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island poet Aug 19
is like no other early morning, man reborn, in the delivery
room of sky blue, the offsetting water deeper bluish hue,
the trim-all-around of the mixed salad greens of the staff's
scrubs as they usher in unity,  with no imp-unity, the risks,
while the supervisory sky, disperses cumulus clouds in
peppercorn patterns of white chains, or big wide solitary
brushstrokes on a a ****** canvas, gettin' the feel in the
palm of the heft of brush, the viscosity of the paint, the day's
palette reflecting available colors in order to create a uni~cued
original of what has been painted an uncountable times before,
and before…

tho short weighted, was the sleep of the prior night's restful,
he awakes to the early morning light, the sounds of early
island rouse him, even, arouse him, for the August chill
foretells of the early onset of memory loss of the peculiarities
of this summered simmering, human warming and baking
and natural braking of the slowing of the heart rate, to better
accommodate, nature's hints and hidden reminiscences
of the true purpose of the summer's intervention upon our
collective and unique bottling, our individualized containers,
un~lidded, uncovered, eager for the fuel of sunrays replenish-
ing the length of our lives by the elixir of the summer

it is a chill 63 Fahrenheit at this time of day as we crossover
to the nigh day, from the cooling air conditions of dark,
the occasional helicopter intrudes upon the morning's calm,
the water placid, the geese honking regarding my watchful
rewarding presence, a slew, a bevy, of female vocalists, to
ease this transitory performance unfolding, and though one
feels the existential of his solitary singularity, as he thinks,
nay believes, he is the only one in attendance at this ritualized
emergence, he takes in the cool of, the heat of, the admixture
of both, the clashing integers of each, and he, fully invigorated,
goes silent, for once more, he has uncovered new combinations of
old words to accept and describe a new day's creation, miracle of miraculous, defying the odds of this ventures's success, his own continuance  on this sheltered but open all around island implanted tween two tines of land, as if all the surroundings were created just to protect this, wholly holy place…


7:00am
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
Aug 19 2025
Hal Loyd Denton Oct 2012
This piece was started earlier in my mind now I apologize if it is openly to raw and telling but let me tell
You try to give something with this idiocy going on it’s a tall order when you read that a young new
Afghanistan bride was beheaded because she wouldn’t submit to prostitution we have the little girl in
Pakistan shot by the Taliban because of her love of peace and liberty I add this it’s a pretty sick system
And without any power if it must prey on little ones to continue what kind of vile concoction do those
Men in that part of the world take I know that answer it’s the only place that they openly lick the poison
Right from the devil’s Godless finger tips I will repeat my own encounter with a demon back home in
California he’s speaking trying to act as God’s Holy angel in my spirit I saw this creature with a body of
Bubbling sores and then I knew evil at its core all that reject God’s holy love has only one thing left that
Thing that talked with me and causes men to do these unbelievable acts and before you say oh that’s in
The Middle East children today just turned in a cell phone of a young American woman in Oregon who
Worked at Star Bucks is missing it was five minutes from her home they find the cell phone in a field
The filthy oozing thing I spoke of just moved up the coast it’s a global problem children to the most part
Don’t have cell phones they are found in fields and the little ten year old was also beheaded to try to
Hide her identity that was in Colorado we have a sin problem that only a Holy God can give answer to
But he does work through the life and voice of certain people the person I will relate to you is real this
Story comes about on this wise was it partially contributed to the dare devil sky diver who broke all the
Records in Roswell on the same day or was it because of the night it’s easy to see strange things in the
Dark anyway a man was taking a walk in the quiet night his walk always took him by this pond he carried
A lantern I think he did it as a connection with the past but as he entered the old familiar path he saw
This strange site a Swan was on the water how many years can you live some place and not see a Swan
So he was befuddled and then as he watched it headed for shore and then the thing went totally Roswell
Because it turned into a woman or did it one thing she was different as he would soon find out his
Curiosity demanded he go over and speak to her he introduced himself but he had his back turned and
Must have been nervous not speaking as he usually would it was ether Jim or Tim she being more
Caution of the two didn’t give her name their accidental meeting was cordial enough that one of them
Gestured that they set down he set the lantern down that held them both in the light in a confused and
Brutal world where the enemy moves practically unchallenged I believe the woman to be a messenger
Sent to guide and turn the tide in the degree that people are stripped of the father’s immediate love He
Works in a way that is not the perfect expected way but still gives comfort they put it to song but long
Before that it was a story offered in dramatic cinema The Heart is a Lonely Hunter much truth is spelled
Out and also it is relentless the hurting contend without end for solace and also the mind is a crying one
Who seeks through the most unsearchable distillable thought to find the way that leads safely and true
This is some of the things she offered the disarming the most attractive and perfection of her creation
Vulnerability it’s told in wisdoms ultimate terms a soft word turns away wrath but in her she is most
Empowered when though her femininity she opens the gates that on the other side are nothing but ruin
When any one tries to use power and force but her demure acts ushers in victory it is burnished it
gleams it is blinding the total error of fools are shown their destructive path a sword can slay in this
Situation but you wound your own self without remedy was our friends mouth hanging open at her
Physical appearance the way she presented herself and the words she used defiantly so he set by a pond
But the pool of her soul flooded the most desperate recesses of his hurting existence she would empty
Herself and it might seem barbaric but she would slay her own self on the altar of sacrifice and duty for
Him and others the gift demands nothing less you must go forth bearing the marks of blood look for God
Sake beyond the obvious they are killed physically as this piece has spoken of but the pretty show
Outwardly is the enemy’s greatest conjuring trick what could possibly be wrong look at what all I have
She said this first you talk like this and you will die among friends they want a world of pleasure
Truth has too many sharp edges it doesn’t make you free without cutting away the lies you are the most
Sought after prize in an all out war fare for the souls of men and women it would be sad tale indeed if
Some of your words about yourself were made public you wear a garland on this plane it is like the
Greek contestants in the ancient Olympics that Garland is a promise of the gold you will wear and a robe
Of purest linen now hopefully you can follow the flow the super being wants to honor His children all
The finest Jewels will make up your home it all rides and falls on this one thing obedience and her words
That say this when I see the blood I will in all total reality welcome you into joy for ever more yes by a
Simple earthen pond she touched this individual with brilliance that contained all of time plus as she
Walked through his heightened awareness wisdom without compare created in his life pillars and a
Structure that was without equal no enemy would ever penetrate the sanctuary she described to him
In detail she took darkness that surrounded them turned it inside out reveled to him colors that were
Foreign to his natural mind she laced it with passion that was as the eruptions of volcanoes he fell back
In consternation but then basked in what she said it’s like living in a garbage heap you were born there
You know nothing else then your circumstance change you see the ocean the forest mountains the first
Time if only in the eyes of a seer then her voice is soft her eyes flash lighting her eyes retell primordial
Findings astonishments that foundationally explains the world and at your most breathless moment she
Says now let me tell the other world that supersedes this one a timeless world aloneness is unknown
Feel anxiety loss seem like your heart is barren peace joy and love can’t be explained on the level that it
Will exist in the near future she says only this about that there was a time in the mountains when this
Blessing of those three things were given she had to cry after the Holy one no more anymore and this
Mortal frame will give out well let us deal with what we can handle she rose and by now he didn’t know
What to expect she walked to the center and she did just this simple act she twirled around but in that
Movement womanhood was reveled to him he already knew but he wasn’t able to know and give
Expression call the wild things in all their diversity in to your hands feel vibrancy in its maxim degree
Pass beyond the pond go to all places that ***** and fall away with sweetest tender grace your getting
Only the outer understanding of what a woman is she was so minded to show him more yes Sherlock
Homes would fail in the attempt of telling what he felt how she made him feel give up every ounce of
Your being your dreams and hopes you have entered the staging area of dreams still melancholy where
Want was first ever made and handed to the untrained in its use next and most formable is to offer your
Heart most divine act but cruelest of beast dwell in these surroundings you are powerless is there is no
Savagery that can inflict this kind of pain your face tells of your dance in paradise boundless profane
And there is no explanation or end as someone said lost love opens up on the high way of infinity its
Worth her affection but if she must ever say never will I open my arms of love again know a most
Wonderful sea harbor that holds mist crashing waves highs and lows of pleasure fulfillment of the
Highest order nothing more tender flows between man and women yes *** is a mystery it fuses the
Whole person higher than natural mountains and truly deeper than any ocean nowhere else can
Tenderness Employ such grace such truth such caring and can end with the admixture of both partners
With the Unbelievable gift of a child that you can even love more than your selves if there is any greater
Art than that if there is any greater I don’t know of it this is the end of this encounter know this he was
Enriched and is most thankful he sometimes broods about southern climes it’s understandable Jim
If that’s your name you have been in the presence of a special one
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
“the unbound unbinding: an admixture of words and swords…
that will cut a newborn cord of reciprocity of thee and me,
miracle!
thereby, an unbound binding that ties and frees us from
and connects us nonetheless by our shared senses…”

