#lipstadt poems on Hello Poetry

Nat Lipstadt Jan 2023

502 Bad Gateway
(a work in process)
~~~

poetry
is to be found easiest, lying fatal-fetal amidst
the sewage of the blessed daily profane~mundane,
enslaved within the tyranny of everyday indignities,
encrusted within the indignities of diurnal tyrannies,
in the catch basin of sew-aged treatment  pools,
living as a perpetual unpublished draft,
locked behind Five Hundred and Two
Bad Gateways,
Emma Lazarus-yearning
to be free…

502 is an even number, the internet sages confirm,
equitably distributed with no regard to
pronouns,
disrespectful of any age, all creepy~seedy known gods,
equally unconcerned by the laws of **** poetica,
succinctly informing you to f*k off  with the elegant
sparseness of technical brevity,
a la vie moderne boulder,
repeatedly *****-fussy pushing back on you,
as we push a poem uphill

<?>

The road to good poetic intentions is human-paved;
a utile fact,  so continue to insure-shod be thy feet,
when shedding writings of poesy, lest the hot asphalt of
low inspiration yet get the better of ye…or the gates
or the bad gateways,
502 in their number, lock you out,
and carry the day, have their way, and
fracture well honed words
into bits & pieces of letters, scraps of scrap,
“pebbles and ******* and broken matches and bits of glass”^

that all the king's servers and all the king's technicians couldn’t put together again coherently, your words but conscripts in a
vast wasteland of eternal drafts^^

      <?>

well you know this story, that one that has being asking
you to writ it/get rid of it/tell it finally,
a couple of times daily,
that poem, this be that one,
an amorality tale of rejections,
a precision guided
error message,
a HIMARS missive miserly
missilery projectile
rife with hidden %#&”postulations,
of the “what’s wrong with me”
garden variety

think of life as a series of serious, independently linked moments, cherish-able, composting usurping cursing phrases
distinctly worthy
of re-sharing unto the befouled upper atmosphere,
directly communicating the texture of your experience^^^

Ah Goodbye
Hello Poetry,
rejection is thy middle fingered name!*

this befouled poem
was
begun: many years ago
completed: Jan 4, 2023 @2:11AM

^James Joyce’s words
^Tevye
^^^ unknamed professor

#lipstadt #502 #bad #gateway

Poetoftheway May 2023

Writing Lessons for a Better Life by Morgan House

Writing Lessons for a Better Life
Nov 29, 2016 by Morgan Housel
Writing is one of those things you’ll need to be decent at no matter what business you’re in. It’s also one of the hardest things to get decent at, since it’s 90% art, 10% illogical grammar rules. Novelist William Maughan said there are three rules to good writing. “Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

But here are a few I’ve found helpful.

1. Make your point and get out of people’s way

Readers have no tolerance for rambling. Lose their attention for two seconds and they’re gone, clicked away to another page.

The best writers tend to use the fewest words possible. That doesn’t mean their writing is short, but every sentence is critical, every word necessary. Elmore Leonard, the novelist, summed this up when he advised writers to “leave out the parts readers tend to skip.”

It took me a while to realize that a reader who doesn’t finish what you wrote isn’t disrespecting your work. It’s a sign that you, the author, disrespected their time. When writing, I like to think of a reader over my shoulder constantly saying:

What’s your point?

Just tell me that point.

Then leave me alone.

Part of the reason this is hard is due to how writing is taught in school. Most writing assignments, from elementary to grad school, come with a minimum length requirement. Write about your summer vacation in at least 10 pages. This is done to maintain a minimum level of effort, but it has a bad side effect: It teaches people to fill the page with fluff. We are masters of run-on sentences and unnecessary details because we’ve relied on them since second grade to meet our length quotas.

We’d all be better writers if the standards flipped, and teachers demanded length maximums. Write about all the major Civil War battles in no more than two pages. That’ll force you to make your point and get out of people’s way.

2. Connect one field to others

The key to persuasion is teaching people something new through the lens of something they already understand. This is critical in writing. Readers want to learn something new, and they learn best when they can relate a new subject to something they’re familiar with.

Finance is boring to most, but it’s a close cousin of psychology, sociology, history, and organizational behavior, which many people enjoy. Write about investing in a way that is indistinguishable from a finance textbook and you will capture few people’s attention. Write about it through the lens of a psychology case study or historical narrative, and you’ll broaden your reach. “Pop-psychology” and “pop-history” are derogatory terms. But most “pop” topics are actually just academic topics penned by better writers. Michael Lewis has sold more finance books than George Soros for a reason.

