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Nat Lipstadt Mar 2024
Tessellation & Interstices


”A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface,
often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes,
called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps…In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of geometries.”


the insistent need to be distinguished
means many are not,  
indeed,
this hunger
to be an influencer
and never just an influencé.

creeply creates a linear surface,
a flooring to be trod upon,
a tessellated plane,
were we each fit in
right-tight juxtaposition
and we are noticeable for our
uniformity and

the scuff marks of having been trod upon,
well used.

it is in the chips of irregularities,
the overlaps and the gaps
where we touch and connect
with our individual Ah Ha’s,
where our Venn Diagram Lives
intersect, infect, interfere, inject,
in the tiny
interstices
tween us,
the jagged, irritatingly edgy
rubbings
that the friction of creativity
is comedically inseminated.

I love a good tense sweat,
that invasive, deep boring burring,
that demands
instant creative solutions lest the angst of
an unwritten-in-the-moment-poem
is even more annoying,
before it is annoyingly,
befogged, lost forever.

that is why with old age,
fearsome fast
short term memory loss,
some turn to the speedy freedom of
free verse,
unconstrained by socks
and well fitting shoes,
and the slip on sneakers
of rhyming,
so insistent on perfection,
that the
burr is absorbed,
the irritant rubbing is creamed away,
and that loss of
a pouring of the soul’s ******* of
Done!
is
our exclamatory mutual curse
saturday sabbath
march 2
2034
9:50am
734 · Apr 2014
There is exactitude
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
There is exactitude
and certitude

no matter what
the returns of the day

corrosion festers,
the depression spikes,
like a fever that is
drug resistant

the consumption residue,
white ash, black trimmed
festoons my innards,
dresses up my facade

vacuous and vacant
are the vagaries
that only flow, never ebb,
jubilant light effaced

my countenance equanimous,
my demeanor unmeaned,
but but but but but
nothing but but but

t'is not but the mood of the moment
t'is the chronic the endemic
there is an exacting certitude
this is the underground stream
the runs my poetry down
733 · Sep 2013
Friend
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Mine own selfish cares distract.
Perhaps making me, too late

I hear, I see you are in a place,
where questioning is the new normal.
You know there here be,
legions, armies of people,
whom you have touched, cored.
I am one,, who has floated on your river,
And was bettered for its cleansing.

Whatever it takes,
whatever I have,
beseech you,
beseech me!
You know this one is for you...amazing to me that in a time of *******, get lost, some of us reach across, reach out, unashamedly...To offer promises, mumbles, whatever it takes to right your bent neck and grasp your elbow, so we are but one arm, one back.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
Two men, one poem
Two men, one poem.

This day, on this site.
Two men wrote to me.
One called me brother.
The other, an arrogant *****,
Called me little.

One shared his life,
With humility and gratitude,
That I lost it. Wept. Baby like.
Honored me with trust.
Swapped spit stories
That bled into my brain,
And a tattoo appeared on my
Writing arm, one word,
Humility.

One boasted of his beans.
His bean counting reads.
Analyzed his trends,
Predicting by Christmas (!),
He would have this many.

His **** poems he informed,
Would be published.
What need did he have
For punk-u-ation,
His rants, his **** stream of words.
Better than mine,
Just cause his stuff I said,
Not my cup of tea.

What a crazy place this place.
Holy and *******, sided.
Humble humble, always humble.

He invoked, this arrogant one,
God's name.
Not knowing I talk to Him.

So I rang Him up and said,
How did a little peenus-genius
Find his way onto this
Holy Place, HP, of kindness.

He smiled in brevity.
Did I not create both,
Angels and devils?

I love God's brevity.
His commas, his question marks,
His pointed punctuation.

I love that He could create
A man whose sight of
Me, unseen, but found capacity
To love me in ways
Undreamed.

Because I peered in to the man's reveal,
Saw quality, value,
Saw humility.

So of arrogance, I said,
I would write.
But it is of humility
I will sing,
Of loving human kindness extraordinaire.

Of weeping endless.
At the joy afforded me
To read so many lovely poems,
Here.

If my poems never see the
Imprimatur of a publishing house,
It matters not,
For I have seen a human being
Weep real tears reading mine.

I have shed rivers of my own
Upon discovering yours.

Humble, humble.

If it is glory you seek,
You will find it,
All alone. Mastur-bating.

Me, I live here, in the midst of a
Good Company.
Sept. 7th, 2013
Nat Lipstadt  
I appreciate this, but it does not connect for me...many beautiful phrases and images, but I am left confused other than the general tenor...just not my cup of tea. Sorry


Unnamed:

Well friend I guess I will take comfort in my writing being published through the University of Arizonian and being invited out to the winter and spring release parties. Then I have two hundred and thirty eight thousand reads on my two writing sites that will reach three hundred thousand by Christmas I will try to go on God bless you.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2024
“What information pertains:
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly
Into our hearts and our brains”
<>
Paul Simon “Train in the Distance”
<>
a songwriter inserts a precise scalpel cut
in the nether part of the brain
where we bury
things we-wish not to recall, but
that particular
poem-scrap-dagger/byte

must remain a permanent
guest on a cruise ship
going around the world that can
never return to your
hailing port

“indelibly”
that which we hope
that cannot be
removed or forgotten
or in a reverse
of a kinda curse,
this hope stabbing
is springing eternal

when I need to be bleak,
quiet on all fronts,
silence the voices
desirous to speak
in tones moving me
from down sided
up, to up and away

that **** thought
life could be better
if f—king only…

is a cut that never
ceases to bleed~leak,
can’t be curettage away,
never healed,
it’s indelible

it’s a saturday morning
bright and chilly
indelibly
incurable
stamped and stampeding
on my mind
that this arctic exploration,
is self-exploitation
and curse my
heart and brain that won’t
accept my explanation
nor my pleading pleas
wet knots of
begging to anyone in particular
to please
leave me alone
&
this is how the week
ends

October 2024
731 · Oct 2013
Chuck Close
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
Ran into Chuck yesterday,
Rather he ran into me.
Ran the wheels of his chair
Right over five toes of me.

Apologetic, he said.
No matter I replied,
You keep painting,
I'll keep writing,
Call it even.

Got me five more,
And here is one
To commemorate our
Interaction.
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at a TEDx.
Created October 20, 2013
Yes I saw Chuck there,
As for the rest, that's between
Him and my smilie
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
The bed head of the old and dead

A little tougher to comb and thread.
No matter, you should see god's.
If you want to really crack up,
His long and white beard is outrageous,
It Is Perfection,
Cause it gets brushed
every time
A new poem
is written.
Created October 20, 2013
729 · Nov 2013
I will never need ask
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
love is easy to fall into.
love is hard but still
so so easy,
to fall out of.

many are the women
I have desired.
enough are the women
I have lain beside.

but friends true, in all my life,
number less than the fingers
on one hand.

Sometimes your lovers
are also your friends.
lovers must learn
the other's boundaries,
respect them,
to stay lovers.

ex-lovers,
jumping back and forth,
over that
crack in the sidewalk,
trying, but man,
that's so hard,
almost never bother.

but give me one true friend,
man or woman,
will give them my blood,
my skin, my organs, my money,
and never ask for anything back
or in return.

simply because,
I will never need
ask.
11/23/13
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2020
~for the men and women who fish to feed the soul of others~


this spring we will not walk Central Park.  The cherry blossoms and the new buds will go unobserved, and just like a
felled tree
in the forest, their birthing,  weeping, and silent dying, will go unheard.

but the roses come!

delivered by Whole Foods, red roses included with our food order,
for red roses are a vital staple, a gift of the globalized logistical feat that feeds we eight million prisoners, a red beacon to all currently

held in solitary confinement.