<!>
these words, recalled well,
for they but a newborn issue of a few days, and the notion of binding that
frees us into reciprocity yet buzz~hums
in my brain

the contradictory nature of a cutting
which ties us together,
that an unbinding binds us even more tightly,
I struggle, to better understand the nature how an unraveling
of our connection somehow ties us closer

but re-envisioning
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in my mind’s eye,
that sparking space tween God’s finger outstretched
to bring the enlivening of his spirit to His first enervate, Adam,
the original of we humans,
somehow sates my confusion

to touch each other
at the most primitive basis,
we require a space
between us, in order to fulfill,
a contract contact
of completion and binding


and this bestills and bestirs
my puzzlement,
a space electric necessary
to permit us to
close the human circuitry

!and I am contented,
the contradiction
no more, I sense the
need to close gaps
tween us certify our human resources
for it is the permanent invisible grasping
of our loving minds that transcends
overpowers gaps,
bringing tears of joy to my eyelids,
even as I write these words,
and greet this morning
with
optimism
that every space
brings a richer
closure!
!
9/16/2023
9:48AM
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2015
~~~
Disappearing Ink Thoughts:

"Nothing that involves the love of an honorable man"

~~~

One checks in
with the periodicity of
semi-regularity,
a
how ya doing?
sent off by mounted Messenger
to:

good friends,
fellow poets,
former lovers

yes,
it can be
either,
both,
and
even
one and the same...

her reply arrives -

"I am fabulous"

you twinge
with curiosity and whimsical,
mortal fantastical,
creaking regret

for it's from the one
you didn't keep closer
but
so easy was it,
it well might have been a

been

disappearing ink thoughts
start to pen themselves,
on both sides now
of your
two-sided containment chambers
of the heart

does it mean
she's found
another lover?

so you
dancingly
not-so-innocently,
add-on a moonshot probe,
a reply comes...

"nothing
that involves the love of
an honorable man"


are you so obvious,
you groan, forehead smack,
is everything that lies
between your simplistic but
not-so-cunning lines
so easy apparent,
in this game of
liar's poker?

disappearing ink thoughts
start to pen themselves
on both sides now of your
two-sided containment chambers
of the heart


a mixed bag evoking,
a whizzing admixture of
guilty and sad,
fond memories,
sutured together
by alternating slews of
"what ifs" and "what is"

maddening, your mad imbalances

the heart is divided-
left and right

what you have
left
behind,
the seen and the unknown

what you have checked off as
rightly acts of both
rare and well done,
simultaneously

and

you separate the darks
from the lights,
as you subdivide
this conflicted
second-place-derived
"honorable mention,'
the complimentary multiplicity,
of a most pleasant
yet withering assassination,
winning by losing,
by being called

an honorable man

something makes one uncomfortable,
as you write/lay this
epistle *** elegy down
when you are up,
beside your truly
"love the one you're with"

leaving one unsure of where to place
this particular, peculiar,
inscription

are you left or right
sided here?

hard pressed
to uncover honor here,
as shameful, don't-go-there's,
reddens the face
in a darkened
bedroom

but
there is some
softener within
all this disappearing ink

recalling that you knew yourself
well enough,
to give up,
when to walk away
so rightly so,
when you heart knew
what wasn't left,
wasn't just quite
meant
to be
ship-righted

meaning
fair superseeded implanted desire,
and you
left-leaving, left-leaning,
on
the right stuff

