#lipstadt poems on Hello Poetry

Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023

write for the blind and sing for the deaf, be their guide, be their intimate, aid them to escape boundaries, by granting them saws to cut loose binding emotions, share your most intimate courage

for we are all blind and deaf without poetry…

#lipstadt

Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023

how to love a poem…

if the hearts skips rapping beats in a pausing arrhythmia,
loving the twist of each verbal panache,
eyes pooling, temperature rising,
the world sudden surroundings turns vibrant colors,
you judge a poem lovely, lovingly, fulsomely,

anything else,

and you’ve not yet learned how,
to love

anything,

April 9, 2023
NYC

#lipstadt

Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023

19.4% lesser

tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar

not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute

a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected

naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?

here is the hard part.

your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am

gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:

I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…

early April 2023
NYC

#lipstadt #lesser

Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023

(Un)Countable Nouns (comment by T.S. Eliot)

“Countable nouns can be counted, e.g. an apple, two apples, three apples, etc. Uncountable nouns cannot be counted, e.g. air, rice, water, etc. When you learn a new noun, you should check if it is countable or uncountable and note how it is used in a sentence.”

“countable nouns” goes ding ding in the left-side-brain receptors,
where the write side is humbly aboded, unbounded, and well-recv’d,
countable nouns not simplistic apples, the mundane, not sweet, crisp,
important stuff like sins and dreams, lies and schemes: life alterations!

a single sin, two sins, then three, soon you’re another noun, a sinner,
a dream, two dreams, three, teach labels you a serial day-dreamer,
it takes just one little lie, be well on your way to a pants-on-fire-liar,
a get-rich-quick-scheme forms a life long persona, dastard schemer!

methinks these self-adjectives deserve a special denomination, for my
sins, lies, dreams and schemes are uncountable countable nouns!
they are a class of biological, taxonomic things, living and breathing,
a singular genus, many species, like slime molds of human characteristics

you don’t believe I’m a scoundrel, here is not the place to list,
each action/no action curse-courses animating suppressed brain cells,
when the lids close, the enumeration of sins & deeds, all sheep,
vivid colored, injured pointed hooves, silent screamed reslaughtered,
confession offers no solace, until someday the sticking point of the right brain actually resolve the misdeeds, undoing stabbings, healing

time to quit the confessional, no beads or Hail Marys will ever suffice, elides the wrong religion and mine done don’t lets you off so easy,
no siree…no siree…
even a few miscreant visions, originate from childhood indifferent…

perhaps you tire of my self-flagellate:

**these deeds, actions, some remediable, but not all, and these 50 years on, my palpitations fiercest knowing, that they are now
uncountable countable nouns!

April 2023

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If 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.”

T.S. Eliot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#lipstadt #uncountable #nouns

Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023

so many women~poets have I loved

so many women~poets have I loved

my occupation undisguised,
my intentions opaque~opposite,
my profession, lover

they,
most know, some suspect, a few clueless,
despite clear sky mountains of hints,
fastest currents of verbal affection

you scoff, think me old~poet~foolish,
know my loving has taken me to
every continent,
subway & metro, English gardens, Canadian planted fields,
my offers of shoulders, gentlest hands,
accepted and kindly re~fused, but still,
yet loved

grasping their words, parsing their phrases,
uncovering their remorse and spiced joys,
their gains, and losses, shared conjoined
the curl of a hair lock, the shape of the eye…

entrapment by poems of enticing whimsy delicious,
for it is in the well of their poems that my love,
born, thrived, drowned and died

something in the way they wrote, delicacies
plucked and ****** me in, the insight inside scraps
of life glories and sadness proffered,
that I loved,
broke me

oh fool, oh fool, how dare you cross the Styx
river~boundary of common sense, allowing hope to infect,
phantasies and poems inspired, conspired, died?