The men who bring them from the Netherlands, and the men from the Caribbean who deliver them, they by virus, as of yet, have not

been felled.

and I turn my mind’s eye to the mountains of heaven asking
“From Where will Come Our Salvation?”^

heaven answers with a wry awry, why Whole Foods, of course!

the cut roses pass in a few days, their heads slumped over, victims of their own virus, the inevitability + cyclicality of time.

but the petals, pose a question,
as they too are
felled and fall,
how is our death different from yours?

neither I, or the quietus of the empty streets,
even heaven,
have a ready reply;
for all of us are
felled, fallen,
by an onerous, hungry
silence.



^ Psalm 121:1
723 · Sep 2013
Morning Menu - 3 in One Oil
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
Morning Menu  - 3 in One Oil

The sky offered me pale blue as color of the morn.

The crows, caw cawing, a cacophonous concert.

She offered myself the possibility of coffee.

I put my hands between her legs.

I took what was,
Closest,
Not because of sunday-laziness,
But,
Because I could choose
The color, the sounds, the taste
I wanted.

And I called it
3-In-One Oil


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-In-One_Oil
Was I explicit enough?
723 · May 2014
Cliffy (Read the new poets)
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
Cliffy (Read the new poets)


someday I shall board a bus in
North London,
should my dimmed eyes not find him,
shall board another and another
till at last allayed and allied,
my pink newspaper wrapped,
slim volume of gifted boldness,
thirty-one antique poems shall I hand this
odd bespectacled man, their father,
their author

to name him new is confusing
for his originalities, new here,
sourced from over twenty years of past recent,
most writ before the current horde of
genghis khan occupying invaders
were body birthed
and long
before
they birthed themselves
their first
écriture

an acquired taste,
he acquired my taste one night,
when despair mastered my outer view,
words were ashen under the sun,
nothing new and I forsook my mother tongue

this odd owlish glassed creature,
will not charm you or delight you

he will originate you
say there is another way,
so old fashioned that it is
cutting edge
and not cutting oneself

do you ask these questions?

Whose resurection is this
                                anyway ?
Has anyone seen the messiah today ?
There is never a messiah around when
You need one ?
Perhaps I shouldn't speak of th?ese things
Lightly

But what can be done ?
Have you ever smoked a ******
In a temple ?
Do you know what these kinda words
Resemble ?
Did you ever think life is just incidental ?
I can picture druids hovering above sacred corpses
Laughing at their impunity,
And tripping on their vulnerability
It's not a long way between Jesus and sin.

Y'know
Y'know
Having *** whilst wearing a strait-jacket
Is better than having no *** at all
I always echo the optimist's call
But I'm tied to a spastic cross
Where I present my loss.

All theses thoughts came to me
Much later in history.


But now I must board another bus
In North London,
to find a true original
and perhaps find a sterling pound
of my own

http://hellopoetry.com/cliffy-buglione/
reposting is nice but inherently cheap because it is made so easy, it clogs the inbox repeatedly with the popular ones...Poetess Ingrid you are next...
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2016
~~~
"Fact about me:  You design me"

line from a poem published here on Nov. 30, 2013
part I of a trilogy
nml

~~~

6:33am

9 minutes left
in the AM hour of my tribulation,
the re-design time,
redoing  my outer shell

legs pounding,
towel sodden soggy,
soon return to home
do my morning ablutions
followed by a frosty walk
to the multiple screens
for trading things

makeover, do-over,
but you can only easy
shed and cleanse
exterior surfaces,
shape and appearance,
the inside stuff,
that's the gut wrencher

don't be so ******* yourself
kid!

nah ain't gonna
kid
myself

too old, too much a wise guy
to show much forgiveness to self,
of untruly yours,
whose design was only 50% mine

someone is dying,^
my cocktail of
words and emotions
more muddled than my
usual abnormal,
while sweating off
the golden baddies
to the golden oldies

so where exactly is the
truth burden?^^

somewhere  between sad
and  a curt "no cares"

my physical reformation,
is part and parceled,
of my regeneration,
the one who gave me
the desire to die before my time,
is dead before her time,
and I don't know the clear water truth
of my variable emotions

design me?

she is deigning to
design me still
with her untimely death

so I cycle even harder
to release the anxiety of
mis-everything
regretting what was lost,
now missed,
that too was, and is,
part of my design,
part of
burden of truths
that design who we
were, are, and yet
may be
^my ex-wife of a tumultous 33 year marriage died three hours after I wrote this, succumbing to a painful and terrible ending battle with cancer.
Written while working out on the stationary bike in the gym, at 6:33 am
2/11/16
~~~

^^ a poem no one read but on my mind

The Truth Burden: "Poetry is a Self-Policing Agency, Enforcing Nothing" ~
~~~
a poem derived from these words of
Joel M Frye
"Poetry is a self-policing agency, enforcing nothing"
~~~

The Truth Burden
is the accursed need obligatory,
the sacred sanctity requisitioned,
when the whenever,
chooses to drops in and upflag the mailbox,
an uninvited invitation,
announcing with precise bluntness,
that precisely now,
is the tool crafted moment
and you fool,
the selected tool

you must render unto Ceaser,
by your own hand,
render your own rendering,
do your own undoing,
go forth and in haste,
will thyself into the cauldron of the
Great Mystery of Creation

you cannot lie in poetry

-one can only validate-

you will tell the whole truth,
and nothing but,

all in good order,
to secure me to thee,
to muddle our molecular cocktail mix,
you must,
must give only
truth in poetry,
or give
nothing

police yourself
in every aleph bet,
don't substance abuse us with deceit,
give only your unburdening,
force us to lip kiss
when
we face each other,
when
pronouncing the blessed script of
ourselves,
that we have been granted by sharing
each other's unvarnished lettres

the burden is
to un burden

cut out what needs
to be bridged from
the secret walled-in safe,
and give form, life and breath,
expose it to the atmosphere,
reform your bleak introspection and bitter realism,
turn blue blood veined internal
into an amberina red,
all by being
unsaved, unsavory, unsafe

you are the enforcer,
you are the police,
you are the validation
and the validator,
enforcing this sole law,
police your self,
give us

with no agent in between,

give us
nothing but,
a voice
one will recognize instantly
as the whole fats milk of
truth

oh, how I will embrace thy
one and only,
when given,
your

one and only

for do we dare disagree that is
each other's truths that
shall set us free?

•••

for we are the inhabitants,
of this wild land of no inhibitions,
no rule of laws,
except one,

defend the essence,
protect the defenseless integrity,
promote the mystery of the human
poem
~~~
written in the great blizzard of 2016.


Joel M Frye ›

poetry is a
self-policing agency,
enforcing nothing.

You remind me of a favorite prayer, Nat:
"I thank You for this day, Great Spirit, and I step willingly into the mystery of it."

Glad I am you share this journey. Thank you.


