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B.Z. Niditch, 27 june 2016
A BALTHUS DREAM
A tableau of color
filled in my sequences
of a Balthus dream
knowing of the artistic relationship
of Rilke's friendship as a poet
between these critical innovators
elicited in the Swiss mountains
his paintings grow in demand
in credited creator's portraits
of Alice in Wonderland
this cat or kabuki
only few acknowledging
his matured Polish genius
or understand you
like Giacometti,
Bataille or Camus
with a mind's eye to capture
what his later celebrity brings
in his divine nurtured rapture
from the nature of things.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
BY THE HOTEL ELEVATOR
By the hotel elevator in Paris
on an impalpable holiday
is the loneliest scene
as sleep walking suit cased
hearing the AM
speaking of raging war
ethnic cleansing
final solutions
yet tranquilized survivors
by half -open faced sagas
of oblivious tourists
sandwiched between
bar and lobby
provide and divide space
to these seasoned travelers
reaching for teapots
and glasses of white wine
doled out with napkins
under doubled chins
from slow kitchen helpers
because it is always
a long trip and cold
from another's hands
looking up to the balcony
in the latest fashion show
losing yourself in mirrors
of soft lights moving you
away from Mozart's muzak
stumbling up the steps
to your inner sanctum
to celebrate sounds
of your lost appearance
by the vacuum
at sauntering in lost thoughts
by habitable towels
undressed by the sink
your mind not intact
or awakened by the rush
of blinded window last light
from your secret location
in a glance's view
of new information
as yet unknown saga
yet may be true
from any vetted apology
yet unspoken to atone
in any regretted vocation
or out of the blue pardon
among the wood's rock garden
there is a moonstone,
as in Stravinsky's"Firebird"
many notes of elocution's force
before a dancer's outside call
in full curtained voice
by the concert hall
with blinding secret wonder
a ballerina emerges in a theater
among nature's belladonna
on steps of connections,
out of rain and thunder
in a poetic word's
language's ballet
by answers and questions
to the critics' directions
at night and every day.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
AFTER A RUN
The breadth of a bardic Beat
venture returns to my memory
after a run on Boston Common
on Memorial weekend
Elizabeth still photographs me
after a minor marathon
resting my feet
along the Charles River
in the blazing sun
taking off my sweat shirt
on the Esplanade
up to the mirror of fountains
where children play cards
laughing in their fun
now on the edge of the shore
a sail boat moves us in the harbor
where sparrows make their way
circling the azure sky
brushing by the trees maypole
concealed in birch branches
by the morning river bed
where a poet adds a parenthesis
and the bee keeper keeps watch
on this New England colony
in the shed with my amanuensis.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
AT THE AIRPORT
Betting for a wait
before Memorial Day
inspectors arm wrestle
an innocent passenger
with a bandaged pulse
in a straight jacket
when four hours
turn into dusk
trying to shadow box
to bracket my own lines
of free verse poetry
in my daydream mind
encountering dizziness
from past turbulence
unaware of air pressure
from the force of sadness
my memory goes back
to my adolescence
of wearing a poppy
for Uncle Jack
year after year
on the green grave
with fresh flowers
and now removing
my Red Sox cap on backwards
taking out my sunglasses
yet speaking to another soul
with huge outrage who is here
burying her Dutch daughter
studying American history
at night and shadow
who was at a vacation tavern
given a date drug in a drink
at a good bye graduation party
trying to make sense of it
over the mirage of waters
when times are loveless
and war has cursed us,
with her luggage lost
filling out so many forms
in the commotion of flight
feeling so much alone
we share forgotten photos
our past hidden love notes
inked in a sleepless hour
by fortune cookies
flashing car keys
expired passports
in long corridors of stone
awaiting a holiday weekend.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
SOME MAY DAYS
Some May days
one does not wish to think
too deeply, just do push-ups
on the gym floor
or sing a Sabbath hymn
that our spirit can't ignore
yet a poet emerges
through the library door
so contrary to his plans
locked without priorities
that he will stay
by the motioning clock
watching a coiled
garden snake in shadows
overgrown with mossy grass
submerged through a path
at my kitchen window
acting defensive in the garden
rattled without demands
makes natural sorties
as his shadow succumbs
and just slinks away
on this May doldrums day
waiting to swim in the waters
along the iron life-line fence
near a threshold
of sea shells
along Degas' blue rocks
waking up my memory
of the gold finch
with long wings
flying by a jetty's wharf
who sings us a song
by a tied row boat
now take a short swim
in the rush of a wave.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
BORGES' LAST EXIT
The city opens in Buenos Aries
thinks of its good fortune
in having Jorge Luis Borges
upon the literary ladder ring
as a poet's higher critic
researching amply for orations
reaches on the library wall
for life's diction of explanations
located by antiquities design
here in his Eden of a living room
explores paraphrased commentary
rooted by vast heirloom histories
when beseeching a scattered fiction
located at pastimes, places, signs,
in presences, phrases by art masters