so
much more to tell, but nothing herein to be consummated,
I loved them with a purposed seriousness of imagination,
and only write this today after years of adventures,
because I no more…possess the powerful skills of
imagining loving

early April 2023
NYC

#lipstadt #womenpoets

Nat Lipstadt Apr 2023

“not particularly smart”

~for J Donovan Carrasco & Mike Marshall,
two far superior story tellers~

<>

now that I am in my seventh or eight decade,
(not particularly sure when you start counting)
memories bust out like the way flashbulbs POP on olden cameras,
a briefly hellish bright,, illuminating, yet annoying as all get up.

this peculiar flash came to me this morning, don’t know why,
deemed worthy of writing down for no particular reason.

when I was a child in one of those indistinguishable early grades,
my teacher informed my father at an annual parent teacher partee,
that I was “not particularly smart,” which angered him greatly,
for reasons he couldn’t then particularly express clearly, if at all.

He went home undecided whom he had to hide (1),
the teacher or me.

unsure, he was, which was the smarter course of action
(for my mother had passed and he without a consultant),
but informed me, who promptly hid (as in escaped)
in the only place suitable in our tiny house, behind the couch,
that was my mother’s pride an joy.

more tired than angry, he reflected while sitting on said couch
behind which I found refuge from all troubles,
while listening to my breathing/sniffling/panting,
he decided that
perhaps
the teacher was kerrect, and furthermore, I too,
was not to blame,
(told to me years later by his serious drinking bar buddies)

“given the stock he came from, it was less my fault,
and more his.”

3/23/23
nyc

(1j hide as give a hiding, a countable noun, if you give someone a hiding, you punish them by hitting them many times).

#lipstadt

Nat Lipstadt Feb 2023

we have each lost a child

we have each lost a child

in our own way,
some by irreversible mortality,
some by the sea rocks wreckage
of finality of mental disease, disbarment

I have no grave to visit,
if only! a palace to mourn
and celebrate the memories,
might it grant a sorted, seminal healing?

my memories are double bitter real,
still sweet, but biter dark chocolate
encasing bitter almonds casted my
aging doubling regret, my chiefest failure

send an email to someone today,
who refuses my existence, triggered,
heard a U2 song, him, ago, he was an
early discoverer, sharer, of their music

the song provocation was shaking, words,
ripping, words, rent, refreshing, scars uncovered,
decades long, I’m whipped sawed
by ragged teeth deepest cutting irony:

”And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away
With or without you
With or without you, oh
I can't live
With or without you
Oh, oh
Oh, oh
With or without you
With or without you, oh
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you”

2:39 PM Sun Feb 29

#lipstadt

Nat Lipstadt Feb 2023

Compare and Contrast (the foliage of the heart)

Compare and Contrast (the foliage of the heart)

<>

My work is loving the world.  Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -  equal seekers of sweetness.  Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.  Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?  Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me  keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium.  The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.  Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes,  a mouth with which to give shouts of joy  to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,  telling them all, over and over,
how it is  that we live forever.

This is the first poem in Mary Oliver's collection Thirst, titled,
“The Messenger."

<>

Ruler of the Universe, grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass among all growing things - and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong.

May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field - all grasses, trees, and plants - awake at my coming, to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source. May I then pour out the words of my heart before Your presence like water, O L-rd, and lift up my hands to You in worship, on my behalf, and that of my children!

-Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav

<>

too early on a Sunday morning for a trick or treat question,
still bed-bound @ Nine AM, browsing the internet state of the world,
it’s pre-my-walk on First Ave., in my Manhattan
concrete habitat pasture, where it’s gray and grayer
reveals of raggedy grass, certainly no sheep, and the only flowers
arrayed will be those with price tags fronting the bodegas
that are busy preparing breakfast for thousands of New Yorkers

trick question?