January 23 - 30, 2016
Nat Lipstadt May 2024
Adding minutes to a lifetime (saying magic words)

”And you, dear poet, friend of many years,
have given me so many inspirations, birthed within
us words,so oft, and so well, that your pithy observations,
manufacture time, add minutes to lifetimes

<>

wrote these words without thinking,
they’re sweet and neat, trivial but incomplete

but upon rear mirror review, Mr Poet
re-thinks, perhaps deserved of another serving,
curvy white, soft-to-the-lips, a moist vanilla kiss,
excellent ice cream in a sugar cone, words irresistible

for the sweetest poem sparks multi-coloration-explosion
of sprinkles ‘pon  a skin’s surface,
uprisings of what lurks in the centrum of your
embodied universe and disembodied soul,
shockingly uprising from an internal fulcrum,
sea~tossed flotsam of a jagged life, now, all recovered
words sprinkling, beach treasures, and yet,
*
adding minutes to a lifetime…

reliving old reels, is time recaptured, creating a
certain robust additive to thine cranking and
cranky engine, that’s logged much more than
a picayune hundred thousand miles on a voyage
of e i g h t decades, you employ ten fingers to
calculate your fugue of multi-voiced numerations!


can it be? it cannot be! millions upon millions of
minutes, possess and passed, yet highlight feature
films, enabling reliving so real that by watching,
seeing, believing, re-reading it is as if one is earning
life extensions…adding minutes to a lifetime…


‘tis true, rereading every small scrip, every poem,
returns one to prior-places, each a datum,
a particular spot, a point upon a schema of integrity & integration,
that rule the visions, a message of individualism
in the largest context of a true vision(arie)


“chacun un point dans une peinture pointilliste…”
“each a point within a pointillistic painting…”

in a few years, a stumbling upon shall here return me here,
and I will smile with great gratitude for the life extended,
accepting with gratitude,

these few seconds, a last lasting chance,**
to say some magic words
with a great vanilla whispering
adding minutes to you life as well


nml
may 5~6
2024
722 · Apr 2014
2:29am Poems by the Numbers
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
"All the cokes are the same
and all cokes are good"

"Everybody looks alike and acts alike,
and we're getting more and more that way."*

Andy Warhol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you read and
you are not read

the numbers,
add up or they don't

I will never write a
paint-a-poem-by-the-numbers

here and there
an authentic voice,
amidst all the
paint-a-poem-by-the-numbers,
mass produced in "The Factory"

I get it, Andy,
I hate Coke,
I hate cheap and easy writings,
the most assuredly not,
real thing

2:29am
I will never give them what they want,
only what they don't want
to hear

2:32am
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
Do justice in whatever you do,
but first do justice
to yourself

then and thus equipped,
then and thus experienced,
never ever forget -
forgiveness is a kind of punishment.

remember that when you
do justice in whatever you do

set the bar higher
for yourself,
so you can lower it
limbo style,
for everybody else
G'nite
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2020
~
infinitude (noun): the state, the quality of being without limit, infinite

    
        ~
drew first breath, woken to the heart’s rpm thankless task,

conscious aware, that solved proofs deny infinitude,

yet, triumvirate of five senses, brain waving,
a steadying thumping heart,

all asking why not?

can I will it?

the body’s parts convene, debating furious, some claiming
a sell-by-date cellular programmed, nothing to be done,
dimming of the day, a human necessity, the self-salvaging process

but a single cell, a mouse-sized squeaker, boldface stuns,
”feed me, moisturize, give me sleep + blue blood nourishment,
I’m good to go in a forever Iditarod!”


the others ashamed of their festival of fear, knowing well
what has gone before, dreaming thoughts of infinitude, go silent,

while “why not?”
lingers in the lungs, the breathable shared, atmosphere,

the senses spread the quest to every remote province,
with each continuing a chant grows ever louder,
a millennium of poems concealed, yet awaiting conception,
all entitled,
why not”reverberating.

<+>
7:36am 2022020
nyc everywhere
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2024
East River: The Many Calories in Water and Words**

this weighty obsession, counting the energy
consumed and disbursed,
to be lean but not mean,
traverses into its third year

a late start does not forgive
over Forty years of transgressions, that damage,
sustained and in part irreversible,
yet I awake this Sunday morn,
all quiet on the East Side front, observing the East River flows
on the surface, contented and uncontested,
strongly bound for faraway Oceans unknown, and it tickles my
imagination that the rain from the nearby Adirondack and Catskills mountains might soon be quenching thy flora, fauna and your parched throats, confirming and conforming our connection and threading our interwoven tapestries, our unified aqueduct, carrying
with more than poetic words, but poetic water!

this notion sustains in multiple manners, and I deep drink the calm and the power as if it were,
for it is,
a daily vitamin,
calorie free,
God  delivers

Delivering
us with
its contained and contentented potency,
to all
in equal dosage

and now the script finished,
the water imbibed,
this baptized, scripture loving
mind and body
as/is
wholly holy
refreshed,
as are we,
my friend

8:38AM
April 14, 2024
by the East River
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Sandy Hook: When the Fates Allow...

December and the replay endless:

"From now on our troubles will be miles away,
Here we are as olden days,
Happy golden days are yours,
Faithful friends who are dear to us,
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years we'll all be together,
If
The fates allow"


This careless, unguarded atmosphere,
This season...this irony...

Grief besotted, Secret-weeper,
Days/hours-hours, now months later.
All of us perishable, all of us diminished.

Days pass, anguish angry persists,
the bitter herb remorse greater grows,
You, devil, in the details,
The fates don't easy permit to let
Time succor sorrow to leave.

All of us, joined, hand holding,
The living and passed,
In the valley of dried bones
Where dreams-dismembered,
Rivers  of desperate-dismay
Turned aside and

And on that day when:
The breath of the fresh fates
Wash and bleach with great tenderness,
The evil put upon the broken bones.
The shrouded shadows of the valley,
Bent, banished, sundered, yet now,
Surrendering to the only
Immutable law of human emotion,
A hopeful voice.

For the radio reminds us!
T'is the season to remember
Our peculiar, American anthem,

Faithful friends who are dear to us,
Gather near to us once more,
Through the years we'll all be together,
Not if never if but when,
Please!
When the fates allow.





Dec. 22, 2012
Updated: June 8, 2013
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2017
this debt, this book, this tort,
so overdue, uncivil wrong demanding reconciliation,
that the librarians sent the hoodlums
to remind me of my obligations

there must be unfinished, three or four Gebbie precursors,
lying about awaiting further final definition
unmarshaled me, unable to see them through to completion,
but my hindsight, my guilty plea, aided by an assertive,
rear self-kicking, offers me some motivation immediacy

When I see the Auckland Sky Center in photos,
a hard hatted man with softest heart always,
is on top, doing his native Aussie global
(in place) walkabout, better to see,
the cubature volume of the global poetry underneath his feet,
the poetic underworld, needing a
Gebbie supervisory drilling read down

Enough!

unsatisfactory above this ditty notation for one who
tenders unto me comforting words that
drill down so deeply, keeping,

"the night shall not disrobe you,"

that only a single rhyming word
is satisfactory but yet too,
is insufficient to capture
the audio of innards weeping

surely aware, the nighttime, is when I best my own analytics,
disrobing in a room of black letters on a white background
for all who stumble by moonlight on the bards of "perchance,^"
giving pieces of me to the those who not only read my verses,
but those who ken
that the unspoken spaces in between,
containers of what is not writ,
but only modestly well hid,
is where lies oft the more important script

and he gets that...

where the skills when most needed?
his precision will deserves artistry, not sophistry,
and I am flailing, failing inadequately to pay my overdue

it is early morn in Taranaki,
perhaps he will see this lackey's lacking insufficiency,
before he goes climbing man-made towers
that bear witness
to mens bigger dreams,

perhaps when he returns later tonight,
in a snifter of old malt scotch,
his "last one for the road"
he will see it floating,
and think of me,
this time, happily,
disrobing mine soul's own nighttime,
trusting him to keep all safe,
entrusting it to him,
and to Janet,
my best,
red and black,
sweetest dreams

<>
https://hellopoetry.com/marshal-gebbie/

9/5/17 13:55pm
716 · Apr 2014
Spring In Derbyshire
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
spring In Derbyshire
two hearts,
one person,
her lovelies,
ankles,
skipping on the streets,
carrying a woman's body,
healing winter-slow,
six pence better,
since December,
yet, still unmended

spring brings warmth and sun...
the farming of the
high gritstone moorlands,
so needy for these
things that are
the all~important.

