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Nat Lipstadt Sep 2020
the first time we make love



your body will tremble, from behind, my arms’ will, to encase,
I, sponging up every tremor, shush-stealing each shuddering,
the outpouring of sounds will grow softly and steadying,
as gasps slow lessened, till the breathing is regularized.


you will sly ask for words, but I will come prepared and you,
will laugh when so informed, happy by my thoughtfulness,
wondering if they are being reused, and knowing this, I will
coax you to feed me morsels will I shall then embellish, proofs.

there is a first time in almost every aspect, but for one, which
you won’t refuse, forgiving my experiences, a history to become
now partly yours, the priors paying forward my debt to serve,
a gentling interplay of eyelashes *******, fingertip confessions
.

you will alternate tween fragility, regretful solitude, emptied but
then refilled, you’ll want to define, identify, label for storage and
reuse, classification for acceptance, thinking that will make this
moment lasting, but it won’t, but it will, last, under closed eyes.

when the need to sob returns, one or two may escape, unelicited,
but won’t go past that, you’ll hear me saying “Hello in there, hello,”^
and ten thousand skin cells will in unison firm gel a single sensory,
not a trick or strategy, an honor bestowed, medaled, molten medaled
.

that you were held captive, it will be a proud mark, for freedom only
comes from being released, and an anthem will start to form, words
all raw and wholly yours, then you will sing to me “good bye stranger,”^^ granting me a pardon, for being who I am, a wonderingly, somewhat familiar face...
^John Prine
^^ Sharon Robinson
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2020
Sept. 5th, 2020, 6:35am (wondrous palette)

the sun risen, but a solid foothold as of yet unestablished;
the new day’s skies borrow coloration from nearby sources,
no unique identity bright enough as of yet to call its own;
thin cumulus streaks, striate against an unidentifiable blue
paleness, more to contrast than to claim,  “here we are!

the bay is in labor: multi hues of blue intermingle, as the
light illuminates each part differentially; soon enough,
one hue will come to dominate, just like you, soon enough,
a single hue will dominate, and this day will be distinct,
and who knows? perhaps even distinctive enough to be
memorialized.

minute to minute is the ever changing interplay; unlike a
human, this rapidity maturation is unafraid to experiment
with new combinations but-based on prior recalled self-
examination; something on the water, a small boat low and
close flat to the surficial; a skiff, a rowboat with no oars,
drifting, languishing on the fishing spot, unmoving unhurried
humans aboard, thinking, this is the good way to start living

last comment; tiny hinting shades of violet, pink and orange
exist, hard to discern so well blended are they with the norm
of broader blue and vanilla white and then all readily apparent!
this is the new days message, we are what we appear to be,
one earth, one sky, indivisible but born from
a wondrous palette;
and so yet another first poem of the day is created, a verbal
prélude, étude, unique but a product of its many ancestral
predecessors, just like
, we the people.
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2021
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3983306/who-by-fire-after-leonard-cohen/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1844090/for-leonard-a-man-cleaning-up-after-himself/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3319252/never-lament-casually-leonard-cohen/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2714710/for-leonard-cohen-two-and-a-half-years-on-11716/

Aug 29 2020

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2187204/all-ive-learned-from-love-for-leonard/

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1833538/for-leonard-cohen-the-musicians-minyan/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3932910/when-leonard-cohen-met-charlie-daniels-the-devil-went-down-to-geo­rgia/

!!the links repeat below, so no cut and paste required!!
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2020
~ per la bombardiera italiana di Vienna~

you want a poem of (a)side dishes, instead of a main,
you prefer a side vent, instead of a main event,
but always commence at the commencement ending,
another day begs for the first poem of the day (FPoTD)

the sky produces another hue, a whitish blue,
with violet shadings, majestic clouds slow moving,
heading north, Northwest by North(NWbN)
to New England, onto Toronto, then west to B.C.
but me won’t be there for that new course correction

sent some messengers your way, umpteen Canadian
snowbird geese, returning home, Florida too **** hot,
hurricanes not to their liking, quite the sight, brave old
man in dracula cape-flapping bathrobe, clapping and heehawing them intruders into the bay waters, off his land, their partying
in my no-noise motel against a law, not to mention their
empties and plentiful droppings, but I side vent digress

from where this Mariner’s tale began, but the mental alarm
signals seven bells, return to port, now a mess mate, inside,
delivering coffee in white china teacups to the Captainess,
who in time of war makes tremendous sacrifices, par example,
who due to the pandemic, graciously deigns, accepts paper(!)
napkins, a sign of the gravity of the times, no ironing!


