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Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
all about
how your stock of words,
the inventory of what you got,
aged and now marked down on the books,
carried over from the holiday season,
that you, in marriage to life, accumulated,
to whom you have become betrothed

your trade, no can give 'em up,
gotta to maintain their
existence
no matter how bewildering,
gotta to demonstrate
persistence
by taking last year's unsold,
repaint, recombinate, dress 'em up,
post them as all new,
even tho the words used,
pre-existed you,
still noisily proclaimed,
still advertising
each Johnny-come-lately
poem as
**"brand new"
Want to read a good, really brand new poem?
see http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1081943/a-bunch-of-folks-in-a-deli/
971 · Jan 2017
and what an honor it is...
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2017
"two birthday presents are better than one"
sayings of the wise men

"and what an honor it is, and how could we be anything greater
(than all too human)?" 
 R.A.

~

for Rebecca, a birthday gift

~
a message of notification,
comes early one evening, an agent provocateur,
a paparazzi peeping tom,
a cat burglar presuming the poet-receiver nat is
a rat-man out and about, galavanting around town,
dancing perhaps, seeing a Pinter play, a movie,
a lecture on string theory, an underground railroad rock concert,
reading a book of priestly poetry, or himself,
lost in a mesmerizing revery of poetic composition

her question, a statement of fact, a reflection,
one or all, all for one, this pronunciation,
a witness deposition re the human condition

the man is knocked askew in about
an instantly,
sitting before the voluptuous fireplace's crackling complications,
fire sensing the multiples of implications,
contemplating the failing honor of human limitations,
sensing the uniqueness of our successes,
a claiming race prize
for all of we humans
in her words

now how great is this knowledge that we,
all to human,
all too human,
need let this then be the first
thought/ message/ notification -
meditation of our every day

that we honor ourselves first,
our upstart blessing,
in order to honor our world
and its bedazzling human creativity


~
We find our poems in many different ways.  Of late,
I keep finding inspiration from the messages that many of you send to me, re the poems I choose to publish here. So I repeat my disclaimer, "any message you send can and will be used as a poem."
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
Nope. No more.
Inaccurate, you are not a noun or an adjective,
But a verb transitive.

My love is not static,
Not a thing,
It is man-in-motion,
A process, a play,

From henceforth,
I shall address thee thus:
My Loving.

Yes, loving this accuracy,
Amended ways, coming to you
With all my loving,
My Loving...
Born five minutes ago from our good mornings...apologize for the transmission delay...
970 · Feb 2024
better to endure it
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 Jul 2014
Nat Lipstadt
Mar 10
Pradip
Dear Sir,

I can't keep
up with
your prolific, delighting,
creations

This must be
the third poem at least,
for and to you, I,
publicly address

the thought terrifying,
if you took a vacation,
and had really
some free time to write

I do believe man,
it's time for a unique,
reserved, deserved,
and as of yet,
unheard of
special,
Hello Pradip Section
on this site

for this is yet one more
in a streaming video poem,
of me acknowledging you,
Master of the Word,
Wright Templar,
Poet Extraordinaire,

Most Importantly,
Beloved Human,
whose vision sees the world
in ways that
I adore

S. suggests,
I
take a vaca
just to eat your words,
in the lazy, rushed fashion
they deserve

but tween us,
your secret kept,
your parrot and
street dog Hengloo
write
every other one,
cause no human could
thus excel,
without some help
of animal spirits
in between your beloved
Saturdays

Yours Devotedly,

An Exhausted and Admiring,
Nat Lipstadt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nat Lipstadt
Sep 2, 2013

Pradip Chattopadhyay


Simple verses,
blessed be the uncomplex,
But the visions, the glimpses,
The sightings, in and out,
Are celestial of, in, and on and about
This planet shared.

I will walk with you to
Henry's Isle,
You, accompany me, on the beach,
We will together ford Crab Creek,
When the tide is low,
And afterwards,
Repair to The  Poet's Nook,
Where a moss stained Adirondack chair
Awaits the Poet Prince,
Your poems carved into
It's soul, it's arms, it's back,
Giving comfort continuous.

This chai, this chair, this throne,
Reserved for the lyricist of our lives,
The shedder of light upon the special,
The seconds, that fete our senses.

I await you arrival.

Tender this serenade,
this overdue apology,
For having not thanked you properly
For your living kindness,
Yet my words, insufficient, compared to yours...


A special man, a simple homage.
Mazel Tov, my dearest comrade! Well done!
967 · Feb 23
Poets never bow
Nat Lipstadt Feb 23
Dearest Patty m.,

we admire, admit to raw nailed jealousy
when we read the works superior
with the greatest worn scruffy complementary compliment
a poet
can give to
another scribe

How I wish I had written that,
those very words!


confessing before the world
with our own humility
at the daily dawning of
realization that
morning brings freshness and
insights needy for release and
aborning and the trace of humiliation
that we’ve all  ready
been breached bested
by others,
once again…

BUT
we do not bow!
no courtly arm sweeping,
back bent, at best
a nod of a head
then

privately
we gasp, rent our clothes,
throw the body flat to the floor,

observing seven days of mourning
reserved
for when we morning moan,
daylight groan and loan out our
croissant moon mooing cries to
bemused muses
in the clouds supervising,
as tears of, an admixture of,
an elixir of joy, compassion
and thus refreshed by someone’s
new infant’d christening
we *****. we resurrect, gamble,
throwing ourselves complete like dice,
in to a roll of
stunned stupor of high inspiration
and then make out best work
ever yet

but never do we bow, scrape,
bend the knee, maybe the head,
we mourn our lesser failings
and smile as we flash words
from our eyes,
stored in our mindsets,
our, my best, will
always be yielded up
next
——
addendum
———
seven years ago
in a separate guise,
he ssid it differently
maybe better?
:<•>

epilogue

read my face
incapable of,
deprivation
but how now silent
bow my head to Will
for teaching the way of words
traced upon
a fool or a king's tongue,
two too human,
so that poet may ken
his senses keener,
all for the better,
for the betterment of all
967 · Mar 2014
Private Parts
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
Private
Parts


she awakens.
her hands journey to my private parts.
now, they are in the public domain.
I liked it much, so,
I copyrighted her moves.

indeed, I copied them
right down
saved them,
write down,
write here.

ain't young enough to be afraid no more
write what pleases me.

this day leases me
what pleases me
and this is as close as I can come
to being human
and writing my flawless poem.

this pleases me too.
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2018
PostScript:
number me thus, in the company of the good but the forgotten,
still will be of goodly cheer gotten,
for though ***** could not be saved,
not one goodly man found in all of the ****** lot

except for one, a true audience
a single rapt good  knave worthy word enslaved
thus will we be saved,
thus call me Lot

<>
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/469617/the-night-king-ego-died-by-mine-own-handsept2013/
writ Sept. 2013; modest edits 11/28/17
963 · Jun 2013
Haiku Dockter
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
To the dock at midnight,
solitary moonlight path upon the bay,
to worship, to tread, star touching, that being
The plan.