here you sign off,
almost forgiving certain sins
so flawed for being so
human,
such as contemplating,
the wonder of wonderment,
the fragility of frailty,
the knowing of never
perfectly knowing



~~~

Dec. 31, 2015
7:59 am
Flight  #1011
Seat 16C
Somewhere over the
human landscape
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
~My portrait was painted by Jackson *******~

<|>

there are no lines or lies in my writings
there are no definitions and perception is only your truth.
Therefore,
my poems are splats and drips, you make them into paintings that hang in your own private museum,
but signed by me as first passenger



<|>

when did I write these words?

can’t recall, though undated,
they seem all too familiar, and thinking that if I didn’t,
I should have…
for the title of this ‘poem painting’ has lain in quietude,
a resident in my file of
“someday writs, awaiting,”
when the itch demands you will
essay
the admixture of words and swords
that will cut a newborn reciprocity of thee and me,
an unbound bind that ties and frees us
from and by our shared senses…

today, an  inadvertent blinding sunlight stumble is demanding a
fulsome scratching

<|>

the portrait of each is the irrational intersectional of splats and drips,
each viewer, reader, filters the image through a common
uncommonality,
which is as it should be,
for if we are each created in His image,
how glorious is the diversity of our deities,
each of us a tiny drop of paint on a tableau
of a small planet, insignificant but
uniquely beautiful intelligent species of godlike creatures,

human

<|>

the précis of this conundrum conversation bewilders,
a single word drops,
of plaint, paint, blood,
a seconds blush blurred
that is the building blocks of imagery
I state is mine,
but now realizations swiftly fertilize,
the portrait is not of me,
but of me blended into thee,
and this poem,
is our composition

that hangs in each of our primary
museum,
newly re-titled,
**A Passenger, Realized
Sept 13, 2023
8:35AM
NYC

sunlight direct in a tall building blocks away sneaks into my room,
blinding me into awareness
Nat Lipstadt Sep 4
the trouble with poetry
(and this poetry site) is its

facilitation

awoke in a strange bed, my own,
in a different city, with my old eyes
renewed with, by loving amazement
at the beauty of so many souls experimenting
with edged, loving, dangerous compo-notions,
that make me older than King David, who loved the
love of life and this world, for here I am, falling too
for the life & love potions
of words of my fellow humans across
vast oceans
and I stoke their and stroke their
heated words, pretending that
the cool warmth of my tablet
is both their gorgeous skin and
alluring verbal twists that arouse
my innermost, and break my already
broken heart, and heals it at the very
same time...
all too, so easily

this communication is at levels that
descend, transcend,
grips me with passion and consternation
at my own desires, my open body & mind
stirred, chilled, shaken, stirred and soothed
by the busting out contradictions of us, me,
so well hidden, so well revealed in the marvy
ability of so many to share their essences,
their own scents, just by words upon a page,
and here I pause...
to consider the duality of the word

f a c i l e
for poetry shared facilitates this burning,
  "     "              "            "             "     tumult,
and yet comes to me so facile, that I worry,
that the words themselves are facile, cheap
& easy, but then I am reassured by the very
real drops of my body's fluids upon my cheeks,
that confirm, that poetry is too so real, so living,
and I guess you know me by my real name,
my real face, and my realized words here,
and wonder if I need cease to wonder why
wonderful is...
a thing

my poetry is written by silent night, or early morn,
so very differing, and laugh out loud at myself,
for I am a differing man, at differing times,
of a potpourri of contagious contradictory
conceptions, that I traverse so easy, this facility
is my blessing, and poetry my well worn skill
at...facilitating this absurd admixture of
human~you-man~a man~amen.

and here I leave you...
for I have left
the sunroom too...

@
3:26 am
Thu Sep 4
someplace else
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
This is the game, set and matching end-piece to what is known as:

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/385266/poetry-round-find-your-self-within/

by way of an introduction....

T'is season to move forward,
back to old acquaintances renewed,
sand, water and salty sun,
three lifelong friends who,
Auld Lang Syne,
never ever forget me

I get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they, upon my tarnished earthly being,
muse and are bemused

unreservedly and never judgingly,
share shards of inspiration unstintingly,
we share, never measuring
this captain's humanity, his human efficacy,
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
and his beloved words, derived there from,
all only know one measure...
immeasurable

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/699991/adieu-my-crew-my-crew/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Pilgrimage (Reunion)


at last to begin,
to begin the 'at last,'
this reunion occurs
this first day of June
where on my
body's flesh colored calendar,
X red-marked,
deeper than any real cut of despair


this morn, leave for familiar parts,
embarking 100 steps to that
Adirondack chair,
my name, my self,
(oh god at long last)
so often, long lovingly
revealed unto you


the garden's sundial welcomes me,
Prince, Guardian, of the gate to the green,
the green steppe way to bay and beach,
a brief song of "ring around the irises,"
blooming around him,
he issues,
to celebrate his own glory recalled,
his own purpled prosed long ago one ecrivez'd,
by having the third mate
ring the greened worn,
bronzed ship bell
upon conclusion of
his raising of the gate


shorts and T white hair shirt,
costume de rigueur
of this Peconic pilgrimage,
turban and baseball uncapped,
stepping humbly
toward that worn wood throne
where carved are
the initials of
my poetic friends,
and his vast modest,
Concordia of poetic essays


Those odd disordered
collection of aleph bets
that have been prepared for this hour,
are sun dappled,
breeze caressed,
wave watched,
a fresh redressing after a
dum hiems,
a long dark winter


all rise up welcoming with voices
tremulous yet oratory,
sing with a love so spectacular ,
Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus,
au naturel


the armies of ants declare this a
Truce Day,
parading before me in formation,
the rabbits race
in elegant uniforms,
white tailed bemedaled, dress grays,
announcing their  showoff arrival
with a new across-the-lawn
land speed record


the dear **** deer,
familiar families and generational,
look upon this human and
grumble while chewing our shrubbery,
an act of sherwooded lawn high robbery
but perforce acknowledging our entrance,
by uttering a Balaam blessing/curse,
a neutralized
"****, they're back"


the seagulls on the dock,
sovereign state observers from
Montauk and the far island city,
sent by the mother winds superior,
observers and reporters to nature everywhere,
Summer Season of Man Has Begun


a few white wakes disturb the water's composure,
the early low arc'd sun has not peaked in strength,
at 10:00am, the temp just breaches 60 Fahrenheit,
the beach sand untrod, no unlasting human impressions,
no children's red pails yet to them decorate,
amidst the sea life's detritus and smooth licked pebbles


Enough.


each tree ring and grass blade demands a verse,
an all my own tributary accolade,
this too much to accommodate


a year ago I issued an invitation,
do so again for my word is my bond
my responsibilities, my *******,


there are chairs for all
on my righted round and my motet left,
here, there are
no Americans,
no Canadians,
no Aussies or Brits,
or Indians and Fillipinos,
no African or Asians present,
East nor West,
None Invited here,
Only Poets


even those hardy pioneer
West Coasters, a proud lot,
and my Southern family drawling,
and perhaps lessening the mourning
just a touch, a minute modicum,
all sit quiet in the admixture
of poets come to celebrate
the blessing to have been tasked,
to write from and of places we visit
in the cerebral,
and to imbibe each other's words


Three Hundred and Sixty Four Days ago,
I wrote :

We sit together in spirit, if not in body,
You join me in the Poet's Nook,
A few frayed and weathered Adirondack chairs
Overlooking the Peconic Bay,
Where inspiration glazes over the water,
And we drown happily in a sea of words...

I am exhausted.
So many gems (poets)
to decorate
My body, my soul

I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out,
none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.

Once again, in your debt


Again,
I await your beckoning wave of hello,
greet you in your mellifluous native tongue,
iced drinks at the ready,
the opening ceremony already started,
when all are seats taken
we commence officially,
with a blessed

*"Now, let us begin"
See the banner photo...paying off the promissory notes owed to myself
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2016
one thousand poem children



one thousand poems has mine soul commissioned,
a thousand more neath stone vault doors do attend,
patiently waiting revisions, rescission, catch and release permission,
waiting room patients, looking to buy a more favorable diagnosistician

this prolificacy,
