Just lately, 'learned,' (what a double entendre that is!), a long time resident and story teller in the empire of creatives who coexist with each other in two dimensions, in deep isolation and simultaneously
in a camaraderie of bonded bones of mutuality, of deep, affectionate
camaraderie admiration for another human, who struggles and desires to please the world by putting worthy words before us to
be felt, not just read in our bosoms, but-placed deeper still, in our very souls.

As is my custom, I oft forget what was written by me, and awoke feeling guilty that I never gave him "His" own poem. So I looked him up on the HP site, and lo and behold!
this tribute came up first...but cease not here, seize this man's living testimonies to the beauty of life and family.  

I wrote this, upon refection, for us, a year ago...
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2024

For Spygrandson:  A Man
Who Looks in the Mirror, & Sees a Potholder of Simple Design…

~ for spygrandson ~
with deep affection


https://hellopoetry.com/spysgrandson/

<>

I am en~titled
by him,
commissioned by his exacting wording
of this poem’s titular naming,
all my previous attempts are failures,
over designed, too artistic
for his modest self~reckoning &
bearded demeanor,
they demanded
denial with
request for
simplicity of an unflowery
reckoning,
a clean shave,
so to speak…


a potholder of simple design,
a modest picture self-drawn,
but his stories are
sorties tall,
he draws you in, worthy draftsman sketches
of words, tales short, poems complete,
tales so sweet, of characters uniquely complete,
and you think,
they cannot be fictional?

and you know they’re no such thing,
ok, maybe,
some taller and a few perhaps dreamed,
the big characters of those
giants of simple men,
whose deeds were not mythical,
ok, almost mythical…

but truth of the humans of the hammered and nailed tough skin,
who built homesteads in the
plain, in mountains, by rivers that snaked,
unmapped,
except on their hearts and feet

the humans,
that made up
the raw & naked bond holders of
these United States:
bonded by character to the soil and
its curvaceous dancing topography
from
& of the center of our country,
but with eyes keen enough
to stretch from
coast to coast,
to see to shining seas

yes, true,
the grandson be he
to/of an almost mythical man,
and so took thus
his penned name,
the grandfather, a real person
of whom stories are yet told,
for no one can be sure
that & of what deeds
this spy did,
on hostile, unfamiliar,
continents,
but the photographic proofs,
I have seen…

His blood thickened by many infusions,
a cross cultural experiment,
happily not unique,
just **** rare

but enough of this;
read him,
let his
tongue take you to
the unfamiliar,
a literary Ansel Adams,
who never saw the plain(s) men & women,
unworthy of being forgotten but
forever being
celebrated

ask him for a potpourri of his short stories
of war, the bonds that men forge in combat,
tween the dead that still live on and
the living,
who have unreadable dead spots within,
they carry their dying glances,
their dying wishes,
and who are honored by him
in his continuing recollections

with walking stick in hand,
even if going outside
to “just” measure the snowy depths,
he leave markers and trailers,
for us to recall how to weep,
from love and pain,
from following generations of his
beautiful blonde
children who are poster models for
the traditional all american imagery,
but thriving within,
with  his
wanderlust, his mixed fiery visions,
and acting, singing out dramas
befitting their inherited
visions…

<>
here
I cease,
here
I weep,
at the impoverished words
scrivened in haste,
through tears of pleasure
intended to give honor
to this man,
who cedes me the pleasure of his existence,
and enhances my world
when he asks me,
unwittingly commissions!
a poem,
about
the human character,
who see himself unusually!
“as a potholder with a simple design”
and as usual,

I fail miserable…
maybe,
nick the outer edge of a bullseye target,
because the important words that he deserves,
I have not yet mentioned:

honor, loving kindness and friend.

perhaps he is correct,
but doesn’t grasp
that without simple men like him
to hold the *** upright and firm,
we all would be lesser or
even lost.


maybe,
now I am one
with
done

write little. overwhelmed by the "competition,''
those who birth litters of poems by the bushel,
but let us serve you morsel, a petites bouchées,
a fingertip to both lips, sensately fulfilling, the
need mutuel, thus, we are both self~satisfied,

as I search for words of comforting arousal,
that relax simultaneously & invigorate, for these
are the dualities of our innate inanities, the things,
that can never be satisfied without a compromise
of nerves and plaisirs, clashing leaders, who both
are needed to satisfy the larger human diction of
conditions;
sometimes they exist in the same universe,
sometimes they exist at the same time,

sometimes they exist  only in the mind,
and not the cells of the body human,
whereby the inputs must be inserted,
to reach the boiling *** of overlap,
but if this tease, doth please, even for
a secondary second, that we are both
blessed

The number of noise complaints in the City of New York exceeded 750,000.
<•>

that
does not
of course
include the
shrieks and screams of the
unfriended,, unloved, overwhelmed sad l~one~lys
that have the courtesy
uncommon
to add their cries of the heart
that are best stated, sung & satiated & even sated
ever so
s i l e n t l y

but their trembling tears

!howl!

be ever gentle to thy words
treat them, your tools, well,
cleansing and protecting,
wrapping them in cloths of chamois and moleskin
that they may be well conditioned and
pour forth with a temperament clear and viscous,
reflecting their high honors and a noble lineage,
they are well-intentioned to exist far longer
than your meager temporal life,
upon this ever hasty, ever perpetual, orbit

give them all respect, their fair due,
they are treasure immeasurable,
for which you have been granted guardianship,
custody received from others to be gifted onwards,
yours, but for the duration

so oft we trifle words,
expel them from the country of our body,
without passport and earnestness,
as if they were the cheapest of footnote filler,
day tourists, to be treated as leavings,
refuse for daily discardation,
barely noting their fast comings and faster disappearance,
but leaving not, a mark of distinction

more truffle than trifle,
find them in the dark forest of your life,
use them sparingly, just for soaring,
take them from the roots of your trees,
shave them with a paring knife,
counts them in bites and measure them in grams,
even in grains,
for words are the seasoning of our lives,
agent provacateurs that can modify the moment,
bringing out to the fore
the flavor of the underlying

speak them slow and distinct,
for they arrive slow to you,
a trickling of refugees for your sheltering,
harbor them as full companions,
protected by natural law,
provision them well,
prepared and ever ready for a quick departure,
moor them at the embarcadero,
for the next restless leg of endlessness,
which they themselves will inform you
will last longer than eternity,
long after there are no humans to speak them