Disrobed, it seemed apropos,
Totally out of character, ashamed,
Pressed my body into the black sky suede,
Words, of my issue, but not my styling,
Broke apart, watched each letter uprising.

Stars and moon conference-called,
Their judgement:
Coat the boy's words with the fragrance of
humility,
We are not super-centric, sun-greedy,
We are easy satisfied,
A simple haiku will suffice.


Five seven five once.
Fragility, Frailty.
Do it well, our son.


1:10 AM Monday Morning
962 · Jan 2023
The Privilege
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2023
The Privilege

rare s/he who contemplates the
painting that can only seen from
frame, looking to outside/from within

expelling words, expecting sounds
felling forest trees, a-seizing, but
listening, waving… hearing silence

For we mistake who’s the audience,
we are the audience,
we are

The Privileged

the Privilege
accepting your acceptance,
taking your listening,
listening to your taking


That This! was Granted,
you to us,
The Privilege,
astounding!
for you gave us
art
to create


JAN 8 2023
1:25pm
thank you
for the privilege.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
~ For my darling Isabel on her twelfth birthday~

Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?

Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
I could have warned you, but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.
O you will take whatever's offered
And dream that all the world's a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.
For my darling Isabel on her twelfth birthday

emphasis, last two.ines, mine. nml
962 · Nov 2013
Laughed.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Went to the doc.
Told me I was on my way to
Dying
Way faster than I should be.

Laughed.
Doc, you been telling me that for
Five years
And my poetry is only getting better.


He says,
Ya think?

Look at you,
You live in a watery place,
Talking to god about sports,
Ripping off O.Henry,
Solving equations
On the direction of the
Bubbles you blow into the skies,
Recording your innermost
In public bathrooms,
Ever ask yourself,
Is that normal?

Laughed.
Every now and then,
I take them pills
You gave me.
They come in orange cylinders,
30 at a clip,
Supplied my druggist dealer.
I figure for every pill,
Another day, another poem.

But I won't stick myself no more.
Got enough people- things
Sticking me daily.
Why should I help themselves along?


You right, doc snorted.
You've lived this long,
What ya got to show for it?
Then why do you come
Bothering me,
Annoying me.
You think I like
Spending 90 minutes
With you?
You think I spend
90 minutes of mine
On every poet
That comes thru
My swinging doors?

Well I like how, doc,
You write down everything
I tell you, so when the archaeologists
And the alchemists
Come a-digging,
Looking for the facts of figures,
In your files,
They will find the gritty story
Of a New Yorker,
Who saw poems in sidewalk cracks,
Street signs, young hearts and smiles,
Even you white starch coat,
Your stern disapproving face,
gets utilized, but got stop someday,
Wouldn't be fair
If I used up more than my
Fare-thee-well share
Of words.


The doc,
He didn't laugh,
Nah, don't buy it,
Gotta be a reason
Better than that
Why you keep on
Bothering me,
Ignoring me,
Hastening your mortality?

Doc, done my time,
Sentence served,
Now I'm just coasting,
Waiting for the day,
When I get summoned.


Looking for a new view,
Looking down on the young ones,
Staring down, at them struggling,
For the exact right word,
To place just so on their computer
Screens/screams,
I can be the rustling noise
In their ear,
They call inspiration.


That will be Part II,
That is what I will do,
When your forecasts
Come true.
So what me worry,
I got jobs done and to do,
And I can do 'em well
Just about anywhere,
But I visit you, cause you,
Are a righteous one,
Cause you care.


And I will be watching you too.





5:38am
A companion piece to
Oct 9
"Annual physical"
And
Aug 24
"God took my soul"
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2014
maybe '14 wasn't so great,
maybe indeed,
it was just
******* awful,
a year out of sequence,
come fifty, seventy years too soon.

here I am
alone at home,
laying about,
and A riddler wishes
me a marvelous holiday,
a merry Christmas,
interrupting my umpty umpth
viewing of Ralph's seasonal quest
for a Red Ryder BB gun

another poem, gestating,
suddenly borning,
kicking my guts
get out here and now,
nine months, of nine minutes are up

another story,
needy for retelling,
another riddle to unravel,
another itch, this day is now stuck on
a poetry assignment, way way too big,
high school football and a good novel,
put far aside and from a
watery weeping state,
here he goes...

ain't no hiding this day,
ain't exactly mine,
a nice Jewish boy,
from the skyscraper city,
brine bred on family lore,
that starts with an escape journey
from the Spanish Inquisitors
some five hundred some years ago  

clueless where to take this travail,
absent answers, questions unanswered,
why do I do this to myself,
looking once again
at the places where pain
comes from,
knowing that my human answers
just a salve of paper thin digital words

how to crossover,
from distressed days
to peace on earth,
when  I ain't got
no talking relationship
with Jesus on an
average bad day,
let alone his manger birthday

this year was not my best neither,
double negatives purposeful employed,
but my bad ain't even close,
to answering riddles and questions
taken as my very own,
making a bad year
that much worse

head butting,
no answers coming,
when my own spirit in the sky,
does it again,
via Pandora,
plays another
nice Jewish boy's answer
to my dilemma,
as if my mind read,
Norman Greenbaum sings his answer
from way back in
1969

well my prayer
sorta exactly answered,
whom am I to disbelieve,
here's another tribe member wrestling
with the exact same interrogatory,
invoking Jesus's intervention
one that sold millions of copies,
to ever question the
unfathomable wisdom of
the spirit in the sky

but my work made even easier,
the question riddler
clues me in
with her answer simple,
and unafraid:

"celebrate the present
and
remember the missing
then celebrate both together"


there is no divide here,
no north, no south,
call your spirit by whatever name,
and
where your story begins,
how it ends,
it's your own poem~composition,
mostly writ,
but not all,
by you,
that cannot be forgot,
for all humans are poems,
past and present
are forever

when at a loss
for the salve of digital words,
well remember Abraham told his only son
some plain words:

"the spirit in the sky,
will provide"

celebrate our portion,
larger or smaller
for are we not family,
one family,
one portion

Riddle solved

-----------------------------------------------
Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky Lyrics |1969

"When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky

Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
Prepare yourself, you know it's a must

Gotta have a friend in Jesus
So you know that when you die
He's gonna recommend you to the spirit in the sky

Gonna recommend you to the spirit in the sky
That's where you're gonna go when you die
When you die and they lay you to rest
You're gonna go to the place that's the best

Never been a sinner, I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
So you know that when I die
He's gonna set me up with the spirit in the sky

Oh, set me up with the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best
Go to the place that's the best"
For my Southern cousins, the Riddle family,
Christmas 2014.

thank you Ashleigh...

That this poem would be  written was strangely foretold two days ago:

"children
foreign born,
here & passed,
whom I have never met, but,
who are poems
dearest in my breast,
as if, no,
as they are mine own..."