nether curse or blessing,
this profligacy,
poem children fathered by single mom mothered,
borne nightly in dreams borne
from the northern, the southern,
the brains twilighted hemispheres,
who coordinate, drawing deep,
consulting a bartender's manual
a creation guide of mixology,
'how to intoxicate the brain'

cheap gin, multi-generational scotch,
visionary vermouth, the reddened cassis of life,
memories in the white grapes of possibilities,
futures unrealized, colorful takes and retakes,
a directors bespoke make-believe tales,
impossibilities, divine and mundane,
all into one admixture into the venous cavities poured,
nerves to blood to consciousness,
courtesy of the ganglia

the brain stem transmits them
fully formed to my
good morning sunshine
cracked and dried lips for re-emission

nigh head upon the pillow,
the hair trigger,
my rapid eye heartbeats, each a demanding sweetheart,
some performed to a discordant metronome,
in a controlled rage, my mental waste,
eliminated

the residuals,
purified with language as the
orchestrator, debate moderator

dreams, once recoded, once accorded,
the disordering tempestuous,  
neurons cease-to-fire,
now just words, just words, just womb excretions

did I admit to a thousand?

more like tens of ten,
one, two per eventide,
have washed  ashore, for some thirty years recorded

my brain pixilated,
its big shot game controller,
demanding purchase of more;
more storage space, more games,
not admitting in advance,
that it filters blends, conflates and purges

by combining
psalms and ditties, infantile rhymes and
new vocabularies of  human aging idiocies,
though newly acquired, immediately forgot,
so always room enough for
one more episode


I study the brain, I study sleep,
study living and dying occurring at
their point of intermediation,
dreams


*this more knowledge gives no relief,
it becomes this poem becoming,
testifying that I prosecute myself
based on the evidence,
and if insufficient,
dream up nascent visionaries
from places that come unlocked,
tales from the vault vivisected,
the proper verdict
assured

sixty six years
of accumulation,
and still know so little of
proper space utilization,
writing poems proper

but nightly come the dreams,
nightly comes the trial,
comes the judgements,
comes a man-made customized
whitewall tired judgement,
and to you
submitted for
judicial review

strange that each one of you
becomes, adopts, adapts my visage,
my words in you, reflected,
a jury of my peerage peers,
which is why my appeals are
always returned in the file labelled
"denial"

until the next nights dream
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
The solitary reminder,
a sole survivor,
hopeful-placed,
forgivingly encased
in little boxes decorative
hidden in plain sight
throughout our home.

Single and incomplete,
the lonesome leftovers,
openly hid upon bookshelf,
desk corners, fireplace mantels,
storage units of the
I am unlost,
I am unfound,

Raise your hand,
stand up and say
that is me,
that is me.

Minor treasure chests,
of carved wood, seashell real,
acquisitions of trips
to faraway places,
these boxes, they themselves,
visible but unremembered,
just there, no cares,
no one knows,
when or why.

that is me,
is that me?

Space fillers, memory taunts,
grandchildren's playthings, delight,
when they someday come visit,
weather and parents permitting,
finding keys for locks, doors,
from three homes ago.

Can they unlock me too?

Boxes hoard the things
we have lost, but cannot discard,
can't sacrifice, gotta keep,
an admixture of buttons,
dried flowers, faded notes that
once upon a time mattered,
shook someone's world...

Some kept in hope,
others, sequestered, lock-up,
jails that we are both
jailor and jailed,
the joke being on me.

Should we, you and I,
exchange these
cases histories of lost hopes, memories,
it would not be surprising,
if when opened,
the contents identical,
even if you are in Manila,
Leeds, places of need,
and yet,
we would be shocked,
asking,

*that is me,
is that me?
If you like this, and as of yet not read
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/always-fall-in-love-with-a-poet/
take a minute, for it the best of me, perhaps,
the best of you too...
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
The Godfinger has not yet
colored-come this far south
from up in the North,
but soon inexorable, marchingly quietly
to finger paint reds and golds
that are calendar scheduled to arrive

the idea of them, their visual,
burrowed  but easily retrieved,
for in the poet's mind's eye
he foresees their forthcoming blaze,
smells them in the not-quite-autumn
sea breeze

colors welcome for many,
for they serve to awaken and ravish
inattentive-to-nature wooly brains,
distracted by new work projects
diluted multi-tacking senses,
back burnt by responsibilities,
**** deadlines,
term papers, too soon due

full well knowing fall colors incipient,
this summer man piety engorges on
the embering remains of his beloved season,
His Summer Surround Sound Environment,
reflecting on his insignificance,
the seasonality of life,
the sad-always finale for grownups
that is the year ending
December,
no longer a far away,
inconceivable concept

these robust leaf colors, product of
chlorophyll properly chilled,
signal mark
all hope lost for the summer warmth,
the life force of this
poet's body and soul's
his sun tan lotion ****** cleanser, restorative,
all sold out, no longer on the store's shelf,
and a new conceptual,
2015
low growling while on the prowl

but for now,
it's still land-greens and water-blues,
though tarnished are the hues,
the grass, an admixture of
ugly straw yellow and a sickly green,
the bay green blues darker, uninviting,
the surface sun glints duller, less charming,
but close enough to the
real thing
for him to embrace passionately

he thinks bemusedly, out loudly,
writes smilingly, out loudly,
for he is in his trademark chair,
adorned in summer garb,
t-shirt and shorts,
holding on for as long as he can,
grabbing errant sun rays,
breathing salted bay air that's
cleaner now, for the summers sailors
all gone ashore to dry dock ports

while his woman, sensible ever,
acknowledges the frosty wind that
necessitates blanket, a full dress uniform,
complete yoga outfit and anorak,
the dress code de rigeur for combat
against
the September brilliant and undeniable chill

Springsteen and Cassidy hum his
melancholy perfectly and he wonders
about the ifs and of's his chosen life,
about the why's and wherefore
of his poetry that he sometimes writes
under assumed names

these contradictions,
me, summer,
she, cloaked in wool,
these natural nature inconsistencies,
even though unrealized,
the inevitability clashing sounds of vibrant colors
overtaking greens wilting,
all to be winter-denuded,
mark the day,
mark the man,
his poem,
mark this moment of
inconsistent colorations
September 20, 2014
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2024
“a decade old is forever new, for
truth is never old.”
Pradip Chattopadhyay 


this man, ten years of inspiration, ten years of friendship, here,
on HP,
provides nourishment to my lagging body as it nears eight decades
of Earthly occupation, for
his eyes and heart and his mastery
of the songs of the tongue,
have wrenched me straight,
we, attentive to the tears
he makes me weep, for his insights penetrate my insides,

even now as one, unexpectedly, reflects midst
yet another first poem of the day, my eyelids blink away
the wet,
my brain revels at his pithy, how he corrals,
encapsulates the daily smoke and fire of life,
it truest value,
in words that make one wonder,

what admixture of mineral, chemical, history,
adventures, atmosphere, parentage, spices,
love gives him these super powers to gentle
seize the moment, size our souls, causing my
cheeks to wide smile, while mine eyes sheds
monsoon droplets of feelings so deep, that
my repaired heart oxygenates my very soul,
making me high, my mind reels that a day will
come inevitable
that one of us will be unable to sit by side,
swapping tales of granddaughters, and
other earth meaningful events, to walk his
streets or he, mine, finishing each other’s
couplets.

to think that I awoke with no intention of
composing this paean, but his brief pearl
knocks my head side to side,
and with the
tears, come words,
that age, or an entire
decade,
cannot restrain,
retrained to modesty,
for regarding my friend
Pradip,

my boundaries expand and cannot be
contained, even by my delimited vocabulary,
the paucity of my skill, the insufficiency of
the adjectives acquired over a lifetime, but
do my unequal-to-the-task best efforts,
but without choice, but compulsed, compelled,
one more time, to say,
to my new day,
perhaps my last,
I love this poet~man.
this is one of my truths.
<>
Wed Jan 17 8:31am
City of New York

<>

read the poetry of
https://hellopoetry.com/pradip-chattopadhyay/
<>
truth is never old.” Pradip Chattopadhyay  lipstadt
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
My poetry is an acquired taste,
So come, dear one,
Place your tongue in my mouth.
Pace yourself, there is so much,
Spoke and unwritten,
That fruitions only when spit-shared.

Flick your tongue-tip to mine,
Sealing bond, the salt caramel of my rhymes,
The iambic meter of my tamarind prose,
The buds, flowering, poems forming,
Watered by the admixture of joint, minted saliva.

My poetry, so very complicated,
Hints of currants and ash,
Soil volcanic, basaltic vowels, oh's and eyes,