Energy blessed to her,
selfless redistributed,
being used on the little ones...

Chasing rainbows and planting veg -
sweet peas, sunflowers, raspberries -
harvest the pumpkins,
some to take to the market,
a marker of her hopes

harvest her words,
a marker~market~maker,
anonymous woman~mother-poet
from the Derbyshire
of our hopes

March 24, 2014
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2015
studied dispassion,
go about
the roundabout
of practiced ordinary living,
fully aware,
there are no open exits
currently available,
leading back to when,
all exits
led only bright forward

consensual distance
spaces tween
registered vehicles
but no longer
registering bodies,
legally maintained,
by all
outward appearances,
minor kisses
in a habitual habitat,
perfunctory
of the functionary,
"I love you's"
traded before
shutting off the
permanence of the
finale of the
now dimmed bedroom light

diminution
by the minute,
covertly clarifying
the ex-mission critical,
cutthroat ended
by consensual distances,
silent no speaking
empty spaces that
cannot be closed,
or
dispossessed disposed,
the sensual, desensitized

been down this
slow mo lazy path,
to slow ruin
before
the quick road to
The End

the questions
air hung but
unasked,
the words
unspoken,
they,
the ultimate
****** weapons
inevitably found,
getting at long last
a final hearing,
judgement reached
at the
reenacted scene
the finale resting place,
the grave of spaces,
consensual spaces,
the gulf of no love,

the pre-partum dénouement
715 · Oct 2015
stay/stray
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2015
fingers type.....................stay,
tablet writes..................stray

she says..........................stay,
ears hear........................stray

the heavy plodding feet speak..............stay
the weak fear of the Unknown in the chest signals,.............stray
can't stay,
brain refrains, too late

body in motion,
new course heading
new coarse heading,
zig zag away from the destroyers
stray

you write....................................stay
but heart mimes silently...........stray,


always follow your heart
even as the fingers come along weeping,
but even these culprits,
they follow as well,
knowing you, already aching,
have to
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2019
A love poem for Terry Collett

**** it, not a single word affixed,
and tears come gushing, flooding my cheeks paths,
into my mouth comes the salty outpouring

my nose blubbery, it’s hard to type
when you can’t see and the tissue is
engrossed, engrasped in your only
good writing hand

a lovely Sunday by the Atlantic coast,
listening to 60s folk and rock n’ roll,
mostly love songs of seeded sadness,
simplistic so many tunes of heartbreak
long ago planted in our respective souls

each one reminds, restores,
a heart poking,
all your recollections penetrate,
as if I was nearer to thee,
and I too, weep,
missing your Oliver

be advised there will never be enough poems
to make one/me not want more,
for ****** you, these love poems into my interior,
learning from you the human

how

so much more than
the when where and why one loves
a child resolutely, absolutely

for each child the unique reasons differ,
but never the

how,

for you, of this,
are the the poet exemplar

this makes me weep
for so man-many reasons,
strangely, a stream of delight
runs sweeter deeper within my tears,
for which I thank you
with this
love poem
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2024
^words of Wislawa Szymborska
(a phrase from her poem  “Some Like Poetry”

———————————

gorge on poetry,
thereby!
imbibe your raison d’etre,
if well examined,
one will be exclaiming:

Exactly!

we on trial from birth,
for having been born sin~innocent,
yet guilty for having allowed
in nighttime light pollution,

one searches for places in
life’s momentary memorabilia,
band~aids, orange lifesavers,
a phrase, photograph, pale bulb light…

these “things,” are our
hitching posts, lean~to,
grasped hungrily for
support whence
negotiating the
steep Spanish Steps
of the staircases of
monumental outrageous misfortune

this poetry,
this poem,
this railing,

sustaining from Day One to
Day T+1 and beyond,
a protuberance of strength
to grab onto before the
shaming of old fails falling,
a head banging despair of barely
hanging on,

unbeknownst to you passerby,
we, who live a life of bare bones,
only mimicking existence, while
questioning Death’s delayed arrival,
and only by,

this poetry,
this poem,
this railing,

sustaining our edge two forward, one back,
cognizant of our awesome missteps,
begging permission, to-liv-liven, a moment more,
offering upon-this altar, a sacrificial lamb,

this poetry,
this poem,
this railing,

sustained in the writing thereof,
expelling the fumes of the

nearly, the never, the hapless hoping

Thu Oct 26 2023
8:15am
x^words of Wislawa Szymborska
(an excerpt from her poem  “Some Like Poetry”

p.m. when the poems grasps me,
my nostrils filled with single breath
good for one more day
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2019
yes, only the paper will listen when
called upon
for what is a clean sheet but only our reflection
human

it:
crinkles
wrinkles
folds and bends
yellows with old age,
can always be changed
and always constant if unaltered

it:
speaks in words
embraced with lip kisses
can be cherished
can be destroyed
ashes to ashes
just like a human

print this poem:
place it in your everyday purse
of all things valued, kept upon
your person, close by
for comfort
for reflection
amidst the haste

the paper preserves:
your glory
your memory
your secreted confessions,
an exposure of your nakedness
your innermost outermost

the paper is skin:
can be scarred
held close by
shelved to be avoided
shed cells, store cells,
can be blood stained
can keep lipstick witness
dry tears, elicit tears

when we pass:
we leave behind
progeny
objects of valuable
meaningful to our unique
and papers

papers:
of legitimacy
of illegitimacy
of recollections
future predictions
remnants scraps
full books
our product
on this earth

the paper always listens,
patiently awaits our impatience
our truest friend, confidante
who can be confidently be trusted to
reveal our confidences

the clean sheet listens
as we part with thoughts
that can only be entrusted
to ourselves, our limbs
our entirety castoff
our entirety sustained


3:47am 11/29/19
711 · Mar 2018
Flying over Harrisburg (8C)
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2018
flying over Harrisburg (Seat 8C)*

transcontinental traveller this day,
from a city island onwards to a city by the bay,
the mileage sum greater than a lifetime of M31 bus trips,
but the in-transit poem-notion-potion elixir in blood stirring,
when a seated poet greets the jet stream
motion turbulence
,
one more rightful writ to the
flying poem chapter,
additive motivated and self-commandeered

airborne in the selfsame real clouds
where the poems are plucked from,
their distance to my body’s poem functions,
vastly abbreviated so they arrive more wet, chilled and urgent,
we become heated tango paired

already approaching Indiana, crossing Ohio,
over whose living souls have I traversed,
over whose stored poems have I flown through,
ruffling their crinkled white wrapper covers, the decorative ribbons,
whose hand waves have I discerned,
and whose cheeks have I gently kissed?

this land is my land, this land is our land,
and from the soft cream of moisture white,
stumbled on my long lost and well forgotten poems, thereby
freshly creasing and dampening yellowings
with the renewable tears when greeting old friends
of the who and when poetry was a secret garden
where I hid and withdrew and transpired the essential oils
of my deconstructed constitution

see this poem is more me just checking in on you below,
you up ahead, and those in arreared reared view mirror,
and on me, composing at an altitude of 31,824 feet to
strings of violins, my one true plane

as compensator for this ramble unfocused I gift you this:

conscripted by the thin atmosphere,
constricted by my failings, my limited stock of words,
my extra clouded judgement, my heartbeats rapido speak,
telling me to tell you my brothers, my sisters,
mine own adapted children,
we have never been closer than we are today,
until that day I knock and grinningly embrace and erase
that tiny space between our ******* and in unison breathe*