From
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1007636/our-verse-into-psalm/
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
For Chalsey Wilder

Realizing that 'tis near five months,
that our ions, our verbal lips
have not crossed or caressed,
our words electric,
have not charged us
with current direct,
pleasured is my mind
intensely, devoutly,
to see your message
this Friday Sabbath eve

the weekly work toil,
now foiled
fair full my physical liberty,
from the tiresome and woeful.
your floral bequest,
presented as a request,
it's scent wishful and sad,
so hard to understand,
for your are a flower,
that makes this answering poem
grander

now and here, I fulfill,
this charted task,
with a poem answer crafted
by you, from me,
and entirely for you

your request, 'tis my obligation -
that is freedom

realizing that something in life,
you, being that something,
you, are that petal,
that the poetry breezes
accidentally sent to me,
by rambling, random chance

you posses and grant unto me
a freedom to love and lionize
a petal'd poetess and
heroic lioness

wish not in vain for a careless life,
care much, care hard, care so much,
as you do,
for in every poem you pen,
you betray yourself and prove
your sense and sensibilities,
the quality of caring,
the quality of human essential

well I know,
the illusion of blowing dandelions,
being envious of their
seemingly ***** nilly ways

well I know,
this experienced old
and extra foolish fool,
that the cares superficial
of a troubled existence,
woes of an uncaring world,
lay heavy and rare is a
hoped for easy discard
ever realized,
and for one
so young as you,
'tis heaviest burden of all

but look at the freedom here!

you gift me inspiration,
is that not power,
is that not freedom?

you gift me a willing to caring,
direction and harmony,
you scent me flowers,
you send me a poem,
each petal a part of a whole
astoundingly beautiful,
you, flower,
you, poetess,
you,
astoundingly beautiful

you ask me what do I think of your poem?

I think a flower
is astoundingly beautiful
never will I tear a petal from it,
and the let the imagined wind,
the image of free fall flight
tear it from me

never!
I love my flowers,
frolicking free,
breezed and caressed,
the freedom of caring
they grant,
is so easy,
yet so hard,
but I love it so,
as much as I love your poem

read this knowing,
this is your moment


------------------
Realizing something in life*

by Chalsey Wilder

Letting go of a flower petal
And the wind picking it up
for a ride to the unknown
Feeling something in your heart
as you realize a flower petal
has so much more freedom
than you do
It can be who it is
without a care while you can't
and flowers are loved for it
while you aren't

You stand there
wishing for a second,
for a mere second you wish
you were that flower petal
then you look down
then around
and walk away,
maybe still wishing
you
were that flower petal
or maybe having it
change you forever
Have you ever had a moment like this?
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/790345/realizing-something-in-life/
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
When one poet in plaintive wail, bemoans his certain knowledge,
his efforts paled and pallored by compare to giants long immortalized,
and yet provokes a third, yet another to compose,
pledged has it that the grayed ashen bones
of Shakespeare, Marlowe and his ilk and crew,
neath sod and sand, and English loam and land,
but for an instant, a tradition says,
their remains glow and gleam,
a poet dead centuries, yet for a few seconds risen,
lighting and lifting, not just him, but those who
surround themselves with cherished words spent freely
For Marshall
Nat Lipstadt Feb 15
early morn (5:00am) scanning, scrolling,
unrehearsed searching and the question
appears in a “loves that got away” column,

(why do all these descriptors start eith S,
I think I know!)


and off on another self-effacing, investigative determination, a mental biopsy of another hopeless cause,
that results in poems too long

though the body and mind are rested,
with six hours of uninterrupted sleep,
and volumes of dreams,
the quest bags a burr in the bed,
(yes, rhymes with head)
but n o t h i n g pops in with a grin,
and a bell ring, stating presumptuously,
why that’s me
and the fault failure fear
in me
engorges

this  really distresses,
with & in a deep sense of awful,
how can I not recall this momentous
illustrative precious precision
proof of why life is worth living,
and worser still,
don’t I get to choose,
isn't this an interrogatory,
suitable for a pre-provided
Multiple Choice Answer?

a pause to collect myself from a
falling into a hole of nefarious negativity spiraling,
suddenly
recalling so many
kind and gentle touching brushes
of your comments re my poetry,
which provoked warm tears


^and one more tine,
poetry has saved
a life
^

5:37am Saturday 2-15-25
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/14/well/valentines-day-lost-love.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
they come too easy, they come too cheap,
each sparkle on my city's sidewalks,
each glistening preserved, retrieved,
lifted to my *****, wallet tucked~away,
treasure for safekeeping, slow pleasured contemplation

could not fail to find them,
for all standout in four dimensionality,
some are long, some are deep, some are wide,
yet all possess speaking souls,
to leave unattended, unheard, an act of criminality

years needed for the making,
moments only for the transcribing,
each a black ruby, or a street sand pearl,
none more valuable than another,
each unique, each precious, differently

some escape, shed their earthbound chains,
float atmospherically for keen eyes to grasp,
need a single finger to twirl, instill within,
they come too easy, come too cheap,
yet each poem written, more costly than the next
PostScript:
I awoke at 4:45 am. The title of the poem was my waking thought. Fifteen minutes later this work was done. I write too frequently and have come to believe, that because they come to easy, come to "cheap," they are somehow deemed less valuable, and are less popular, than in early days.  But once conceived, once retrieved, they demand a hearing, a sharing like a newborn babe, they neeed their bottom slapped, to be created, posted in order to breathe and let the reader decide, if they are as. pleasurable and unique, as they are to me...
5:30am Saturday April 12, 2014
958 · Jul 2013
You stir and I kiss you
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Your brain knows the 7 alarms will soon ring
But body wants every sleepy second reserved,
So I kiss your hair, de curled at my request,
And you compromise by head resting
On my abdomen, which makes me chuckle/write,
For my body parts I thus rename,
You rest you head currently
Uponyourman,
Unaware that I am penning this
Gift to our oneheart


6:53 am
3rd poem of the day. 3 per hour. X 24 hrs. X 365 days =

A shortage of words...
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
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
The Little Black Dress


The concrete city summer-heat will beat
most men into a state of distraction,
confess their sins w/o waiting for Miranda,
to warn them of their foolhardiness,
to warn them that silence is golden.

Some men will torch, not touch,
themselves to gain relief from city street heat,
Their loosened ties look like used nooses,
that have done some good hanging.

but not you babe, not you.

Sleeveless,
your shape shifts
effortlessly within,
a cool container,
your black sheath,
and what's underneath,
a knife in the heart of
most mortal, immoral men.

Black is the color of choice,
of les femmes fatales,
in the summertime, when we drink,
on rooftops, in search of a breeze,
and the lassies order silly drinks
with silly names, looking refreshing and
fetching, in their little black dresses.

Manhattan, my beloved, misshapen,
fingerling of an island-city-fortress-playground,
named such by the Algonquins,
the original poets-in-residence.