Cursed verses that commence with I,
Nonetheless, despite soil inhospitable rued,
Compositions flourish, born wetland soluble.

Yours, for the taking,
Yours, for the tasting.

You place your fingers on my waist,
My body of work to contemplate,
My ditties, you spit out,
You want courses, not appetizers,
You want truths, not fluff, lies, menu tastings.

Columbus and Magellan, thy fingers named,
Trace the curvature of my ***,
With tip and tipsy stroked caresses,
You laugh with the pleasure of all the sssssss's.
Hissing all the day your satisfaction,
Capturing my writs, by your tongue's duress,
Recipient-thief of my literary largesse.

I am dressed all in white,
Stripped bare to my native coloring,
Except for two brown nippled spots, you lick,
Imbibing milky thoughts  from fountain-heads *****,
Savoring, relishing, stanzas that praise love's flavor.

With every line, every word-painting accessioned,
You make my soft parts hard,
My hard parts soft, but my liquidity,
My tears, they, that, you drink straight,
Licking, liking, and oohing and ahhing,
You tongue curled, upside down arching,
The storage point of your seduced gatherings.

To drain me full, your incisors cut,
Straight lines, entry points for your *******,
Taking, draining, leaving nothing,
Not even one aleph or bet escaping.

When you acquired my poetry, my verbosity,
Pillaging soul's hiding place, took and *****,
Your acquired the best, breaking my nape,
Imprisoned on and by my island's seascape,
Blanched and pained, a blank tape,
I am tasteless, witless, mockingly, tongue-tied.
Written tonite while driving upon moonlight country roads, departing one island, crossing another,
only to ferry to a third. As I was driving, unable to retain all, but wine and Bach's Brandenburg, withdrew new lines, before I broke, surrendering to a dreamless sleep
Poetoftheway Dec 2024
early after-noon, she quizzes,
“would I be ok with
skinless boneless roasted
chicken breast, with sautéed
mushrooms for our dinner,
ce soir?”

so smile I,
for it is a favored menu
of pleasure,
from one who has never
presented us a meal
that is less than perfect

later, she shyly inquires,
“would be ok if we to eat
a little early, I have a salon,
followed by an
Argentine Tango dance milonga
tonight and one starts early (and
tango parties
end typically
the next  day?
(no|si, me, don’t dance)

of course, respondez in
the affirmative, thus
confirming our love with the
consideration that veins
out affection mutual

and then I add:

“instead of an hours food prep,
which distracts you from the hour
deeded for dressing
for dancing  motivation proper,
and add a little kick-her:

I love you so much,
would happily consume
your tuna fish salad sandwich,
every night, for the rest of our
lives together, it’s fast
and simple, a dis-less-stressing
concoction, that we both enjoy


she (s)miles a sweetened thanks,
after numerous reassurances,
that our love only grows
stronger with acts of smart
sensitivity to each others needs,
no standard of care breached,
au contraire, meant sincerely,
earning me a secondary
whiling smiling

and this true story is a poem,
has been writ a thousand times,
in a million different tiny gestures,
of which, I am proud

she exhales a breath elongated,
a release of an admixture of differing
pleasures released, and goes into the
night to dance in the arms of strangers,
which concerns me
not at all,
after all,
these  many years,
aware she moves exquisitely
in a dance that demands years
of practice, for it requires
intangible silent of the merest
slight finger  pressures to guide
the dancer what next steps
are coy coming,
and I have stolen this
knot of knowledge,
for mine own purposes,
secretly & selfishly,
employing these techniques,
for most of the time we’ve
been together

this poem of
tuna fish sandwiches,
becomes a dance of words
which is
my specialty, which she will
read in the morning l, maybe,
if I send it to her,
though obviously,
that is unnecessary 😉
as she returns to our bed,
me asleeping, she,
exhaustingly satisfied,
sleeeps deeper
secured by the knowing
that we, are both,
the beneficiaries of:
my learned dancing
practices
for such is

*the ways of the poet!
N.B. this is a tad misleading as she uses only
white tuna in olive oil imported from Spain,
which costs a ridiculous amount of of money, but reflects her belief that life is too short to skimp,
and source of  a major philosophical disagreement that is  now part of the rituals we share
It seems I missed the opportunity to wish you, a "Goodnight, Pleasant Dreams", my dear.
   Many would say a small thing as Things go. What with the Trumpet blaring out "I Love You" and the Bassoons low mournful note of "Goodbye",  and in between, the blazing Pinions of love's "Do or Die".
   But here is a Home!!  This thing made of Stone and Brick, Trees cut to fit.  Call them Love, Faith, Charity and most crucial Hope.
      This small profound edifice is held together by the Mortar(Good morning, Beautiful. How are you today) and Lathe ( let's do this together. Can I do anything for you?  May I ease your burden My Dear. How can I Help.) And the Nails of Iron and the Glue that Binds( Good night.  And Peaceful Dreams, Sleep here in my arms.).  It's all these little things that hold it together. The Constant Work that Love Engenders in one another to Build Together. That Proclaim Quietly but Resoundingly, One Moment to the next, Day upon Day, Month to Month, and Year after year, that We are Companions in this Life. That I will not forget that My Friend is with me and to always Undertake for the best for My Helpmate.
    That is the bedrock upon which  Love of each other and all the rest is built.
  And so,when all the nourishment I want is in front of me.. Your mind... With all your Hopes and Dreams, Fears and desires, your Passion and your Apathy, your Great Strengths and your small Limitations!!!    
       All the memories we created together. When seen through your eyes The perspective and light, have changed all I see, as if for the first time.
    You and our first kiss, Discovering in ourselves each other. That is what it is about. Learning where we fit together like a pair of double doors that had been used individually in different houses.
     The years apart gave us different wear and an admixture strength and weakness.  A Fine smoothed finish polished by countless hands, yet Rough here or there, where kicked open or the small crack from when we stood firm against those of Ill repute who used without care.
       But when finally brought to the others side, Its obvious they were made to fit together from the start, that this is where each belongs.  Supporting one another and facing the world, Side by Side.
    To our Friends. ALL-WAYS  Open an our Ownself.., we allow our selves the privilege of accepting that we all have flaws and own is that we Dont deny ours.
Remember that while we apart gained and lost and so did they.  If you look we might need some sanding here or there. A bit of planing and joined in a couple spots. But .. We were always for eachother. Made to stand together each fiting the other a left and a right the same in their differences..complimet.
             - Alexander Hamilton 2018
For ...you
It can and does happen
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
S3

Sleepless, Shuffling In Stockholm

Somewhere in my body,
A bifurcated clock ticks,
Two clock faces,
White on black,
Vice versa.

Mixed media messages,
Crazy train station internal,
Brain activity fevered,
Arrive/depart according to
Somebody else's schedule,
Somebody else occupying,
Every street of my body

Lying asleep,
Typing these words,
It is the middle of the night,
Bright daylight suffuses the room
What part of my metaphysical schema,
Ain't jet lagged legally,
And poetically entitled to be
Stockholm Syndrome Confused?

Times have really changed,
Oh my, when you propose,
Let's go to Stockholm,
Anything goes!

So my schedule reordered
In the land of either all
Light or Dark, twenty hours four,
I turn to my boon companion,
Who soothes at any hour,
My music, my Nano,
And I find myself, musically,

Shuffling in Stockholm.

Meatloaf and Piazzolla,
Muddy Waters and Purple Rain,
Marvin Gaye and Pink Martini,
Beethoven, Straight No Chaser,
Beatles, Stones, Bennett vs. Buble,
The lack of sleep a permanent fixture,
Courtesy of this Bach-us admixture,

So should you see a gappy, khaki, clad tourist,
Meandering o'er the islands of this charming city,
In Ingmar Bergman fashion,
Black and white erratic,
Alternating, swaying and shuffling,
No tongue clucking,
Nah, he's not drunken,
Just dancing while sight seeing,
In a sleep deprived manner,
Someday a movie to be,
Sleepless, Shuffling In Stockholm
A/K/A
S3

June 30 ~ July 2, 2012
Stockholm, Sweden
Left Foot Poet May 2018
human revelations in our sleep poses

she sleeps with both arms back, murmuring,
  flung over her hearing head,
as if she is surrendering

nightly

me slip away for a few, only to find  
her left hand ****** by her arm crook'd,
fit to her temple, as if to bear the weighty weight
of a heavy head plein des thoughts, dream-mares, tales and talks,
too dense to contemplate
without assistance,
armed support to hold on, hold up,
fighting/ accepting as a unwanted outcomes
or retrying old misdeeds
(no, no, oops, that’s me)

stirring,
she swift motions/crisscrosses her arms into an X,
a human parts tiara atop, on blond tresses, that fully messes
any remaining daytime efforts and her nighttime wild dancing^