indeed! there is NO contrast, save the compare the kinetic similitude
of three kinfolk prayers, amidst frightfully unchanging headlines of
the dreary state of the world - weather report prototypical,
war, death & destruction, whiny celebrities and sports “heroes,”
editorials preaching, a vast quietude of no one’s mind changed,

but, always the but…

my work is loving the world, the grimy solitary blades of grass, true survivors, hosted & sprouting in dirt cracks miraculously,
letting the foliage of my heart blossoming in early morn warmth within my body’s extremities, clothed coverings of wintery wool,
confess my facts (“no longer young and still not half perfect?”),
filling the styrofoam cups of begging, wretched yearning refuse,
planting sprigs of mint green dollars in blanched froze hands,
wondering to myself, which one is the masked messiah?

these are the growing things in my fields, 70 years familiar,
the fruits and flowers of my life, are street crated>corners,
a panoply of vest corner garden-parks,
and the people!
people of every color and shade, what variety hath man wrought?

my eyes lack
not for anything, plenty the stimuli joyous within the astonishing spirit and life of all things blooming in hostile soil and you
may yet see the mark of
Abel joy upon my forehead, in my eyes, and see lips whispering this prayer~poem while being birthed, but in a word, a single word,
a pouring, best summarizing of a rebbe’s blessing
shouting out, anointing, appointing:

~Hallelujah~

Sun Feb 19 2023 9:15 AM
NYC

lipstadt

#compare #contrast #foliage #lipstadt

Nat Lipstadt Mar 2023

Bag o’Tricks:

Fri Feb 10
8:12 AM

“As artists, we are exposed to a heavy level of scrutiny, mostly from ourselves,” adds Villarini-Velez. “At times we might be insecure when a choreographer asks us to do something that takes us away from our usual, classical vocabulary. I felt like some of my peers who aren’t exposed to this movement would feel insecure at times, but nonetheless, rise up to the challenge of exploring new levels of artistry. It’s easy to rely on our usual bag of tricks, but I enjoy the risks of detaching from what looks good and moving in a way that feels good. It’s our responsibility to rise to these challenges and expand our artistic horizons.”(1)

<>

guilty. as charged.
so, incorporating new words,
differing styles.
do what does not come naturally.

“detach from what looks good,
moving in a way that feels good”

make radicalization your ethos
make new-for-you your eponym.
give your name to what you create,
a mere signature insufficient, it is not part of the work!

taste the wet words upon tongue and lips,
let the saliva linkage be to the following morseling phrase,
the mouth sac moist be where verbal embryos are birthed.

hear them spoke in your voice, but,
silently, in your mind, and yet, speak-say them inside
with the shocking thunderous force of a newborn’s first cry.

and when you read them assembled,
weep with pleasure, relieved, this, your child,
looks exactly like no one, with but trace elemental traits of you.

but it is all yours, sinew and cell, fiber and skin,
drawn unformed, ejected from the intramural hollows of the body,
then and only then, mark them at last as truly

*mine..

(1) https://www.nycballet.com/discover/stories/dancers-on-keerati-jinakunwiphats-fortuitous-ash?utmsource=wordfly&utmmedium=email&utmcampaign=FY23MKTRELBalletBriefing-February&utmcontent=version_A&uid=1075607&promo=58231

#lipstadt #bag #otricks

Nat Lipstadt Mar 2023

shiny side up…

walking daily during my diurnal preamble ramble,
my city-street-eyes are well trained to tread careful,
for numerous are the hazards, but fewer the delights

always on the lookout for the itinerant penny,
I skip a heartbeat and a step, when eyeing a
shiny penny brightness lying in a concrete crack

no longer wonder how came it to be discarded,
who would willing part with such man made beauty,
a shiny penny, methinks, omen for a shiny, brighter day.

but let me share.a secret, relying on your honest discretion,
such pennies collected never ever abide for long in my pocket,
honor bound to redistribute direct, lest I deem myself the lesser

for shiny things unshared, become dulled, outcasts, unbecoming,
‘tis in the shining, value lying,
the things we share, shine best, including ourselves…

8:53am
Thu Feb 2
2023

#shiny #side #penny #lipstadt