In a city of stone and brick
gets so **** miserable hot,
Good Humor melts instantaneously,
and the toasted almonds taste fried,
the papers report of Poets suffocating,
unable to exhale their own fiery breath!

But not you babe, not you,
in your Little Black Dress,
you suggest all is well with world,
perhaps I should try one as well

We fight the temp rising with
white linen, white shoes,
straw and seersucker,
not you babe, not you.

Black silk that rustles,
Black silk that mocks the sun,
Stirring up rustling in faint-hearted men,
observing your languid promenade across 57th Street,
we the idiots, panting, tongues extended,
standing still like Frozfruit bars,
cry out in unison, I have been released!

Contradictory miracles still occur,
disbelieve me if you want,
from June to August,
this isle ruled, by tan goddesses
in a uniform of a Little Black Dress.

May 28, 2013
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2016
<>

with raggedy old words, this is how I write,
in a raggedy old navy t-shirt,
upon a ragged edged old chair,
whose splinters will soon enough,
seed themselves in poet's unreceptive,
but just asking-to-be-barbed
flesh bared

splinters asking with the phony politeness ,
in the manner of a steady, but  minor irritating
would-be-a-friend, annoyingly, but cloyingly

"am I not a poem, yet Father?"

Poet has no answer,
mixed words
deemed satisfying suitable but unusable,
unconvicted upon the hard hearted
mixed wood

poet waits for the ragged clotted cumulus
of old grey ladies shaped clouds
to dissipate

clouds shaped like the
puffed up shopping bags
that the old ladies clutch
while crossing mid-street
making the traffic play
"dodge'r the codgers"

bags fill with the odd things
that old ladies treasure,
objet d'art of empty
Oil of Olay Ole! and mindless dribble,
mementoes of completed containers
of emptied out hopes

expired coupons,
that they refuse to surrender
even under threat
by sour faced bossy
supermarket manager dictators,
who hate their lives and  
in the deepening creases
of the elderly clientele,
foresee their own fate inevitable

poet's waits for them,
these images,
these clotted bursts of sourpuss,
to depart his skin, sky's.
yes, his sky's

wits and wilts while he waits,
for he always has much to say,
of what lies above,
the unseen,
hid behind the bland uniform of  the overhanging
one-no-color sky
of blanched meh and feh crinolines

thinking to no one now,

this is how I write, this is who I am,

waiting for insight inspiration foam to form,
from the multi-variable model that predicts
with a high degree of confidence,
failure with tainted certainty,
even as clouds are shuffled along,
a new poem will pass
that haha, no one will read

but nonetheless, arguing among his several selves,
better to be more fulfilled by the emptying of himself
upon padded cell of paper, of his staining,
the piece of him now
un-chambered & un-containered
thru magma fissures, steaming & cleaning,
providing a penny's penance
for his disparate gloomy idiocies

the gray ladies always smile at him,
always so nice and gentlemanly like, that poet,
underneath his cowardly disdain,
against his pretense's  grain,
contempt for old grey ladies
with old lady odors emanating

is this who you are, is this how you write?

*with raggedy old words, that splinter our delight?
951 · Oct 2013
A falling asleep 10W...
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
A  lifelong pleasure,
God's best invention,
The V in
CleaVage..
950 · Dec 2017
Yet Another Violin Adagio
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2017
“yet another violin adagio”

Let there be belief; always, yet, one more violin adagio - always,
Is not a new poem a-brewing, an emote, needy for scripture?
Zeniths born unlimited, hundreds of titles awaiting fulfillment?

But what’s wrong with the good ones that yet have  never failed,
Ask me which adagio, the answer constant,
Let the recorded poem show, any point on the arc above
Inscribed on the palms and the tips of these working hands,
Shining zeal and zest, for no forgetting the one that carries me above
Everything, all time: Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings

extra credit reading below!


12/7/17
3:36am
NYC (birthplace of this Adagio, and this hand)
Therein Lies The Secret

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/692628/plane-poetry-i-go-to-barber/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adagio_for_Strings
950 · Jun 2013
Do I Take You For Granted?
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Do I Take You For Granted?**

O yeah,
You are taken.
Definitely, definitively, infinitely.

I take you to be my lawful Grantor.

A gift to myself, from you,

Gave, given, taken.

You are the grant and my giver.

My past, present, and my present to my future.

Tenses confused.

But I am not.

You gave me a gift.
My gift was you.
I take it.

I accept, accepted, and continue to
look forward to answering when inquiring,
most assuredly,
I do, I do.
I do take you for granted.
Another old poem found lying around, from long ago, refusing to get out of bed on a Friday morning...what I hope is that you take it, and give it to someone as your own, for your own, and then become "a mutual fund"
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
As you may know, I collaborate with other poets here. They send me their scraps of unfinished poems for me to 'play' with, and re-imagine.  

mark john junor sent me this, from his file "pieces/parts" and asked me to "do something with it" tho it certainly could have stood on its own...

the song is the thought on the lips
but the melody is the vision of the mind
and as she gives one away
for the sake of the other
you give in to the winter demise
you can dance to the song
but you lack the vision to dance till dawn
so packing it up you retreat into the adventure of the moment
and forsake all the side show
for its the magic of her eyes that keeps you coming back to the day


MJJ
_____


**the song, unsung


long time lovers,
long time no see,
holiday party,
see, seen,
the glance exchanged.

their song, the history
is instantly mouthed,
wetted thoughts on their
remembering lips.

their melody, the history,
is re-frain-ing,
repeat button selected
vision of unique sounds
in their minds.

they gave up, gave in,
some long ago winter,
they gave in, gave up,
the winter
of their demise.

they can.  

can dance to the song,
tonight,
more, one night,
one more time
but to dance till dawn
and beyond,
that cannot be done
twice.

The old heat
re-ember-ed
so they retreat into
the adventure of the moment,
forsaking all
the side show
of whys and the I loved you well,
enough, not, better, and
perhaps.

Tonight,
one more night,
they pack it in,
a complete history, to,
pack in,
till
just before dawn,

yet each lacks the vision
to dance till dawn
so pack it up
and
pack it in,
lifetime lived in a few hours.

yet the magic of each other's eyes
keeps them coming back to the day
they shredded the vow,
but never gave up
that song,
the melody
that is the
vision in each other's minds.

each left with a piece,
each left with a part,
both different, of course,
of their song.
Send me you pieces and parts yearning to be free...
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
I always ask her why, cause you gotta pay to play.
So don't fall in love with me, unless you got more than one
Reason.

And there is no do-overs allowed, no repeats,
And that's why loving a poet is or can be a
Huge pain in the ***.
August 2013
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
The only reason I write is because....
There are words, solitary and un-empowered., unemployed.
Single, yet, Singular.

I de-file them, dis-organize,  tabulate their DNA,
Recombinant, transgenderize, tenderize!

Clichés banned, need chunky pieces of  
Shock and saucy sounds that once said aloud,
Never stand still, reverberate, days after first
Spoke.