god, I do not understand how you do it, vast eternal patience,
every way, every day, a new shade, you musta been an art major,
or very bored, either way, this goose chasing, cook, exterminator,
driver, poetry-writing no-maven son of a Canadian woman, is
your devotee, morning glory audience, who accepts your sky tapestry, your cloud interweaving laddering, with humble gratitude, a still life never stilled, my eyes, my tongue sings your praises like King David, and that other court-appointed Canadian psalmist^ who  understood, conversing with you is where all hallelujah poem songs main event must begin, fiddle middle, and perforce must conclude, that! the! main event

everything else just a side event, a side venting, a prayer-in waiting,
a get-in-line for another paradise, where poets play cards, smoke see-gars, checking their stockings for runs and new poem ideas, word worshipping the gifts of existence, a child’s ice cream dotted nose, a body’s curves, but I digress...he LoL’s to himself, wondering why his eyes are tearing...as usual, he is clueless, the last to know, but the first to weep because the winter is coming, yet again, a sky will be less frequent friendly, but the know-nothing-man will digress yet again, once more unto the breach...


2020
8:18am
Sat Sabbath Aug 29
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
~wherever, whenever and forever for Sally B.~


"Don’t urge me to leave you.              "If I could, then I would
To turn back from you.                          I'll go wherever you will go
Wherever you go,                                   Way up high or down low
I will go,                                                   I'll go wherever you will go
And where you stay,                              Run away with my heart
I will stay.                                                 Run away with my hope
Your people will be                                Run away with my love
My people                                                I know now, just quite how
And your God                                         My life and love
my God.                                                   Might still go on
Where you die, I will die,                      In your heart, in your mind
There I will be buried."                          I'll stay with you for all of time"

(Book of Ruth 1:16)                                  (Charlene Soria Lyrics)


Let it be writ,
Let it be sung,
All should know,
This I swear,
Where you are,
So, I shall be too.
Your hope, my hope.
Your heart, my heart.
Life and love,
But one.

Where you run,
I'll shall follow.
Now, today,
Forever,
If our bodies apart,
If our hands cannot
Grasp each other,
Yet, still,
In your heart,
In your soul,
I will be,
I cannot leave.

Where you are,
So, I shall be too.
Thank you all for loving this poem s much.  I have long thought of the symmetry between Ruth and the lyrics to the song Wherever You Go, when ever I hear them on Pandora....last nite around Two Am I decided to set up the side, by side and then to see what happened...and the merger, the synthesis was the obvious and only solution.

then much later I discovered this:
https://youtu.be/vmfxf1DLLkM
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2020
The Joni (Mitchell) Collection


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1692219/a-case-of-you-joni-first-datelast-date/


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/957041/write-like-joni/


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2185836/still-be-on-my-feat-for-joni/
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2020
Warning! This poem is too long for certain elderly gentlemen.

A blue haze morn, pleasant in the transition
from the ides of sensual summer to the
broken, busted curled dead leaves that now
decorate the half & half scorched, mottled lawns,
that soon enough will fall to full-on browning!

All this my eyes see when first I wake, only
the calm morn waters unchanged, thank god,
for the mind is fermented, the brain full on,
three, count ‘em, three born baby poems, all
simultaneous being birthed, triplets from one
****** working overtime, yet, only paid the hourly wage!

The mind interweaves the three, and yet subdivides,
only I, the landlord of the brain, failingly and flailing
struggle to keep track of these wild tenants, each:
a curvature, a tangent, a sibling and a stranger to
each other, sharing  a common single parentage!

Poem #1

Poem #1, a bright child, yet, poorest in vocabulary, more humming
than recites, but below its tuneful melody one just perceives, a refrain
born in the refracted sun rays that first opened our  eyes to this day, in
great gratitude, a morning prayer, a mourning poem, bidding adieu to the great  nighttime where the conception and inception inseminated within the ****** of the brain, and welcoming the warmth of day that cracks our body’s outer egg shell with praises of hallelujah that this one word poem gives so easy, in glory!

Poem #2

The toes wriggle, the eyes rapid-blink, the mouth yawns revealing
a still sleeping tongue, the stomach rumbles a basso tune reminding
everyone that their continuous sustenance comes from it alone, no
matter what those other body part snobs claim! An Uproar ensues
(bien sûr!), everyone roused, slumber a thing of the past, a cacophony
of disharmonious noises, no Greek chorus this, purely 100% American,
each party convinced of its self-worth, its own vitality, a ball park of
loutish fans, hawking vendors, an amalgamation of colorations, a
tapestry of humanity skin colors, though in a single voice upon this all
agree and shout “**** the Umpire!”

Then the bladder whispers “uh,hey people,” and all grow silent knowing
who’s the boss, and the man, stumbles from bed, wondering silently what
the heck that huuge racket was all about and how come no one else heard it?

Poem #3

A subcommittee of the senses convene a meeting and on the agenda, in
no particular order are the following, items of varying importance, but
needing speedy resolution:

The always very touchy skin asks: what shall we wear
today, it is warm outside and overly cold inside, should
we go short or long, stay in our overnight dressage, or
get a fresh accoutrements (clean Tee and sweatpants)
just to celebrate having made successful passage to day?