8:50am EST entente
entering into Illinois
711 · Feb 2014
that too has a shadow...
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2014
mountain ranges cast
mountainous shadows

men, just,
even just,
one odd
man

can cast ranges of
mountainous shadows

these shadows,
both
in and visible,
out and invisible

there is a looming large,
late in the day shadow
of substantive length

in and on me,
though shadows amorphous,
it's weight is crushing me

You cannot escape, Helen
a shadow
both
in and visible,
out and invisible
Nat Lipstadt May 2015
how to build a better poet...

take away the utensils,
the pen and paper, the computer tablet,
the recording devices that inhibit the
free flowing alliteration of formation...

dispatch the poet to within from without,
kiss cheeks with the surety of uncertainty,
whisper whiskers of doubt will be his fearful, occupational, life long companion,
hazard, best friend...boon of indecision

let the composition begin instantaneous,
with every glance, every chance,
an overheard snippet, an introductory shot,
the writing birthing in the mind's canals,
stored for seconds, or as long as desired

give him secreted love, take it roughly away,
let him rage, then  quietly sage on
vicissitudes know as incurable,
yet poet soldiers on, role playing
a solutions seeker, a healer treating us with
decisive words about everyday indecision

beg from the poet,
to release us from our self-sequestration,
employing visionary words,
untested formulations, new combinations

as per request,
poets's eyes unclouded should; could?
raise the dead, forecast blue moons,
make us walk on hazel word horizon waters,
infect our reddish defects with reflections that effect our flesh's affections,
the breathe need continuum burn/soothe,
faster harder slower softer, always irregular...

force the poet to unceasingly seer and see,
give no rest, allow no desist, poet resist, vaingloriously disingenuous talking tongues,
distracting with ancient lore resurrected,
newly spun silken verbs...

make memorized color palettes his food,
give drink of animals, plants, star names,
visions of fields resplendent with poppies,
visions of eternities in sidewalk cracks,
dividing high wire lines connecting

his words will rise skywards,
in alpha bet pieces, returning molecules
from where they were given,
and from they will in rain-droplets,
come back again

you have not lost poet's accomplishments,
you have built a better poet
Written and in the skies over Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Ohio
Nat Lipstadt Aug 4
I love all good poems,
and how they make me
feel whole but deboned,
de~parted,
sometimes cleansed
sometimes *****,
sometimes ashamed,
occasionally fried,
occasionally enlived,
often all of these,
simultaneously

I love how mine please you,
breaking the knots of anonymity,
unleashing the little white package
strings of connection, and, when yours,
make me guffaw, or even  a better, person-age,
when we weep deep in our  recesses where the
just-beneath-the-surface emotes, are pricked and
brought to the surface, for the first time, or the last of time,
exposed, curated, healed, leaving but a tiny sore, that lingers
on the body's surfaces,where all things.are etched that
are needy for a reminding of the when,
and here, right there, is the where,

but your loving of likes somehow
dissatisfying, like a kiss, perfunctory, skullduggery
or dis genuine, a hit and a move on,which is why,
I treasure your comments, long or short,
insightful or delightful, critical or critique(e),
just a tender heart of appreciation, a snuggle
from the sea, throned out of Jonah's whale...
rounded bellicose belly

but they render me
alive,
when they split and spit me, to you,
you, to each, defined in pieces, gratitude
nuggets, each, treasured, each hugged, each letter,
a custom bespoke of  connectivity and

who needs friends, when your words
embrace me so deep repeat and touch me
in places where my heart must follow on & on.
now many poems you commission with every exposition.
even the dimplest thanks is a vibrato of pleasuring sounds, that
you, you, you, took that particular moment of time to
express the heartfelt, destroys the invidious
that does quiet creepily slides inside us,  
saying I am your comforter false,
but is not!

use your words, that,
they to the children teach; let us too
embrace this honorific so terrific, and touch each other with
comments, a sharing, and the sol shines on
'*we two too, for all to seer and see
a day spent in  food & friendship makes me needy & greedy for your affection
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
Lay My Body Down

Sunday sipping my Hawaiian java,
the world’s end is hallmarked this weekend,
like hash marks on a old fashioned
wood ruler,
and unrequested and unbequested,
heady voices demand a retelling,
even a tallied
recounting
of 2023
the year I almost blew it.

took some pics, even a video,
of my-internals, and pronounced me
nearer my god than thee,
I was precisely, scientifically,
97% almost dead,
said the occultist
said see you tomorrow
for a haircut and a nip and tuck
upon thy heart

strangely,
I was of good cheer,
not fully comprehending my walk on the edge,
and
strangely,
never gave it too much thought,
which for a poet,
is just plain weird.

But this Sunday,
as I lay my body down,
thinking about “deadlines,”
all missed,
and are all still, cursing me,
residuals of 2022 & 2023,
which are carry on baggage
for the next trip through the
door of
2024

and these words come jumbled and
we are out of time to sort
them better than this,
but
as I lay this body down,
one last time,
on the ruler’s edges edge,
the last hash mark nearly touched,
and almost
equidistant from this year and the
unmeasured blankness of a clean white sheet
of Next!

<>

a good ole saying, a good ole lyric,
“lay my body down”
invokes image of spring water
a brook wash~flowing
over the shell of man
clothed in white linen shroud,

water of clarity crystalline,
taking a tour~trip with an itinerary
of (must-see!) sights,
cracks and crevices,
slats, slots and slits,
apertures and orifices,
groans and worry lines
accumulated this nearby past,
my body’s own poem

<>

but I recall W.H. Auden’s words
about the revitalization quality of water,
and I decide to
baptize myself,
like recommissioning, retrofitting
an-old ship

(though I am a serious jew,
who knows nothing of this rite)

But fortunate seemed that

Day because of my dream, and enlightened,

And dearer,


water,

than ever your voice as if
Glad—though goodness knows why—to run with the human race,
Wishing, I thought, the least of men their
Figures of splendor, their holy places.


<>

in some places, you can follow the dotted lines,
on my physical container;
man-made marks from
exploration of my body,
now understanding these lines and holes
are a schoolboy’s
long division’s remainder,
(always annoying)
bits & pieces of him,
looking for a surety that one can
yet call it home,
one more year?

<>
my interstices,
tween the manmade decorations
of medical foreplay
and the cri de coeur
of my mental anguish,
are life reminders,
I am
alive and still hurting,
BUT

could be worse.


enough.
Aug 22 11:44pm/Dec.31, 9:50am
2023
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
I am no judge of good character
(think I am the greatest poet-***-bf ever)

I used to be a sharp dresser,
(then to the time twisted testing,
t'is of tiny import sense succumbed)

I used to love woman by the score
(Ha! fooled ya, still do, will dying do so,
but caught in a single spider's heartweb,
I read, and I love, and cheat only nowadays
with weak eyes and strong words)

I used to be young in heart,
(self impressed at my talented prose,
but then my eyes grew keener,
the more I read, the older I got,
the more others led me faster,
sweeter to the promised land)

so I trip 'n skip in the waterfall pool,
that forms where the poems cascading
are laid down to peaceful repose to keep,
and too oft, sad uneyed loneliness

yet, I see a graffiti on the clear bottom,
white paint upon an earthen rock,
wipe away the eddys, put aside the ego,
lift it, lift me up, that stone,
with caressing care to read:

So Jo Was Here

oh indeed indeed in deed another poet,
who blues my heart with words modest,
in combinations that say to me
you knew that, but not till now!

how did she know that

words and words and -
ironies usurp courage
adventure scowls unsated
Times New Roman ****
pixels unconsummated
similes sin-taxed for hits
stale nefarious negging
all heros on the page
reality waits begging

I read and I think
did I not write these words?

love is a bittersweet borrowed lie
time is a slowly emptied sigh
deception is the sharpest yet rustiest lance
and rage the slowest, saddest dance
while truth's just polished-up confusion
with words - the slipperiest illusion

But I did not!
nope but I read them cause

So Jo Was Here

stoked and croaking,
addicted, I read on
only to find my mirror image
once again, one mo' time crime

But I was held unknotted only,
oblivion teetering on the pinch
of a thumb and forefinger.