Words that spoke, spike, such that
Days from now you will come back to this poem,
Sheepish, because you
Spiked,
When these words, you
Spoke.


Thus impaled,
You mine mine veins, thrombosis temples pulse,
You will close contact with your ven,
Intersect memory and prophecy
And never write again the same way.

For having left the sanctuary of the familiar,
You will find the truest safety,
Is
None.

Answer the posed uniquely, then,
You memberize in the company of poets.
This oath believed and bespoke
Both burdened and enlightened,
You, tuned and turned,
Speak:

The only reason I write is...
Because




August 29th 2013
949 · Oct 2013
Written by Kitty Prr
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
That beautiful glorious space of
"me loving you,"
That's where
We won't both go.

Yet my heart goes there
Often, when swollen with the
Wondrous, Wonder Ours, of our
Emotions.

But when that refuge closed,
I shrink beneath the pain
That is now homeless, like me,
For there is only a pace and a place called
Nowhere,
For them to go.
Written by Kitty Prr, and hopefully improved by some Mariner's ancient editing.
949 · Dec 2013
Sunday Morning Breakfast
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
hand-caresses all over the chest,
****** licking and pinching,
tickling the belly with a solitary
tongue-wetted finger.

in someone's possession,
the
on/off switch,
seems to be
busted.

so when
a pause to breathe,
asking me what does
one want for
breakfast,

I answer Her,

*"Please sir, I want some more."
949 · Feb 2015
Sorrowful Fluid Swapping
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
meet me
where the broad teary rivers
both empty and fill the oceans,
takers and givers,
swapping sorrowful fluids constant,
these loyal thieves,
from the sky,
robbing a soul's invisible moisture,
selling what isn't hisn't
right back to the heavens

for this is the
human condition,
the foaming eddys where
life becomes words
becomes life redux,
infinitum swapping
sorrowful fluids*

~~~~~~
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1052415/a-personal-god-wailing-and-complaining
947 · Jun 2013
My Name is Rascal!
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
drank a pinot noir,
Rascal, they called it,
from Willamette Valley,
Oregon.

drank it at The Quarter,
a charming establishment
on Hudson Street,
in the West Village.

I love a good name
as much as
I love a good Pinot,
and to scribe about
the city I love
where I was born,
schooled and fooled in,
by many a woman.

The city where I named
and raised my children.

Will probably die in
this city, and when
I am long forgot,
my name never uttered,

you,

as my designated
rememberer,
will think of me
whenever someone says,
he was such a rascal
http://www.thequarternyc.com/
http://www.honestwinereviews.com/2012/09/rascal-pinot-noir.html
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2019
First Line: The Most Popular Words on HP

those  selected below, are copied from the current top line of the Words section on HP,  which I believe, represent the most often used/“popular” words on the site.

love      time      heart      life      eyes      feel      day      
mind      night      things      left      find      long

when  I find love next time, and the next time,
the heart that has powered this life,
will avoid the trapping eyes that initialize the
first feel, the first contact, those things that are
the mind seducers, whether,
one, if by day
two, if by night

which is it?
love is blind, but we all dream of love at first sight!

which’s why, I’ve left the world of find,
long ago, deciding that love will find me in its own
peculiar time, way, method, until that occurs,
dreaming of that happenstance will inspire
a poem of the day, each day,
until time postpones either my
heart or mind, my senses, or the search is concluded,
which will most likely be through my jewels,

my very own words
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Always use the best you have...first

That what she says, when she makes us breakfast.
Then the next best, and the next...
Then life will always be curving, on a tangent of the finest line,
Linen before cotton, cotton before paper.

She brings champagne and fresh orange juice to our table,
challah so soft, we could lay and love upon it.
All I have to proffer, tears-of-the-saddest of souls and some
scribblings, and a philosophy of fear, hoarding,
lest the day come of none,
when I have a true zero.

She smiles.

She says:
Nonetheless, I think I got the best of you,
I am-contented, for now,
for each new last poem you surrender up..
will be, the best you have,
and your eyes see poetry continuously,
your poems reveal your courage,
that which I recognize, that you cannot hide.

August 31
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2016
Flight #177 / Seat #7C - where I'm bound/I have been released

the final part of the trilogy,
re broken lives,
some finalized,
some revitalized,
some, their score,
incomplete

~~~


on the road again,
crossing the continent,
from sea to shining sea,
from one set of Eastern grandkids,
off to see the wizardry
of the West Coast variety

six hours six minutes,
flying high time, weather's fine,
a voices inform us, that will be
our mutual time of peaceful co-existence,
on this particular traversée journey

I've done harder time,
30 years ++ with no parole,
except for poetic verse,
them words,
I learned to parlez-vous parlay

never been afeared of flying high,
even amidst the wickedest black pitch,
tar and feathered thick, which is all the
ovaltine shaped window of the
exterior world, cares to reveal
at thirty thousand feet

the oxygen level in the cabin,
as it usually does,
says hey!
feeling heady boy,
so get good, so get ready,
write us a poem, a new shiny toy,
another of your airborne verbal medley

I've got little upon
to expound,
currently limbo'd
tween fresh, death-revived,
past memories of imprisonment and release,
by the jailers of L'Ancien Régime
and
the soon to feel,
happy anticipation of
Frisco fresh young lives re-greeting us,
long distance visitors with joyous screams,
loud, clear and that may cut
the muddied gloom internal,
like a pair of welcoming,
gleeful, liberating scissors

my windowed widowed refraction,
directs my carpaccio-thin guise
to pierce onwards a well trod state of
deeper reflection

noting that we will soon be flying over
water poisoned Flint,
in the state of Michigan,
just missing by an inching,
Paul Simon's sung request,
his "all come to Saginaw" dare

yet, I don't know where I am,
though the course trajectory
pilot-officially programmed and set,
ticketed firect  through to
San Francisco

nonetheless, my internal organs all feel lost,
misplaced and turned down around,
passing directly over cities heard of
and yet never seen or footed,
can I still claim to have been there?

same question differently couched,
providing this passenger's headache,
I was there, of this world,
for the almost forty years plus,
though I wasn't really present,
merely accounted for,
finally learning that "freedom"
is just another word

and though the Angel of Death,
scheduled, made a pre-flight pick up,
he left part of me behind
and on board,
to pick up after,
steward some of his and my
messes

the eyes, the brain, the whole noggin,
search for secret signs,
potent portents, turn indicators,
that this gloomy doom,  cloud thicket,
this too shall pass,
this last shared repast of shards,
this,
my so long now song
an au revoir to
"sad eyed lady of the lowlands"

noting that I am outbound and seated,
on a bunch of lucky sevens, flight and seat,
could be my luck is youthful changing?

where I'm bound
I can't tell,
I'll let you know when I get there
when I know, how I'll know,
I don't know, maybe some
extrusion of new words will speak,
at landing time, a different voice,
where and when I'm bound,
that will cry out