This goes beyond explaining things in ways people enjoy and understand. Connecting lessons from one field to another is also one of the best forms of thinking, because the real world isn’t segregated by academic departments. Most fields share at least some lessons and laws between them. Adaptation is as real in economics as it is biology. Room for error is as important in investing as it is engineering. Explaining one topic through the lens of another not only makes it easier for readers to grasp; it’s a helpful way of understanding things in general.

3. Sleep on everything before hitting the send button

I’m a fan of reading more books and fewer articles.

The reason books can be more insightful than articles isn’t because they’re longer. It’s because they took the author more time to think something through.

An article that takes you a few hours to think of, research, write and publish is subject to whatever mood you’re in during those few hours. Maybe it’s cynical, or pessimistic. Or analytical, or fatalistic. Whatever it is, it might not reflect the calmer, thought-out view of something that took you days, weeks, or months to think about.

I’m shocked at how much I want to change an article after I’ve slept on it for a night, and still want to change it days after it’s published. It makes me realize that if I stewed on the topic for a little longer I’d start thinking about it in different ways. I’d remember better examples, or a better way to phrase a sentence. I’d realize the original argument I made was flawed. Since one sharp example or clever phrase can transform a piece of writing, something you spend twice as long on might not be twice as good as before. It could be ten times better, or more. “The first draft of anything is ****,” said Ernest Hemingway.

A lot of what we write isn’t time-sensitive. You could sleep on it for a day or two or more. And most of the time, you’ll be glad you did.

Also, don’t read the comment section*.

http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/writing-lessons-for-a-better-life/

#lipstadt #writing #lesson

Nat Lipstadt Jan 2023

Morning Prayers: Hidden Shames/The Askew/ Always a Trilogy

my hidden shames

are an excellent source of moral fibre,
nurturing, but not nutritious.
we coexist in a quiet
mutual acknowledgment,
coexisting but un-categorizable,
nonetheless,
among my oldest cohorts,
their singular coordinated characteristic,
they are mine alone,
not meant to be shared.

But they will someday
make an excellent poem.

Mon jan 2 2023
6:47am
@here

———————————————————-

the askew

are  my oldest companion,
dating back to my naissance,
faithful, eternal, but single-minded,
with a rueful sense of humor,
of course,
refer to my relatively plentiful hairs
inherited from my mother’ genetics.

a morning chore,
to return their antics
to an adult,
dignified pose,
plenty sufficient to be be brushed,
straight back,
the preferred orderly compose,
of older men
who cannot waste time
with foolishness,
the excessive vanities of
curls, parts and pompadours,

and yet,
every day they wake me with
ridicule, mockery,  by presenting
themselves.to me,
as if electrocuted,
each
hair raising itself
pointing to the heaven,
whence
their true Creator resides.

no amount of product
persuasive,
they do what they must do,
akimbo, askew,
with inordinate amount of
malice aforethought and
a venomous sense of
hairy (and now hoary)
absurdity .

a splash of water,
a handful of rigorous brush strokes,
returns order
and the pretense of a serious mien,
an adult demeanor.

But their purpose accomplished,
they have reminded me of the
absurdity of human vanity,
to humble myself
before forces
more powerful
than human self-aggrandizement
by accentuating
our human foibles.

7:13am
same time & place
——————————————-

morning prayers are
always
a trilogy

the rounded evenness of three,
provides the necessary gravitas
of sufficiency,
three being
not too short,
not too long,
not too quick,
just three right,
to impart
the seriousness
of gratitude
for having gained
another day upon earth,
with it,
many multitudes of
chances to share
thankfulness,
kindness,
yes,
& love too,
and to write,
one more poem
encapsulating
all of the above.

7:35am
same day
same place,
same cup of coffee

#morning #prayers #trilogy #lipstadt #hidden #shames #askew

Nat Lipstadt Jan 2023

It’s only a short straight hill

It’s only a short straight hill
(First Poem.of the Year)

“I'm 69, newly homeless, and can't wait to start the journey of a creative life after being asleep for so long. It's only a short straight hill and I'll be on a path into a new life.”

Jeremiah B Xxxxxx Jr.

<?>

it is
4:11am
on the
first day
of a new
year.

a year
is a unit;
mathematically
measurable,
defined,
calculable,
divisible
by seconds,
minutes,
hours & days,
all artifices,
mutually
acknowledged.

you,
& others,
remind
me too easily,
that the
creative
is the only
path
to endless,
(a unit immeasurable)
reinvigorating
life.

your fragrant
optimium optimism
is stun
gun overpowering,
the ill defined,
but instantly
understood,
immeasurable
distance,
you foresee
to life better is
conquerable!