The aural receptors (who always insist on being addressed
in the plural), state that can wait! first let’s us determine what
music we shall receive, that must match the nature outside
and the nature within?  A Joshua Bell violin concerto, or some
retro greatest hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s?  Let’s vote..

The Gallic nasal passages (Les Passages, as they snobbishly prefer) sniff
in derisive decision, non! to yesterday’s clothes, a shower and a shampoo
dear skin, a nasal necessity, let’s try to remember to use deodorant today
please, and no more feral cereal and milk, something more fragrant s’il vous plait!

The Buds, as the tasting cells preferred to be called, said indeed,
some fresh cafe au lait in a proper bowl, to accompany les croissants frais, une baguette au beurre, and do not forget the red crisscross jar of Bonne Maman (Orange Marmalade/Confiture d'Orange)

The Eyes, waited and listened, and then proclaimed, all well and good,
but realize that after all this, we are the instructor, the instrument panel
without which you cannot operate in concert, let us see what we can see,
in the closet, in the kitchen, read the playlists, prepare the necessaries
for bathing, check the thermometers and then we will decide!

Then, the Mighty Brain, said “folks, we’ve been busy all night and tho
first light has already penetrated, we are going back to bed, as we are exhausted by all this noise herein encapsulated!
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2020
<>

sometimes I weep gratitude:


when
you send a poem my way
that wrenches this old heart
in ways that believed were
no longer possible. weep.

eyes see your word images in actual physicality,
me, shedding cells and real tears, musing,
easier is good work that originates in all
new things beautiful, freshly created,
repairing old.^

despair for those who know not this sensing,
weep for yourselves, that I cannot
sway and assuage you, with quality words
that harbor both of us, in mutuality.

call in of reinforcements, sharing a single dock,
visions of rocking together in the wakes of others,
if when you should ever think of me,
think this,
your words are my comforter wake,
gentling my rocking quaking.

sometimes,
my weeping is but
the noise of desperation,
being washed away by the sound of
gratitude weeping


<>


Thu Aug 20  2020
8:36am
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3998880/sometimes-i-weep-gratitude/

precious everything:    awake, morning chores, no worry, won’t bore you, someone else, tv turns on, claptrap commences, plead with myself for music, a poem, any escape from the horrors of reality, the world’s self inflicted  afflictions, the tv talkers accuse me of complicity,  by merely existing, and not sending “them” money to wage their war, and line their pockets, and I passed the weeping point, freely acknowledge this ain’t much of a poem, not even a rant, just an accumulation of worries, mine lesser than most, yet finding breathing hard, harder than the lungs say is necessary, the future  like lead bells around my neck, bent, and I age ten years in precious seconds, when dare I contemplate how the grandchildren will survive, s u r v i v e, much more than how mine will unwind for my own currency is spent, used...then you send me a new poem and I weep with fresh gratitude for this new, one more day. nml.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2020
"همه جا" از حافظ / "همه جا" توسط لیپستاد


Hafiz                                              ­           Lipstadt
(1320 ~ 1389)                                            (20th ~ 21st century)
——————                                           ———————­——

Running                                                    Si­tting
Through the streets                                 On the sidewalk curb
Screaming,                                                Ob­serving,

Throwing rocks through windows,     Rocks falling all around,
Using my own head to ring                  Striking my head, ringing in
Great bells,                                               Great waves of thought,

Pulling out my hair,                               My hair stands straight up,
Tearing off my clothes,                          My clothes’ fibers come alive,

Tying everything I own                        All possessions, the poems, yet
To a stick,                                                Unwritten, less valuable than,
And setting in on                                  The air that feeds the flames of
Fire.                                                         Their burning.

What else can Hafiz do tonight        What else can Lipstadt do tonight
To celebrate the madness,                  But acknowledge the truthfulness,
The joy,                                                 The madness,

Of seeing God                                      In~Exhaling God in each breath
Everywhere!                                         Everywhere!
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2020
<!>

(~for R.A.~)
pour la Canadienne
<!>

The inside flat of
the upper left arm,
“the arm proper,”
a body part,
held in
low regard,
for it is not
easy visible,
shapely,
nor is it the arm of
Jerusalem cunning.^

Few realize
it alone,
the only skin
that can be
instantaneously
pressed direct
upon the
beating (dis)heartened
chest.

There,
upon it,
upon you,
I’ve inscribed in
richest blue India ink,
these words
tattooed,
ready for transfer,
im-pressing,
s k i n  to  s k i n,
an instant injection,
more powerful
than
Adrenaline:

You!
are
(not!)
alone.
^
◄ Psalm 137:5 ►
“If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem, Let My Right Hand Forget Her Cunning”

<>
as is sometimes the case,
these words came to me
fully formed
in the mid of night
4:13am
<>
some say upon the same place,
but on the right arm was drawn
“a map of Canada
Oh, Canada
With your face sketched on it twice”
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