Until slowly but cynically,
gasp by gasp,
all was forced out, and when
the moment came to go,
there was nothing left to go on

so it is written, so it will be read

then you can say too,
as I did, as I here confess,
in my recesses unexplored,
trembled to find,
overjoyed to be
me revealed
cause:

*So Jo Was Here
Read http://hellopoetry.com/so-jo-was-here/

it would criminal not to....
707 · May 2014
613
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
613
~~~~


just google it plain,
see it in Wikipedia,
just that number

613

every number an association.
this one magical, mysterious,
and born to this,
my tradition.

613 commandments in the law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments

but today I come to speak of but one commandment.
first among a peculiar
613

not listed amidst the
thou shalls,
thou shall not,
of which,
many have I transgressed,
many have I blessed.

today,
******* the heels on my fast first
anniversary conclusional,
noticed that I had now
613
followers.

a young man,
from across the oceans,
from New Delhi,
honored me thus,
what a delight,
how easily these god and man-made
geographical boundaries crossed,
my spirits raised.


Follower,
how I detest that word.

I could no more lead than follow.

let us be neutral observers,
let us be recognized sharers,
let us be hand holders,
let us be mutual lovers,
let us be but friends.

root out this
servile attitudinal,
sacrilege word.

I do not celebrate this irony,
but oh yes, oh yes,
I do I understand this election
as a commandment,
a sacred obligation,
not of my asking,
but of my anointing.

The first and foremost poetic law.

write to
levitate and elevate
the human spirit

all the rest is naught.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2020
For Marshall Gebbie

in June, with sun dispatched to somewhere else,
a steaming mug, adds to the clouds of gloom but,
dissipates the summer chill, that seems colder than its
winter chill counterpart, since it is contraindicated,
here, where, it’s summer and everybody’s inside, hiding,
for all the irrational reasons, the news, reports so earnestly

you send me a poem of incautious beauty, of a moment re-warmed,
desire, recalled, rekindling a past so well remembered that it edges
me off that chill, and I wonder how timing is in always everything,
the rear view mirror concept somehow a predictive tool,
cause we never saw it all, but just right, plenty enough, and
when old men muse, the risk of self- ruse is always lurking about

remembering how it was, how we wanted it to be, how we’re
sure that we too were there, or at least near, almost certainly,
was it a thousand poems ago, or B.P, (before poetry), when
actions were louder, preferable to words, life, charging neurons,
by the billions, so we have those storages, celled memories,
so that the poems of then, come back so easily, framed in our memory,


in the glorious, stunning heated colorings of pleasure

June 5,
2:35pm
Shelter Island
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2024
a quote of Al Pacino

<>
it took/takes a lifetime to get close
to where the answer possibilities
don’t river rush past, and each eddy
seems like that’s the one, the definitive
affirmative,  jump in and all you get
for misjudgment, is a sopping wet
for your troubles

but you keep on jumping from job
to job, roll from role to role, cause
even if the
last one is not a fulsome answer, it
is in possess of the creative release,
the high that satisfies till you need a
new hit, another hint, of tapping into
the vein of creation that enlivens and
declares, I am purposed
for this,
no matter how long it takes,
and the errors of mistooks,
me I’ll keep jotting down
jumbled jimmied words
in new combinations until
I can say well that’s a wrap,

eyelid hints ai a rest but at
the same time
it gives forth a slow wink,
that best poem yet to come
won’t likely arrive until it
comes forth in a last gasp,

a final exhaustion, exhaustive,
and even highly satisfactor
breadth of a last and
everlasting
breath~taking
t a k e n




nml
11;09 am
Oct. 14, 2024
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2015
~~~
(Inspired by Miss Ohio,
I read your work)

~~~

"This time, but once"
one of my oldest companions,
surely,
my most favorite dessert
and lie
of greatest acquaintance

who, in posses of the
electronic stimulus card key,
mistress unlocker,
privateer explorer,
of the Venetian Grand Canal passage
of my ear to brain.
temptress of words-whispered,
always inviting me
straight to the dark places
of just us girls

this time, but once,
no one will care,
no one will know,
fumble, hurry, do it
quick now, quick here

just this once,
just this morning,
but not tomorrow,
just this night,
one cocktail can't hurt,
a few strokings,
a drag of desire,
a hit of heat,
glide path, short and pathetic,
this momentary shame,
for the quid pro quo,
of the satisfaction gained
from lying to one's self...

so I lay with a lie
to startle start the day,
come night time sleep,
speak of a sequential array of
pleasurable fantasies,
lies repeated repeatedly,
do not become truths

thus,
a bookended graduation
two endings,
a matched pair
a commencement to start,
a commencement to finish

and the truths in your poetry
in between,
*but just this once
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2017
who among us
does not whisper
many a daily silent prayer,
unconsciously, or even a thoughtful thought
initiated usually by
  guilted conscience

to a deity,
or to just
the god voices of ourselves, or
ha! or anybody within earshot...

these whispers,
sally forth,
direction upwards,
to an unmappable and usually
unresponsive atmosphere,
seeding the sky moment hoping for
a smidgen of warm rain in a life drought,
and
the wanted future with
grains of hope, needy desires and
evil warded, off put

who among us
reflexively,
without marks of hesitation,
hearing the prayers of others
desirous of any bounty's share<
whisk-that-wish a
fare-thee-well, a shout out, a whisper,
thinking our legal rights confirmed
by a participatory, hearty, ***-along-little-doggie,

amen,
even a
hot ****
or an-oh-so subtle, a holy colloquial
yeah baby!

who among us never says,
please,
promise,
need, want?

not me...
a piece of a broken poem,
broken off...
Oct. 4 - 7, 2015
Manhattan Island
Nat Lipstadt May 2016
inspired by TC Tolbert's poem, ""Dear Melissa"*

                                        ~~~

joined skin cells shed and shredded,
two bodies, a compositoy,
an experiment in the temporary,
now, lost under lock and key, at a secure depository,
remote, undisclosed location,
kept unheated in a dark cool place
to preserve their combinatory
slow, half-life decaying oratory

the body is never an accident,
even though we mostly are,
accidental tourists, two collision-prone comets,
lark, rambling rambunctious adventurers,
on a half-day tour only,
leaving behind commingling blinking dust vapor trails,
 emissions of a tour bus journey rerouted
                                                            while under orbit sail

some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
                                                         ­ of the vaguest of dearly departed

skin is not the only mot shed,
                                                       sloughing of woeful words, shelled

                    
                                     ~~~


Dear Melissa
TC Tolbert

a curve billed thrasher
is cleaning its beak on the ground—
we are closer now than ever—sitting
in shadow—I never want to scare
anyone—not really—I have a friend
who loves people who come out
suddenly—in the dark—
                                          pleasure
is the same distance as pain from here—
that’s my skin on your sweater—both hands
stripped now—I know I am someone
to you I am entirely—practicing
Spanish on the computer—gesturing to
the neighbor instead of speaking—
                                          to sharpen
the body is never an accident— someone
I know I am not—letters are inseparable
from loss—moving what can be still
moved—one is sweeping the mouth—
what ever isn’t skin—take it off—
“Melissa is the name of the young woman I once was and while it’s true that she never left me, I often wonder if I left her. This poem is one way of saying thank you, Melissa, for being a body my death could die into.”
—TC Tolbert


TC Tolbert is the author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press, 2014). S/he teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Oregon State University-Cascades and lives in Tucson, Arizona.
701 · Apr 2014
riding rails, been Fryed
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
for Joel*


been Fryed
exposed white bones crisped
secrets out
all my life tempted to
"ride the third rail of madness"

to find my peace

but all rails paralleled,
run and ran,
mine had no terminus final

so I tried a tighter, ever growing smaller
circle electric

merging two failing arcs
became

a single dot

and that Is why even my
Punctuation Free Poems
end thusly.
Thank you kind kind sir
Mr. Joey Frye
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/628915/the-courage-to-seek/

my courage, even my vocabulary, has been crushed by life,
yet I ride one rail of almost normal, a second of
spurned poet poseur extraordinaire.
So when the  third rail asked why not me?
I could no longer refuse
for the question answered itself,
at last an ending.
698 · Oct 2015
hard poetry
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2015
hard poetry
is the best,
for the work of you,
it does request,
works your hardest best,
needing you to lilt each chosen letter
with a slow cooked, thoughtful tenderness

the writer wrote but a single draft,
but lifetime in the making,
it took,
as each word was,
both chewed and vine tasted,
over and over,
avoiding the arrogance of hasty egotism

hard poetry when read
reveals the authored heart
between each word space,
marks of the beats of a thundering mountain,
that upon it's peak,
lives and dies a temple's altar for sacrifice,
from where the odor of burnt,
parse rises and colors each verse
to heaven ascending,
not once,
but thrice
and long long after it is consumed,
its scented smoke returns,
wafted from nostrils as a hit
upon the brain

hard  to write,
hard to read,
more than concentration requisite,
an open mind that mines the text,
laboriously hard,
as was such intended

cheap are the easy-quick rhymes,
that fall like flakes,
an endless sky
that rains upon us like a
plague of "made in" knockoff fakes

looks good, goes down easy,
but gone tasteless like sugared icing on a stale cake,
but
hard poetry lingers for days
or forever,
and it asks you back,
without ever asking

write hard,
read the hard,
for these poems are the real shards
of human hands that sweated while love making,
serving you their best works from deepest within,
torn out and then smooth potter-sculpted

hard poetry
hard to find,
veins in the deep earth
that you, they do not find,
you must drill core shafts to
ascertain their existence

packaged not in gift wrapped clothing,
that is torn off fast,
over the cheap plastic gift it covers,
that the promise of forever disappoints
and does not garner any interest
as fast as the day after Christmas arrives

hard poetry,
rewarded to the seekers
who read it with self same love and care,
the poet employed,
to wrench it from his soul,
it's elimination,
the pains of a labored. childbirth

do not depreciate what you appreciate
by giving up your honor easy,
love only the one you are with,
the you will keep
ever

like what you love,
like but the ones
you must addictively return to,
wait for them with patience eager,
lament but do not tarry over the
discarded chaff,
while you wait for the
hard poetry's loving grasp

roses are violet,
violets are rose,
don't care if you live in states red or blue,
but you drown discouraged
from such nursery poems
proposed and tendered
with a " look at me" gloss
ad nauseum

effort to find the hard ones,
the ones you wish to emulate,
the ones that will justify you
as they grow you up into
being better than your dreams
-~~~
Oct 11, 2015
4:23 am
really sick and very tired of.cheap writes that are pedestal  hailed
by those who revel in simplicity,
hide behind  easy rhymes and
nonsensical metaphors
that sound so good
and taste so bad,
even if they last for but seconds on our tongues

cheap writing cheapens the writer and discourages the.reader.
~~~
poems are work; it takes work to like them or dislike them. Put the work in, demonstrate the care, and we will be more than friends, becoming caring~poets~in~arms.

a flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery knife excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know in my possess

then only,
to lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that as my casket lowered,
my hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing the rest,
a paper record placed in his primary
to join his ash,,
keep his faith companioned,
his flawless poem,
at long last
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2020
<>

“These are really the thoughts of all men, in all ages and lands,
they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by WALT WHITMAN

                                                      ­­      §§§

exactly, for if not to mystify and to demystify,
why do we write, opine large, secretly confessing,
what is know to all soto voice in the chamber of secrets
that lies between the brains four chambered ventricles,
that leads to a Grand Canal through which flow riddles,
all these thoughts, yours, mine, and overlapping crazy

solitary, they merge within the river of combination,
then known to all, colloquially named Ours, then too,
answers arrive in the scrivening, when each plain to see,
once the riddle posed, the answer is freed to exposure,
like veins blue to red, when oxygenated, our mysteries,
all colors, untied, there is but one color, reddened blood

these thoughts, become yours, more than mine, for
in the taking is the additive chemical that enhances,
making the distance closed to only closed, here I pause,
fearful, I hesitate, you do not understand, sunshine can
blind any man, sickness humble any body, we are alike
in commonality, more than different, we are all riddled

and next to nothing is everything, all worth knowing,
you, write my poetry, as I write of you with breathless
ease and comfort, for the thoughts of all men in all
ages and lands, are original to where our eyes espy
each other, where our lips kiss to cross, cross to kiss,
what is the what, this simplicity, the great difference


                                                    ­   §§§§§


Fri. May 15
Manhattan Island,
Isle of Man
10:26am
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
For Fin's Mother (read the new poets)

I have not seen nor sipped
your adoration for Fin

no ma'am,
I have gotten drunk on it

the duality of motherhood,
essence caught and captured,
fathers too, but different
not lesser but concocted
in other ways

I go to battle for you,
I go to battle with you


it drives home the greatest truth
that took me years to fully appreciate

the best poems are not of nature
or love or sadness,
of fear and fates cursed,
tho all these here interspersed,
in this dominating, forgiving song,
pure ode to Fin, and every child

But something that is beyond complicated,
so multi colored, so beyond my elementary,
that I revert to something simple -
a summation of creation

God bless the child that's got his own

A mother and child union
that celebrates its reunion,
nay, it's unity,
in every kiss, touch and even,
even in every memory -
if that is all there is,
for the memories are just as real,
as if it but an instant passed
Read and follow TL Sipple.   Start here:

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/680941/from-mother-to-son-for-fin/
697 · Oct 2015
stutterer
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2015
~for you~*

~~~

when I put
twosome of twisted lips together,
long dragging one foot clubbed,
agony before the other,
but one hand obeys commands,
the other disdains, ignores,
one only eye-seeing, vision impaired,

and the body laughs at the notion of
paired coordinates

tongue disobeys desires,
limping thru life's everything,
thoughts locked down on pause,
mid-think is a cassette tape
in a seven-second delayed,
a fist cannot be unbroken, unwound

chorus of mockers,
herd of haters
rejoice in my diminution,
using my weakness for ammunition

for I am a stutterer,

just another you,

misstepping, fracturing,
the minutes of a life disastered,
suffered, sadly, no gladly hanging about

but I do not forsake hope

repair each word with the honor
of a slow enunciation distinguished,
ungainly shaped, yet soldier-motion forward,
in small poems and  with one hand holding

for I am armed with certainty

as I stutter thru living,
more than awaiting, comprehending,
you, you,
understand full well,
that we are all handicapped

salvation arrives when
a touching whisper heard in one solitary ear,
you sir, you, are not alone

for who among us dare deny
*we are all stutterers
6:54 am Sunday, October 24, 2015,
Isle of Manhattan
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2020
*But wrestle I do nonetheless,
                                    for the pleasure of this (non?) soluble
                problem that both creates
    queries & quenches
                             simultaneously, so I break off this
                             thinnest wafer to share with you,
          offering this notional



<~>

mine own words return, Halloween hauntingly,
every event adds layering failure to comprehend
and the frustrated anger dissipates into a thousand
swirls,
Oct 25 2020 Manhattan
697 · Sep 2014
A New Poem: 5 x 5
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
5 X 5

sitting in that chair, once more,
that chair that is my picture of me...

One:
The bay laps quiet rhythmic hellos
knows better than to ask,
just graciously accepts,
one of us says Hallelujah,
and the other, Selah!

a torrid summer of morose and illness,
lingers still, and here I am, cosseted,
comforted by familiar comfort foods,
baby waves, the gentlest of precision-crafted currents  
of air, all together a baklava so sweet,
one could forgo forever eating,
but never, writing of them, to you

Two:
Crumpled tissues,
absorbers of ****** fluids,
crumpled poems,
absorbers of mental fluids,
evidence of a body and soul's
dismal anguish, creativity extinguished,
weeks of weak, months of morbid,
were the pretense that a lovely physical shelter exterior,
could ever successful well-mask the human upheaval within,
as if a summer tan could disguise the illness exposed in his eyes

Three:
Sun of moderated fall heat enters via the nostrils,
crimping the bacteria of depression,
that come from an overrun immune system,
a summer of discontent for the summer man,
who has been encapsulated by the suicide
of a man he knew only from his humorous artistry

am I better? some. healed?  of course not...
but here I begin a summation of my silences,
that came with no explanation substantive,
for which I formally apologize

Four:
Four is for me, a self-addressed postcard,
way past the point of clean slates,
I am a blackboard with years of dust cumulated
from scrawls, equations, mistakes,
and here n' there a teachers favorite,
a large exclamation point!

decide that it is perhaps time
to relearn how to write poetry for pleasure,
wipe that chalk dust off some,
not for pain disclosures hall marked,
though the pain must be played through,
today, a new season starts and my record,
unblemished a perfect 0-0

Five:
Why 5 X 5?  No idea!
this is how it starts for me,
a title, a notional emotion,
a horse rider with a head,
but no body attached,
no direction home,
and the words, disassociated,
pulled together and now there are
five babies tendered for your
care and consideration,
perhaps even,
for your pleasure...
Sept. 7th,  2014
if I had to choose one sense, then, once he wrote:
what then, weary reader,
is the supposed Laureate's approved analytical tool?
(How to Read a Poem (Hint! not with your eyes))
Taste

Each letter, a morsel in your mouth,
Each phrase, a fork full of pleasure,
Each stanza, a full fledged member in a tasting menu,
Perfect only in conjunction with the preceding flavor,
and the one that follows,  and the one that follows.

Taste each poem upon thy tongue and then pass it on,
you know how....

Each word, whether chewed thoroughly,
or lightly placed upon a bud for flavor,
needs the careful consideration of your mouth.

Feel the light pressure of the tongues tip upon the roof of your mouth
and the exalted exhalations of air rushing past thy cheeks
as you messenger breath from your chest to be shared with the world,
over the poem's interpreter, your tasting lips.

As I lay each word down, a brick by brick edifice construct
of mine own design, I am sated, fulfilled only,
when with I see your lips move as you savor my words,
my taste you share, and we are closer for it.

Deaf, dumb and blind, all such travails can be conquered, assailed,
but when I cannot, no longer anymore taste
my poems upon thy lips, then I breathe no more.
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 Dec 2021
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
                                                      ­  <?>

how we age is both simultaneously
conscious and unconscious,
uncontrolled and uncomfortable


we never fail to recognize the mirror image, yet,
always thinking out loud in our brain that’s not me!


some remember their successes; others, do not,
perhaps they cannot recall the few, or more likely
acknowledge them as triumphs, as the scale is a
canon always in flux by time grinding us fine


we readily admit, or do not deny, the lines upon our bodies
are highway markers of journeys, yet we know not
who built these signposts, how they came to be here,
but that they ours, unique and accumulated, undeniable


Longfellow’s observation above hits me
with the  fullness of a wet washcloth;
intemperate and stinging,
but not unpleasantly so.

each of our beginnings are artful;
full of promise and worthy tales;
we think this. is normative,
the way a young life is proscribed,
meant to be enjoyed.

of course, this is not necessarily so;
indeed, the exiting is a violent decay,
unrelenting and foisted upon us and
we try, to amend it, our transient departure,
so that we remove the artifice, keep only the art,
the skilled communication of what we valued,
the things that are progeny, living or material,
those clues to whom we are, to whom it may concern, 
we were


Dec. 25, 2021
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
Last night, they tried to teach me
to tango and waltz
at the YMHA
on 92nd Street and Lex.

Am here to report
made it out alive,
creaks and internal croaking
are the residuals
I'm getting, in spades, paid.

why they tried,
why they let me in,
a wonder opus mystery,
but someone must be the
teacher's ****,
and my mounded ****,
a wonder opus de la o'pus.

did not they know
I leap,
make crazy eights,
two-step fly unbridled,
make mouths open gape,
when flying round,
box step, shift weight,
en trance Viennese high society,  
when ten dancing writing fingers
pen these little voyeuristic recipes for
noodling cup-of-poem soups.

besides, the YM in YMHA
stands for young men's
and everybody knows,
I am just a
big baby.
692 · Apr 2014
Pace yourself kid
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
poem by the hour,
no need to shower
us thus

he selfie critiques,
I do, I do,
or else it would be a
Poem~By~The~Minute

look at the banner photo,
see the tablet self composing,
the list of would-be,
coming soon someday,
an arms length long
list of almost finished compositions,
composing me in motion

the tablet on lap resting,
yes, in his semi~famous bus,
see the trees in the upper right,
window reflecting, they too
have come to peek~see poems
writing themselves
by that fluorescent light
dividing thems in progress from
them ones not ready for prime time

don't try to make out the words,
they will be sited soon enough,
in the meantime, a sip of
milky coffee between
poem breathes
8:57 am this day

when I tell her it's drafty, she says,
How Many?
Nat Lipstadt May 2016
Pushing out the daughters of older woman words...

~
it's almost May Day,
and the only niece,
husband towed,
all to a springtime glorious
drop by, dinner come,
......and there is poetry in their expectant eyes

a pronouncement,
predecessor to an announcement,
spring blessings uttered over melting smoked mozzarella pasta,
sweet balsamic fruited salad dressings of
of the unripened fruit of newer life,
seeded, deeded and coming,
soon enough

we act not shocked,
shocking them

oh yeah,
we figured dropping in sudden,
needed a really good excuse,
and a good one,
a new life,
a **** good one

old man granddad and now sooner
to be dubbed grand uncle'd,
children bejeweled cherry garnet carbuncle'd,
decorating his
red cheeked face,
redden a happy heart,
duly recorded, his thoughts,
twine cord wrapped and delivered,
4am punctual

we toast with three wine glasses Spanish Malbec,
one just air-filled, sorry Charlie

we all review the rules,
garnered from our
personal histories,
lore and the gore and the endless more
of raising children,
stanzas that never rhyme quite the way you planned,
and blessed is that good enough is
plenty good enough

am I excited, they inquire?

long pause, no, not excited,
thoughts quiet, paused,
words needed,
and in time,
drafted, recruited

something different,
more pleased in a way,
that comes so rarefied,
a distancing sense from the normalcy of life,
the taste
when life's hard work.
is justified,
yes,
justified

~~~
may first four and twenty ante merry-diem
4:21am 5/1/16

a spring blessing!
689 · Sep 2013
I went to a funeral
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
I went to a funeral

Of the father of a man,
I liked and respected.

It was a two hour drive,
Each way.
I missed a day of work.

People were impressed.

But the calculation was easy.

Thousands of hours yet to live.

Even if but twenty four, yet to tally,
How many men do I
Know and respect?

Born with two hands,
Would only need one,
To make this calculation.

One is greater than twenty four.
Note to Self: Composed Sept 17th, at Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York City, Fall for Dance Festival.
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