"now unbound,
at last,
at last,
I have been released"
**

~~~
2/11~12/2016
started while over the Great Lakes, Michigan, and Wisconsin;
completed over Tahoe, Carson City, & Sacramento
"With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?


Oh, how could they ever mistake you?

They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,

How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day
just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?

Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,

Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?


Read more: Bob Dylan - Sad - Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands Lyrics | MetroLyrics
945 · Aug 2021
To the Immortal Gods:
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2021
I live on a small (25 sq. mile) island, accessible only by ferry.

                                                  <>

“For we are dear to the immortal gods,
Living here, in the sea that rolls forever,
Distant from other lands and other men”

—Homer, the Odyssey (translated by Robert Fitzgerald)

                                                    ­  <>

sea air inoculates the slowing breath-taking ferried voyager,
our landed cares felled, fall into a wake, trailing, sunk & submerged,
a ferry’s ramp contact-clangs, belling a “Here, Here!” alters our mien,
the softening airy enveloping, fragrantly, a greeting of immortal gods


no matter that we can vision-easy the neighboring isles, with
their trafficked-light busyness, the to and fro of mainland life,
bustle necessity of hustle, our riveted river moat cancels out
imposing surround sounds, our untucked flavor, floating free


wafting perfume of quiet inlet, creek and harbour, touch us safely,
alternating currents of gentle breeze, stiffer sailing winds, gusts,
bending us, these reminders, we humans too, creatures of elementals,
water, sun, forest, sand, animals, singular upon co-hosted menagerie


the brackish water, where fresh + marine waters mix, live + die,
reflecting our pooling diversity, so few of us born here, yet so many,
adopt and adapt the isle’s peculiarities, endearing all without any
distinction, we blessed together by Immortal Gods to shelter together,

by, from, the seas that roll us into one peaceful island, nearly, dearly,

and now departed


                                                      ­ <>


Shell Beach,
Shelter Island
August 2021
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2017
~~~
for Lucy: who gave me the title, three poems, a compliment, and the X Factor {inspiration} then disappeared
~~~
the spume,
the sea foam concentrate, a greener white,
from the the salt and the souls of million dead organisms,
the natural compost of its formation

it, watches the poet, who watches it,
the spume,
come ashore for its final act of
immolation by evaporation

which is why the random act of
an unseen ministering force,
fills my ears with humbling glory of

Samuel Barber's
Agnus Dei,^
my fresh reminder that this
fooling, swelling chest
in this temporary abode of mine human shape,
by the sea,
its passage and welling swelling,
is prepaid for too
expiration by evaporation

as all the white wooly lambs march to the sea,
transmigrating,
returning to spume

~~~
Lyrics to Agnus Dei

^ Alleluia Alleluia
For our Lord God Almighty reigns
Alleluia Alleluia
For our Load God Almighty reigns
Alleluia
Holy Holy
Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
You are Holy
Holy
Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
Amen
the  X Factor from Lucy

"-Lucy: ›
the undulating structure of the sea, woman

"I can feel the ebb and flow as I stood on the shore and dipped my toe in .....I waved hello back to the rhythmic pulls and lulls....
grateful to be submerged in
the swelling and the spume."


Aug 24
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2022
<~>
Pradip Chattopadhyay:
“I think of death now, but more than that, the life I left behind.”

this is like gray hair,
one day, just there,
lower back pain, joins the train,
this retrospection inspection,
seasonal,
neither spring summer or winter,
just a unique fall,
like gray hair,
appearing slowly,
surprisingly unsurprising.


there is no wisdom herein,
just timed capsule release
decay.
the weaker the eyesight becomes,
the squinting routine,
we see every moment,
through a rearguard retreat.



did we win, or just
stalemate?
we cannot accept
the sense of lost,
so squint harder,
for looking ahead
is refused
for that is a neutral state,
facing backwards
is the only warranted
directive,
that you must, must
take to make hard
judgement.
944 · Jul 2013
Trapped, A Sweet Nothing
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Trapped, A Sweet Nothing*

Creaky floor boards reveal my hallways travels,
Squeaky door hinges give my essays away,
Climbing back into bed, rouses you,
You ***, then come back to me,
Swing your leg over mine,
Instantly asleep, I am trapped.

This crumb of a sweet nothing,
Born and freed, another hidden tattoo
Inked, so no longer trapped,
Permanently free floating on the
Internet of us, but I, still plan my body's escape,
By kissing your neck's nape


7:34 am
7/27/13
941 · Sep 2013
To be (en)titled
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Saturday morning, well armed
coffee cup and newspapers,
from days past and miracle!
even future, Sunday news,
prematurely birthed.
Content to content.

Pandora supplies the music,
outside, clouds of steam tinge,
decorate a pale blue sky,
freshwater pearls from man,
a choker to grace
nature's blue purity.

All's well, a weekend day as
God meant it to be, labor free.

Then I am weeping.

Dan Fogelberg, poet songwriter,
cancer victim, longtime gone,
weeps me into a memorable mess.

Leader of the Band,
a tribute to his father,
shipwrecks me on his
river of souls.

So much more, needs adding.

But songs end, and so do I.

But the tears keep reforming,
falling freely as I acknowledge freely,
my father too, a good man,
a cancer victim,
who led his band,
his fellow patients in the
doctor's waiting room
in spontaneous uplifting song.

I have no idea why
I was so entitled.
I have no idea
what to entitle this.

As Dan wrote/sang,
cry when you have to,
it's part of the plan.
From seven months ago. My father died of cancer many years ago.   A god man.   If you don't know who Dan Fogelberg is, find out, so you can say, "he wrote/sang that, I love that..."
941 · Jan 2014
Ode to a Kelly Rose
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
your beauty does not fade,
your self, remaking, and remade,
you see empty,
we see refilling,
seeking, dreaming,
but make no mistake,
isolation is not your condition,
no, instead think permutation,
you are skin shedding, evolving
the newer new, substance over
lip gloss of surface
and the voyage of transition
is wondrous to us.
Behold!
Behold, a
Kelly Rose!
Jan 25th, 2014
Postscript:

Tho the central sun warms the unfolding,
It is the bitter winded cold of the northeast that
Queries, what is the stuff of your composure?
Where artists litter the pavement, some rising,
Some falling, but all teaching by watching
You pirouette.