”only a short straight hill”

imbues me to lift
head, heart, arm
& unloved dried ink pen,
to pen,
to unpack,
to speak,
of all that
needs climbing,
over the
artificial lines
of the first unit
of time:

a new year.

thank you.

Sun Jan 1 2023
NYC

#lipstadt #short #straight #hill

Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022

is this a poem? the ink of succinct…

the ink of succinct…

is this a poem?
is it a sufficiency?
it self, itself is in
possess of two f’s,
two i’s and two c’s,
thus, is it necessary?

necessity, a quality qualification?

the moment, this moment
is both over and forever,
a sufficient and a necessary
condition for art, for your art,
think - is your condition,
necessary and sufficient?

then you are an artist and a poem…

Fri Dec 30 2022

#lipstadt #sufficiency #necessity #artist

Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022

tired of the voices in my head

tired of the voices in my head

blunt spoke, they never shut up, believing their longevity
provides a grandfathered status, denying them dispatch

they do not acknowledge my notice of eviction but the
rumbling is quieter this morning, the mournful bittersweet
residue of their whining, wrecking, nearly murderous noises

their recital of my major crimes, weak selfishness that was the mirrored reflection of my weakness and jealousy, the hallmarks
of the failure to be brave at the moments that mattered, indeed, my own murders Eye-confessed-committed but yet unpublished, remain

flawlessly bawled out loud, with repeat threats to remand me to
a higher judgment if I escape responsibility in this world, which
is laughable as they have played accuser, prosecutor, jury
and judge, so oft that the processional process, my living justice, trembling, slow destruction is preliminary a full color, living hell

but this sabbath morning of a blue sky after forty days/nights
of a cold rain that relentless fell, sparing none, gives me a pretense, a veneer of an almost-bravery to dial till a click clean heard of a
thunderous silencio, “no más” no more and a sudden abrupt of
is this not preferable,
this silenced soliloquy of modest relief

and weep guilty~grateful for a reprieve, a small pardon that
undeserved for the heinous things I have permitted, nay, allowed, will never earn parole, early release, and the finality of no more delay, is a inevitably undeniable, and a poem
of excuses not successes, and an acknowledgment that
I’ll never seat at the head of a table
revered by my progeny

welcoming the arbitrary invitation delineation of a new year,
a fresh start

Sat Dec17 2022
New York City

#lipstadt #voices #head

Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022

“And nothing too much…”

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence,
and nothing too much.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

<>

A late-in-life walker, the words above resonate in my mind,
with a check, check, check, check and a voluble ding, reading

and nothing too much”

many a poem mine labored, birthed arrhythmically walking,
eyes see verses, verses fill the mouth, mind desperate as
the feet unceasingly trod round new corners, new visions,
Emerson’s words remind my well worn weary path daily renewed, a vocabulary child re-newborn, and how to keep all this forever,
until tomorrow, and nothing is everything all too much carried over

and nothing too much”

speaks to an openness in every orifice, be prepared scout-boy,
to adapt to nothing too much as hours earlier now recalled are ancient history, mind staggers at the minuscule differences tween yesterday and this exact moment in this exact place that has been reimagined, deserving of recording, notating, and my desperation struggle to
semi-successfully delineate, report, on all these
mini-magnificent miracles countenanced, overwhelms…

the brain furnaces/furnishes a thousand thoughts, a million worries,
slew of infinity-sized emotions like love of children, so it’s confusing to window-peeking strangers watching for the walking man with tears pockmarking his cheeks, unaware that his each stride is a story, a unique grace forward and too, backwards, history mine, reviewed, graded, and the comfortable shoes, the old sagging clothes well worn and beloved, fit like gloves, whispering in the good silence,
a lamb sacrifice to the

good silence,
“human, your foibles and deeds, admixture of
blood inherited, a morality crafted by ancestors,
so the next step is
alway$

and nothing too much”* and everything…

Sat Dec10 2023
Shell Beach, Central Park, in my mind, and nothing is perfect

#lipstadt #nothing #too #much

Nat Lipstadt Nov 2022

The Re Words: What to Do With Old Poems

Re words:

rejoint my conscious self,
reiterate, as it is late, I am old,

reread
my prior poems, rewrite them, indeed,
rebuild them, redo them in their entirety,
so you can resell them and be rediscovered!

retake them, rekindle & rearrange in new combinations,
rewarmed, you are re-rewarded in their reassembly,
again reabsorb the moment from wells beneath your skin tissue,
recall the prescient exactitude of what you were then feeling,
readjusted for today’s new filters, recalculate the cost,
replace the cast with renewed images, refreshed faces,
new alpha dogs.

