder even more,
what makes a man a nutty Natty.?

well if you don’t know the answer to that after
two t h o u s a n d plus poems, you are not getting me

but Joel Frye,
mutual enjoyed our scribblings,
yeah, he got me,
so via social media,
keep him posted of my latest écrits,
fancy french for scribbles,

of course he gets them
before me,
in so far I assume
my thots are known to rise
or more likely drop,
even before
they traverse that narrow passage between my ears…
but really, just in case,
in the peace and quiet
of the hubbub above, with all them comings and goings,
he, God forbid, (ha!), he may overlook my inane insanities,
and the weirdness
of my compositions,
real, ethereal and in between~al,

that’s a great whew~relief knowing,
at least
some one!
is reading my stuff…

natty
Joel Frye,
Poet on HP

Deceased 2023
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