So when the inner quest is not sufficient,
Come to where the weather's central quest,
Is a reminder constant that there is no answer,
For humans are seasonal creatures,
Forever changing their skins or else
Slow dying under a tan that hides
No change

The postscript came to me later, obseving the snow flurries and and the NYCB dancers performing Concert Barocco (music by Bach) at the ballet now
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2018
35,088 feet over Nebraska,  

(Nebraska-imagining me climbing a ladder, me upwards, Jacob’s angels coming down, off to a high school All Saints wrestling match in a cornfield town)

a place not on my bucket list, just a blue bias of an eastern stater’s unknowns, a sure sign of how much he doesn’t know

reading Patti’s slender volume “Devotion”

slender like her body, some would call it a wiry woman's
sparse but directed, connective, word-worshipping,
old familiar strangers she delivers to you that you have never met, her phraseology striking me and strikingly beautiful simultaneous

scan it and understanding instantaneous
she asking,
why do we write?

her answers are fine copper wire threaded
into a coil and I close it quick cause the loving ****** desire to
plagiarize such an oddly gorgeous offerings is overwhelming;
I feel the wire words piercing my temple, intending to
emerge out the other side, a decorative symmetry,
I don’t own

my need to script some cursive on my smooth body parts,
on my god-given papyrus, always at the ready,
is a methadone itch, a dulling urge needy for fulfillment,
that needs satisfying but me, soundly second rate,
write like the flip side of a hit vinyl record, no one is expected to play, fulfillment meets futility

thus the title is a modification of a Patti light touch

my alchemy never made any gold and my present presence now over Iowa a reminder that my prescriptions are 1200  evacuations; they are negative commandments,
proscriptions, not prescriptions

do not write, do not wrong words with a middling diffidence,
hide your face and put her words on a shelf above your head
hard to reach, so you do not be tempted

why do we write?

“All seeking an emptiness to imbue with words.  
The words that will penetrate ******
territory, crack unclaimed
combinations, articulate the infinite.” Patti Smith

disambiguation she relieves us of uncertainty
my combinations over Waterloo, Illinois
are ordinary smokestack gray, a spewing wastage,
the angels conforming that my words Cain-fail,
my confession
meets no one’s standards, not even mine

7:07pm Central Time
march 25 2018
940 · May 2014
penne alla vodka
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
in the midnight hour
desperate men do desperate things,
this a tale of one man
facing down a terrible challenge

in the city that never sleeps, NYC,
especially this sleepless natty resident,
(of that fact, the bible speaks)
when there is nothing left to write or say,
could pick up the phone and order
penne alla ***** delivered to his bed
better yet, hot and direct

not sure
which I prefer,
the penne
or the *****

but in the absence annually
of my master mistress,
all bets are off,
she communes with nature,
I, with pasta

really?
really?

Frosted Flakes for dinner was not well and
sufficient?

have you seen you waist line lately,
or is that a physical impossibility?

drat rat

will forgo my pasta orange creamsicle,
but you will be sorry too,
cause instead you have to share,
to eat,
this awful poem in bed
next to me

12:34am
Ogdiddy Natsch strikes again
937 · Apr 2014
Of Chocolate Moons
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
of chocolate moons,
dried, well-preserved seascapes,
A-Tisket, A-Tasket
none of which he had ever seen,
understood,
but nonsense alliteration garners
fast and vast attention of the interned masses,
for somehow easier to comprehend
the silly notions of what does not exist,
chocolate moons, dried, well preserved,
museum-quality wet seascapes and word-plays
that require no Hail Mary passes or penitence

so let us rose compose of frosted flaked flowers
of folklorish hobgoblins,
ice cream coated,
of Crunch 'n Munch Sweet Gourmet Popcorn,
a ConAgra "Food" grown only on
Arizona highway-crossed landscapes,
where babies, snatched from above, into moving cars,
taken from, then to, the lost and found
of kidnapped earthlings
are awaiting your reading pleasure

if nonsense pleases,
nonsense scrip'd and delivered,
all we aim for is temple offerings
of what crowd-pleases,
around the tepee fire
we peyote ancestor tales
mostly glorified white men's defeats, legitimized,
ignoring the concentration camp existence and
USDA excess garbage food,
a god, with love, delivers

the components of sewing needles,
a hole and a little sliver of silvered steel,
stitch word worshipping poets into frenzies
of imagined images that cake bake the crowds
with football arena'd pleasures,
their brains all the while,
being measured for a casket,
A-Tisket, A-Tasket,
this poem making
perfect sense to those
who sleep no more
I have no recollection of writing this, but apparently I did.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
July 3, 2011


These were the orders of the day,
issued by admirals
who monitor the lanes surrounding
this sea island and that now include
my desolated, desecrated, heart waves
that wash ashore.  

With beacon searchlight,
high powered, prowl,
be a coast guard on the bay
of humanity, following wakes,
intersecting misaligned paths,
undoing crisscrossed roads
on a plane of water,
forever search,
permissioned only
to never cease, tasked only to:

Save the young ones.

For there is no cost
we will not bear,
take our mind's light,                
our speech, the music from ears,
the fiber'd essence of
our tissue-thin life's weave,
but let us be, leave us,
to save the young ones.

Leave us not becalmed, baffled,
broken, discovering
what sound we make
when our throats are
grief engorged beyond bound,
so leave us the young ones.

When we fail, what it is,
I do not know,
how to name it, cannot,
for I am forever
star gazing, star lost, confused,
with every breath ruptured,
my own value to wonder,
and on and on to ponder:

Is there no end to the reservoir
of tears that accompany these
spilled and spoiled thoughts,
stained kisses on paper
where ink and saltwater connect,
and lay upon the surface of
memories that can't be blotted,
never be replaced or,
cry out, cry out,
be added to?

How many sad poems.              
must yet invade my fingers,
ripping my mask of reason off,
making me unhappily familiar
with jagged edges of the sea,
each drop - a tipping point
into places I wanted never know,
a rendering reminder of
these days of disorder,

Save the young ones.
How I used to write...hundreds of poems in dustbins, but like this I right no more.
935 · Jul 2023
Acts of Kindness
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
Acts of Kindness

<>

let this be
my first rule,
and my last,
in ~ deed,
my only

begin, end,
and populate
my daily life
with the courtesy
of sharing my
abundance
with you

July 4th
2023
7:53AM
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
Writ and posted here,  one year ago today, and one ego later, progress made...




The time, the place, the setting:

T'is some hour for sleep, prescribed,
For me, the reality of sleep, proscribed.

The strains of Bach's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major
Haunt.
Richard II's words
Give pause, precision refinement of my cause courant.

“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the ***** of the earth”


Two am in New York, sleep,
As advertised,
Literally, a passing acquaintance,
Doesn't make it to
The side of the bed occupied by
100% of me.
Seems he went
From chimney to chimney
This past Sunday morn.
Not having a chimney,
He flue right over me.

No matter.
Company aplenty,
Ego and moi,
We, had a long talkie.
A bit of a wrestle, a staring contest
In a mirror, we watched ourselves,
In the pitch black
where clarity is perfect,
For nothing else exists,
But ego and me,
To distract us.

“I'll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
Give me that glass and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds?
O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me!”


Called my lawyer just now,
ordered her to commence
the divorce papers, serve them ASAP,
I need to rid myself of
My oldest nemesis, my oldest friend,
Mine vanity, my ego.

Let me explain
myself to myself.
You may tag along for the ride.

Writing is more important
than any of the individual
Five senses
That feed this addiction.
Without sound, sight, touch, smell and taste,
I can live quite well,
Thankee.

But ****** boy mind needs to write
Simple survival.
No write, no life.

But ****** bad boy ego is a curse,
A contaminate of each and every
Line, stanza,word and verse.

"Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin”


At first, for an audience of three
I performed,
Me, myself and I.

But the suckiness creepeth in,
and etches my distorted face,
Salutations and gradations,
demanding confirmation
Of Shakespearen magnification.

Do you like me?
Do you love me?
****** all.

Curse ye King Ego and your vainglorious occupations,
Divorce me, from the sad isle of
Self
Self worth,
Pride, vanity insurance,
The most deadly of the seven
Deadly sins.

Ego desperate in kind responds:

"I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?”


Slime and slippery, want is what you feel,
Taste grief, need friends,
Sly devil, you twist thy cunning tongue,
The reverse, your plain meaning!
You need nothing but subjects,
In earnest and forever praise,
Absent them, you mood and whine,
A pretender, a poseur, a drug addict cursed!

Let us purpose to dispose of thy spirit earthly,
Slow starvation too good for you,
Poison, arrows, the hilt of my blade,
The neck, thine bowel,
Let me embrace,
Prefer your steel hot or cold?

If we both must expire, then it be so, for
My honor taken, my life forsaken,
My poetry in disrepute,
Until that day when I write for me alone,
And ally my scripts, in coffin, with me interred.

*"My dear, dear Lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away
Men are but gilded loan or painted clay...
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one;
Take honor from me, and my life is done."
PostScript:
Number me thus, in the company of
The good but the forgot,
Still will be of cheer goodly,
For tho ***** could not be saved,
Not one good man found in the ****** lot,,
Except for one, the truest audience of one,
Thus I will be saved, thus, call me, Lot.

-----------------------
My battle to destroy my ego is minute to minute hand to hand combat.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2017
The Daily Prayer                               The Daily Prayer
AUG 2010                                            OCT  2017

Be forever young 'n humble;   seven yearlings of plenty famine;
Feel ancient and royal;              youthful graybeard commoner now,
Ride tall in the saddle;              old hoary, crooked headed ancien
Do something nifty;                   content to just, just walk crookedly

Take someone's hand                if they permit, for hands gnarled,
Unexpectedly:                             roughened and time toughened,
Drive home in the slow lane;   only the city bus, now bows, kneels,
Do the de minims;                      how has the minimalist become
Do the de maximis;                     the max, the best old-dog-in-show?
Leave a book on a park bench;  forgetfulness, unintended bonuses,
Use pen n paper, write a letter; the fingers shaky press cell button,
Take a chance, make people laugh; your appearance quite the joke,
Barrel into contention;                 a barrel casket, half your wardrobe
Show mercy to the confused, no arrogance, have mercy upon poets,
Show anger to the abusers. for they fear voices calling out, account!
Bless a child with both hands; now take their blessings returned
Grasp your soul; throw it down, others sidle, it's our time, now,
Then raise a child to the sky.       to raise you up father of fathers
Straight up,                                    straighten your time bents, curves,
Build a continuum,                       honor thy work ever continuing
You and they,                                 we, and you, we are all your steps,
              on a ladder of each poem, to guide us heavenward


*each poem a prayer, each prayer a poem, passing back, coming forth in the crests upon the beach and bay you so loved, the moon and sun both shine simultaneously while it rains straight,
                                    all come, each to recite,
even the One with whom you vociferous argued, unrepentantly,
all here, together placing that weighty last period at the end of
                                        your daily prayer.
https://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=a+daily+prayer

a suggestion- read each side as a separate poem, then across as one

8:37am 10 years later, 10 years lateral, 10 years lovely. 10 years in the writing
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2016
embrace the stones
that obstacle the journey,
gather them in, together keep,
for they are the markers,
you have used,
you have been,
you have exhausted,
so long after the body ashed,
these words will trace for
those that follow the path
you marked with
these same stones
you gathered in
olden days of
simple joyous embrace
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
Yo! Yo! My Drug of Choice (**** Poets)**


Yo! Yo!
Member of the troupe?
You up all nite?
You always hungry,
Making trouble, rite?
You one of those?

**** poets!

Exist on strict diet?
Pleasured-pain,
Constant-continual surges
Turn into urges,
Full-time suspense,
Juices always flowing.

**** Poets!

Yo! Yo!
You one of those?
Never knowing,
What? When?
The eyes gonna invert
Retina images into words
Brain signaling, semaphoring the fingers
Yo! Yo!
You don't get nine months,
Maybe nine seconds,
Then mother-birth another verse,
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!
Remember your first real high,
That moment
No absolution, no return.
That moment
When you admitted, confessed,
to yourself:

I am
Forever forward,
A home-grown poet.
I am
Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both,
Addict and dealer
A ****** poet

Yo! Yo!
So you do recall,
The exact moment,
God-spark-within, ascendancy gained
You lost control,
Wept words instead of tears!
A ****** poet ******!

Yo! Yo!

Sophie's Choice.
You chose writing over breathing,
Worshiper of the purest pleaure,
******* in deep the smoke-high of
Head-nodding discontented contentment
Stealing anything you saw
For to satisfy the need, the craven
Craving.
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!

Don't you're ever sleep?
Hear that the city, the state,
Gonna methadone your kind
In a special program
Teach you only language to sign.
**** poets!

I am a ****** poet.

The first step taken.
Admission.
Poetry is my default rest position,

My drug of choice.

5:07am
June 12, 2013


PostScript:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.
Happy First Anniversary to this poem, a favorite...
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
Past the green copper bell-ed,
Thru the the single trees, un-felled.

Do you see that solitary-sentinel chair,
Empty? No, not.
Can you not see the sweep,
The vista, the poems hanging about,
Ripe for the plucking from the quiet,
Nestled in the soil, on the wings of gulls,
Who do not fly, but let the wind keep them
And their cargo, standing-still, in place,
Awaiting my attention, my need.

You read less and less,
The more and more I write.
It's ok, I understand that.
Blessed to have found the spot,
Where the poems make a crowd,
And the giving is good and healing, easy.

A long as there be ten righteous,
The Lord acceded to Abraham's plea,
***** would not be destroyed.
I am less demanding,
For I am just human.

As long as but five,
Acknowledge the caring,
Lick my wounded words like vanilla,
Is that too much to ask?

If but one finger points and marks it
Read, is that not sufficient to let this
Battle be ended, tween ego and truth,
Pride of craft, and, weak craving for attention-no-deficit?

If it be, that only the sea grasses, rooted deep, sway,
On the beach, a few feet from where, the chair spends its days,
Clap their hands silently to
Acknowledging the harvesting of the words,
That too will be noise enough to satisfy
The Lord who tendered them, all this, to me
For safe keeping, and giving me no choice but to write,
If but to honor all words, and their creators,
Each and every one.


See my photo, to better undertstand...
Writ a year ago, when I picked poems from the air, there for the taking like fallen fall leaves that decorate the world, this September   chilly and chilling Monday...bless y'all for liking this so much...really physically and mentally blocked, for many reasons so I repost the old ones when appropriate...
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