no one reveals me,
none inform on me what positions
my containership adapts, adopts when my woke-guards
are dismissed/released and
lay unprepared to disguise my innermosts exposures

ow, early am resting comfortable with a six poem-pack of
slept hours on my tool belt,
so far this weekend one shot fired before the day officially
is belle rung and these poses thoughts
are upon what my eyes alight

can’t decide if knowing how I dance in the bed at night,
reflationary, deflationary, worth fact facing,
for this is no secret

my sleep hours are colored,
admixture of moving pictures,
punctuated with
stills of past and future,
the poses
of how to greet, were greeted,
withstood upheld ran from wept, murdered,
faced up, faced down, go unrecorded
and the
poems residuals
and the
poem prophesying-
both!

fearful confessions for acts
committed and foretold


Decision: I don’t want to know
7/20/18 7:08am

^(tango-ing with both, familiar and the unexpected men
who are she-allowed to lead for few minutes,
her cover up pose
expertly rigidly flexible, but her head thrown back to say
this is how far you will be allotted, allowed to dance/take me)
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Deafening Roar

When you find your life surrounded by sheer Granite walls in front a waterfall crashes the cool mist
Affords a delightful respite on the brilliant pool seven feet above this table of water a rainbow of vivid
Colors forms arched particles of water premiered by over powering dazzled Sun rays the mind bows
Before uncommon glory experience what birds in flight feel but they can’t express it either then wonder
Triggers the other side of brooding the highest delights pass as soldiers in their finest attire they move in
A cloud covering of glory it is admixture of wisdom mysticism with a great weight of courage their faces
Imply the hard lives they live faith and trust refined in the caldron of sacrifice they have brushed granite
And it entered their psyche forever more tested and true their vesture dipped in blood never to break
Ranks with the fallen warrior brotherhood it is worldwide its rainbow is derived from nationality the
Nobility of a people is safe guarded daily by their knowledge of duty peace must be mined in far flung
Regions that are fraught with peril love of country drives them on tranquil shores first gleaming is
Derived from those that unflinching bare danger in the raw where evil does not show any pretense
Its plan is destroy then put in place near insanity then pronounce it good as the innocent are daily
Consumed but truth will not submit or die there is a strong hold that is made from pure granite justice
Cascades continuously from this pool freedom forms we drink deeply then with colors unknown to the
Dark evil we go forth and cure the land that has been made despicable by greed and cruel men that
Seek only good for themselves their bones are scattered around the globe as freedom marches on.
Third Mate Third Jun 2014
you cannot wish love into existence (or how it came to be)*

came and was asked,
make us a star.

smiled and whispered to the
mother night belly black and
and their star,
unequivocal was given

came and was asked, for a cooling fooling breeze.

smiled and whispered to the clouds,
rush past us faster and shed us thy ease
and so refreshed,
gave up hands high grace salutes

came and was asked, why be alone,

whisper for her
to love you

smiled and whispered
this I cannot
nor would I want to do

came and was asked,

why be alone,
whisper for you
to love her

smiled and whispered
this I cannot
nor would I want to do

whisper what you will
but love
is a wondering and a wonderment eternal

a perpetuity of never knowing,
perfect surety is not love

it is a why without an answer,
a question's question imperfection

why you love today,
maybe a continent different
why you used to, or first to,
and tomorrow's raison d'être
as yet undreamt, unrealized,

you can whisper many things into being,
but beings in love are motions special,
and entitled to a category special

admixture of reason and lust,
hunger and thirst,
needy to be needed
needy to be giving,
the balance whacked,
constant change its formulae
called vagaries, chemical imbalances,
e-motions

should I whisper,
call out for love,
making it so,
there would be no why,
without the why,
what worth this be

so when you do whisper

I love you,*
admit it is a question
and an answer simultaneous,
it is a whisper of certain uncertainty
Mercury Chap Jan 2015
A gamut of of tears
Surrounds our life
It hovers around us
All the time.

The tears of joy
Jump out
When we laugh
For a good reason
When our lips
Refused to take time off
And make a grip
On the opposite corner of your face,
Because someone has made you laugh
And has forever traced
The happiness in your heart.

The tears of pain
When you get hurt
And you tried a lot in vain
To be careful not to get bruises
But it hurts you so much
That your world fuses
Like a worn out bulb.

The tears of sadness
Blurring your vision
Taking you to a wrong path
And your mind has envisioned
That your life does not exist anymore
That you are not important
And you abhor
That you're still living.

Tears of death,
A complete mixture
Of sadness and joy
When your thoughts admixture
All your moments you enjoyed
With all the other moments
That a life could have.
"Tears are words a heart can't say*
Jo Baez Jan 2016
Fleeting thoughts came and went
Like airplanes in airports
As I stay up most nights
Having pillow talks with your cheetah print pillow
speaking of moments, memories, and your saliva stains
From the way you used too drool
on my bedsheets still remain
A funny fossilized idea
I hold dearly
overthinking that one day
I would wake up
And your presence would suddenly exist in the empty space you created
Threads of your autumn hair fall on my face, like crossing vacant corridors through unseen spider webs
And the smell of your favorite French perfume, that I cannot pronounce
disintegrates into the air I breath
And your medium size **** in lace ******* against my crotch in stripe boxers
Never ignited lust in my mind
Just admixture love, comfort &
respect
as I dived Inside you until your soul reached its ******
then in a burst of wither time
one day you dissolved into my bed.
he rises with words in his  unwashed mouth,
mouth, is unwashed, tongue tastes dregs, bits
of morsels of his past, some good, some bad,
some tastes of places, of women he has loved,
sweetness of sorrow, dregs of regret, and all a
jumbled, tumbled, intertwined, clinging combo
of nations, his~stories …a mashup of a mashup’s
smashup

he tries to separate them, this admixture, to better
recall, but the sacrificial fire lit, the ember-members
are too burnt, indistinguishable and can’t find the
vive entre les differences…

South of france, tahiti, the one he loved in cities,
Toronto, L.A., and Portland, and the communes
in Asia, but tries harder but it’s no longer possible
to separate the essences and the similarities same,
and a great sadness is what he recovers when runs
his tongue across the roof of his mouth, the roof of
his memory, the roots of his…being…his unbecoming

he rises to a glorious day, where he is can’t be sure,
who he is with, certainly not, the why, but he recovers
some pants and the idea of a fresh start seeps creepy in,
but by the time both legs dressed, his mind’s eye wanders
to a new sunrise and old template of temptations. . .
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2015
~~~
Testimony & Majesty: Oh God, Why Do You Inflict Me?
~~~


Morning dawning...

Thickened whitened whipped cumulus
come crossing,
no frenzied froth,
moving slow royal, stately,
as if they are the pride of a
celestial navy,
peaceful ships,
crossing from my portal to your port,
traversing from my shade
of the blues,
over to you, poet,
to your personal  screen-adapted
CinemaScope version sights

This wind buffets,
re-directing my
morning~borning hallelujahs
this wind, nameless,
call it chipper, fulsome and volatile,
a proud pusher selling a waking up
near-chill pill,
to accompany the real+imagined
armada of nature
it, near and nearer
to you,
to the sky we inhabit+share,

its *****, stiffening energy,
makes some
hide inside,

not me,
I'm outed by the
harsh welcome~touch of this
realized reminder -

who is the master,
who is but
an obedient servant,
choicelessly writing his
psalmist morning devotions...

another poem of sky, cloud and wind?

Oh God why do you inflict me?
with this time after time obeisance
when I am
metaphor drained and disabled,
abject of adjectives,
simile frowning upside downing,
have we poets not done our dutiful
illuminating your bountiful works?


yet here I am,
a soul surviving,
incapable of resistance,
your frosted creatures persistent,
wrest my visions into prose,
to add to your overly full Facebook page,
with more fawning praise...

Angered have I, you, for now nowhere,
tropical rain squall tells all,
humans are toys,
born to serve,
silence your complaining~explaining,
and from nowhere with
rapido intensity rising,
down pours drops of scornful
water whippings,
demarcating our
incoming existence inequality...


and yet with your
yang and yang,
a reproach for me,
for as it waterspout pours,
it also pours sunshine,
a mystifying warning
to the put-upon poet,
that in the admixture
of nature and life,
all is conflicted,
all is tremulous beautiful,
and now is the
due time...

due, you,
to complete this treatise as
testimony to majesty...