if you can resell them, they will rebuy them, no one the wiser,
thus, regain the old glory, redemption, no need to repent,
just rejoice and sleep another hundred years.

revenged.

Aug 17 2022 11:01 PM

#lipstadt

Nat Lipstadt Nov 2022

How many poems does one individual contain?

How many poems does one individual contain?

Ahh you say!

Why unlimited are our of-coursing emotional exhalations,
our sighted and insighted sparks
like forest fires they come ad infinitum!

THEN the mind’s eye blinks, then word blindness follows
in phased arrays of
gaps that cannot always be easy pencil filled, permanent inked,
as locked and closeted,
and put away in a glass jar of formaldehyde.

I see, I feel, I hear, I read and react;
a notion,
a title born,
perhaps even a line or two follow-on scratched and etched,
even refetched
but followed then
by the deafening quietude of a stillbirth breeched
fetus,
the emptiness of a blanketing blank,
a glance too short,
a foam extrusion whitening the spark into nothingness,
the death of a poem in a forest…

and you can’t care!

more such wordless poems have I buried than the
talkative children I’ve birthed,
old age delimits me now, my eyes failing, my hearing lessening,
the senses eroding, and worse, the frustration morphs
NOT INTO caring,
for the days of wine and roses, the mid-of-night urgency of
try, try poetic ****** is now a sinful spilled residue
on the wooden floor,
crumpled sheets of spermatozoa failure to perform…

the wastebasket
is a into a silo of mockery, a self-administered glass shot
of saltwater, bitter herbs, lamentations, an impassable gateway nominally know as 502, a wide, emptied moat of “haha on you!”

thus an answer forms,
there is no endless, growing,
inhumanly impossible trumpeting crescendo voice that doesn’t falter, eventually!
a petering out, a tangled, gordon knot of a shoe-laced Nat voice that cannot be untied by creaking fingers that scream ¡no más!

Even though
you believe, you yet possess the tools, though well worn smooth,
the belt lies heavy on the hips and its removal a welcoming
enlightening!

let me abide in peace, trigger me not, and the
answer is and always had been, this one, or the next one,
or the one prior is perhaps the finale, you will never know,
and if you do,
you will never permit yourself to utter aloud,

terminé et terminé!

in sæcula sæculorum imperf!

forever and forever unfinished finish!

!last one out, turn off the light!

10-30-2022

#lipstadt #poems #contain #individual

Nat Lipstadt Sep 2022

Adieu, betwix & between, a plentiful quiet

Sep 15 10:45am
Silver Beach, Peconic Bay, Shelter Island

it is the day of the twixt and tween,
64°, stolid breeze on a bright sunshiny day,
but no question, we are well ensconced in
**** season, overlooking the shadowy, dry, speckled
blotchy, thirsty grass, and an empty bay, sails put aside

it’s a normal/semi-normal moment,
simultaneously secular and heaven blessed,
the stimuli of the quietude is the outlier,
it’s quantitude is overwhelming, it’s amplitude,
a wave of farewell humbled hushed rumblings of wind and
the drip of dropping leaves that fails to puncture
the total absence of noises, human et. al.

shirt off, chest wet & warmed, a light jacket,
my wrapper from the firm chill,
an undeniable temperate moment,
for this is an interlude day,
a goodbye and hello
shucked/unshucked poem,
the only semi-frisky item on the menu

even the animal kingdom respectful,
recognizing the sorrowful solitude
of this single intruder, so no cawing, honking,
even rabbits quietly chewing, their senses understand
this is a remorseful write on a beauteous 1/365,
an adieu + au revoir script to
this island

but then the sign!

between Silver Beach and Noyac,
three heads a-bobbing,
white throats and white underbellies upright,
too far away to be heard,
but I swear I hear the purposeful porpoises saying:

“Adieu! Adieu!
until we see you and yours
once more,
for many more,
till then,
we await our mutual sheltering together,
in our shared waters”

<>

our summer palace,
where the sum of each newborn morn,
begins a life extending day, offsetting the aging of cells,
and softee smiles of children are botox injections,
directed to the soul’s lining,
an antigen antidote
to the toll time’s antibodies extract,
time units recorded and kept hid in the
the surround sound
of a special silence,
the sounds of rays twinkling
upon the waves,
reminders to everyone
that we are merely
betwixt and between
a plentiful heaven today
and a
plentiful heaven tomorrow

#lipstadt #adieu