~~~
Miami dawns
Nov. 24 ~ 25, 2015
Onoma Mar 2015
You--softly spoken entrant whose voice
bore holes afire, gave and took utterance in wilds
of will.
Obscured by the liminal impasse of distances,
elements commingled--you, the God/Goddess
of each in schizoidal break.
Passions outstretched to vanquished winds,
nestled in the directional roughhouse of you.
Sodden in sweat, limbs quake to receive one
another...well-versed nerves know the crucial
importance of our meeting.
Hence, the Foundation of the World--
space time's admixture beholds Truth take in
its fictions.
Its footprints burst the bubble of a mirage in
the deep of desert.
Whenever flesh and bone ran over their
spinning perimeter, lanced by the shock of
gravity...the firmament dissolved its maya.
We withstand our cosmic segway, we lock eyes...
chalk down the Seven Wonders to One.
Bus Poet Stop Apr 2019
not much he reasons, resonating the question,
in the resounding places where both are congruent kept

we talk of lines all the time, line divisors of our
denominators and our numerators,
but truth and secrets are 1/1
so the rational number is always one indivisible whole,
with liberty for both,
when
the glass shackles^
be broken

but let us not dance around the marshmallow fire,
while watching clocks melt as our memory persists,
so secrets and truths have a rigorous solute/solution relationship,
yet, the dividing line melts over time and the answer

in all the poems that the body worked,
with experience, you can see the works becoming
the body solution blended,
undefined admixture, defined, refined, all just fine,
for the microscopic difference is in the eye of the beholder
but requires breaking
the glass shackles^

for
one will enchain
one will set you free
when their meld is melted
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
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence,
and nothing too much.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

<>

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

and nothing too much”

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

and nothing too much”

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

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

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

and nothing too much”* and everything…

Sat Dec10 2023
Shell Beach, Central Park, in my mind, and nothing is perfect
Poetoftheway Sep 2024
Perhaps
you divined
everything, each word,
is musically inserted
in the bonds tween us

Them
those
poems that untie with
shoelace knots so quick
reveling, seeing her bare back,
is but a bridge over waters
that demands crossing,
for a mid-way joining

When the night is dark,
trembling, each, we stand
by each other, tumble &
fall where we stand

Anyone can see, our unique
trinity, the admixture of
she-me-us, as we untwine
rolling downwards
on a staircase to Heaven,

Nothing makes me wonder
  more; she is east, smoothie~polished,
  me rough hewn from cacti
  and dusty dirt, the only thing
  polished is the tune, sung to her,
  much practiced, strummed upon
  her cheeks, hummed into her soul

If
I had a box of wishes,
  they would each be a
  song that we sing, that
   made angels cry
you should be able to divine
exactly which songs were heard
while scribbling this
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2016
alliteration intervening invasion,
a bed-throned life journey summarily unasked for, reviewing

follow behind the collected beaming seams,
to the discolored end-of-a-whiting rainbow of writings

sack in hand, sack'd yet surfeiting,
gleaning the falling bits,
inventoried stories, the poor and the glorious

light droppings,
stir'd and stor'd in hopsack bag,
woven intervals of clashing fabrics

trilogy of
me, myself and I,
following falling, trailing, failing flalings

cross currenting, swirling,
disheartened chest heaving cursing
if only, a mite more sipping
of courage everlasting

here a memory,
there a visionary,
happy haunting,
glaceing eye dreams

keepsakes of a life
modesty and poorly lived
error prone, choices weak,
father confessor to the supremity of oneself

played safety first,
thirst quenching
with the unsatisfying yellowed bursts
of "it could be worse"

but these stuffing,
gleanings of a life,
uprighted night, declining days, admixture of son and moon,
women's flashing eyes inviting
happy danger and ending disaster inevitability

this sifted treasure chest
of self-selected retained
cursings and blessings,
the measuring cup of a tragedy
well acted, quantifiable pathos superb aplenty

a play veined with comedic relief,
a Falstaff for every Hal,
compare and contrast
your essays on the container storage
of dusted cells morning-mourning

summarizing gleams gleaned from a life well....dissatisfaction satisfied...truth in poetry
<>

“I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat,
gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the
day and night”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by  WALT WHITMAN

                                                   §§§

Irony great, some say unto delicious, for my writing,
be a fusing of surroundings of silences, admixture of
inconsequential noises, atomic horn and geese honking,
sun rays speaking in tongues, my skin translating, both,
the sounds of the city, those of out of city, merged, both,
accessible, instant recall, stored for tongue tasing upon

these blank pages below, needy for wordy fulfillment,
copy and place these mishmash of cacophonous,
on a single page, simmer, blend and sauce, of course,
salt to taste, mine, author of this recipe being born,
born in the night, prepped by day, the lovely sounds,
kettle or pan, broiler, fryer, slow cooked on full flame

they are the melted butter sweetness crossing the span
between the body of the heartbeat, the ache of the brain,
shot out in rapidity, error’d and stain’d, their state natural,
for this mess of beans, collection of noises, stir my soul
where they contain’d, aromatic, fanatic, exotic, sticky hot,
only a singular harsh invades, the shrill of the voice human

this piece, this poem, a flavoring, a dish-not-to-be-repeated,
once consumed, spoiled milk, molded with Jello mold green,
back to hiding in place of unseen, of bravura masked as cowardice,
when crackle of easy wasted word cowards, daily spewed,
so precious these ingredients, these artful sounds, easy ruined,
chitchats of nothingness, parlous blasé wastrels, seize! cease!

take thy tongue, let it memorize all the oddities that fill your ears,
ecrivez! the cooing, smacking, the alliteration of snap, crackle, and
yes, pop! and if you can love the human voice, of that too, tho not me,
more beloved, the exterior symphony of kettle drum, soft cry of violin,
timpani tingling, guitar plucking, the voice of men, too oft abusing and abused by untruths, emboldened lies, they are the sounds
I love least, love to hate.  a shrill disease, the TV liars...


                                                     §§§§§



May
Manhattan Island
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
Until a man is nothing,
God can make
nothing out of him*

Martin Luther
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

instant recognition
compete cognition
slowing respiration

sanity instantaneous
weeping hands clap
weakened legs collapsing

process endless
access, risen,
only to rejoin
the fallen

father of father clock pendulum
swung swing swung
slowing rapidity
body directed onto
perpetuity road

back to nothing
from whence
the boy witnessed
the first of many of
his genesis/bereshit

from nothing to
another thing,
crowned,
enthroned pauper,
trampled down
to lowly lord,
King of Nothing

reborn reborn reborn
so many times
when from nothing
risen to an exalted
nothing
more
than ever obvious
he,
heir apparent
to himself
no thing

nothing

in the beginning
nothing in the end
nothing
in between
from admixture
water and ashen soil
remake myself a
present to Him
an accomplishment
man-generation
peaking excellence,
Dante ascent to
nothing

then struck down,
back to nothing returned,
peaks and valleys
directional interchangeable
pointers to return resurrected
same way to the previous ending

for all prior writ
better
instant recognition
compete cognition
slowing respiration

the vanity not
voyage yes is
the thing itself,
is circular
a line of points
connected

nothing
no thing
but the voyage/path is the
thing

transformation
resubmission
substantiation

there in lies the only
thing
you making
God into
something
tangible
by making yourself
from nothing
once again



11/1/14
Ecclesiastes 1

1 The words of the Preacher,[a] the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity[b] of vanities, says the Preacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
    and hastens[c] to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
    and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
    there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
    a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”?
It has been already
    in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,[d]
    nor will there be any remembrance
of later things[e] yet to be
    among those who come after.
awesome apothecary addressed as Agamemnon  
alleviates anxiety, and alimentary aggravation
anodyne appeasement arrests ailment
amphetamines acquaintanceship assuages
agonizing aches also advocates amorousness

assiduously activating admiration
aggressive attacks assault air afoul
affable affinity affects adumbration
anatomical accidental addiction attested as academic,

although afterward abnegation absolutely arduous,
affianced attired apparently as an anomaly
Ares and Abyssinian Astarte admixture
acquiescence affliction affected adroitly,

and abruptly abends accessible
altruistic alms axed
albeit admonishing, alluding,
and attributing authored

autonomous anonymous adroit arriviste agents
accompanying as accomplished accomplices
accredited ace advertisers
applaud ascendent assaults amidst agonizing appeals

acting all acrimoniously apropos
avowedly ardently, and antagonistically, agitating
appositely advocating ancillary assistance  
addict adrift afloat anchors away

assails along, among, and an alias archenemy -
adorned abominable assassin alters ambition
adroitly, aggressively, absolutely
addict announces asseveration

against avid admonishment
alarmingly annulling authentic affiliation
anew anonymous ability acclaims alignment
aegis actually adversarial abetting attrition appetite

acceleration ascendent after aplenty anesthetization
additionally activating arced analogous arrow
advancing added abdominal and arterial agony
abject ambivalence arrests accomplishments attainable

any artistic avocation absconded
asper auditorial approbation, animadversion
artificial aggrandizement abrogates astuteness
appropriate adjudication affronted

alternative afforded amnesty about acing audioslave
as aerosmith ambition assumes arriviste affectation
already appalling alacrity awakens amendment
although Awol administration adamant

acrimonious affront agonizingly attributable
announces another afterworld
apparent ailing apparition
ardent allegiance asking anyone appreciable affix
apathy abounds attending apriorism allotment.

— The End —