covers bizarre geometric lines
on global geographical maps
as an intelligent mind encounters
visions,awakenings,horizons
epiphanies,memoir and diary
in a glossary of personal testimony,
as Titian and Tintoretto appear
on his artistic projecting screen
over Borges recent revelation's lips
silently records what shapes
all of man and woman kind
from Creation to Apocalypse
when a sculpture of Donatello
closes the the curtains of his mind
which drapes his world era,
then Mexico landscapes appear
on a Spanish veiled scrim
drapes a freeze of Diego Riviera
and Frida Kahlo vanishes with him
Jorge suddenly hears far off notes
of Mozart's musical miniatures
in a played sonata part on his piano
as he leaves with his last exit
at the contrary atheneum's archives
with a good friend driving with him
after a morning's addendum,
returning from his study guide
now rests on the patio
under a generous sunshine
as he feasts on salad, filet of sole
and a pepper mint herbal tea at noon
feeding over his verbal finger tips
with a mouth of shared herbal wine,
soon this scholar Borges is reading
his parchment of a Torah scroll
sent as a day dream fiesta arrives
reading his Aleph, Bet it seems
as a thousand birds rise to circle
their way to the South pole
from an Argentine celebrated sky,
later a twilight lit city will dazzle
the stars through dusty blinds
by guilds of a history's wrinkle
he yearns for an hour in the park
listening on a hilly breeze
to jazz sax riffs till dark
by wide greensward of trees
as a Cinereous Mourner's ashes
rise on the shading
of a seasonal four lateral wind
a black bird sneezes on branches
for an exile's miracle kiss
near a rural cattle ranch lawn
on a bench by coral flowers
he hears an astral visionary's call
on an hour's masked starry sky
to sip from a proverb's looking glass
in a talisman's floral flask
disclosing a new lyrical translation
and reading his creative reviews,
yet hearing of the burning books
on the news from Germany
upon learning of persecuted Jews
how a carnival festival
or a holiday maker can quickly
turn to war and fascism's sins
in a devil's abyss,
Borges has compassion
from his depth of thinking
in an alpha and omega's creation
to span over a radical fashion
at a magical realism's generation
to challenge millions of poetry fans.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
UP GREEN MOUNTAINS
How close are we
to verge of our journey
up the Green Mountains
as our hiking boots turn
in an unseen silence
sighting a deer in first light
a morning fills with frost
encircled in a path of snow
sheltering words in these lines
which emerge outliving our time
from an earth-wise nature
on this Fall
seasonable pike
as flakes drift trekking
from Vermont's
long memory
saying canticles
of St. Francis
in white coated anonymity
walking into a concert
of Chopin
crowded with patrons
of the symphony
by lovers of music.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
MARATHON (2) 2000
Rising to a jazz rhythm
keeping in the lane
forgetting past riffs
by helping one beside us
to get up from the grass
of a recent blueberry harvest
grinding around us
with four hours left
to mimic last night's sleep
yet pressing toward
the recondite right landmarks
gambling on this day's calling
with no stop watch
not quitting until dark
until the yellow finish line
appears out of nowhere
near crooked peaks
and red birch
as runner ups in landslips
over greensward dales
trying to be undaunted
but not fully understanding
why here at my age
taking turns over this time
off and on windy lashes
unlaced in a chalk circle
following an eagle
on the Bay
not frightened by a scarecrow
on the side of the road.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
MARATHON 1990
Jolts in my body
hitting the wall
hearing barefoot fans
interceding for us
by road beds on river ruts
our shaken up bodies
near birds on statues
singing by tree stumps
at the first hour of dawn
by indelible tracks
on distant paths
crosswise near green hills
some recounting time
others wishing to make
a record for themselves
under bridges
soon with wobbling knees
and sweated shoulder pain
bodies with feet blisters
cramping hope
on rugged terrain
far from home
with one hand clasping
from two sidelined
recumbent leaning bodies
wishing us well
all in search for meaning
or here for charity
as our salt eyelids
rivet from its blur
wanting oxygen
and a bottle of water.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
LET THIS DECEMBER
Let this December dawn
be a morning
of such American perception
that signs and wonders
will be in our
hiking direction
thinking to pause
on windows
to watch chimeras
of songbirds
hearing cicadas
and cardinals go South
on whatever road
by Robert Frost's birches
or James Dean's cycles
thanking life's moments
for a worthwhile day spent
bemused by glimpsing times
of recluse J.D.Salinger
in Vermont
looking for miracles
of Kerouac's prose
or visiting Emily Dickinson
at Amherst groves
where we park
on the right routes
over expressway obstacles
by a thick river of cars
as a cool mortal Beat
and a smooth jazz guy
within my hands,
toes and feet
may pardon, circle
and disclose
of their memory.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
A WARSAW LETTER
You sent me a letter
from Warsaw
in between my phlox
and rock garden chores
with pebbles from the sea
the dead stones come alive
from my noon daydream
of busy tackle fishing
on the other side of the Bay
here for a last run
miles away from the shore
as trout survive
seconds, seasons, times
now remembering
my headlight
of the motorcycle
needs to be switched off
e mailing my sailor friend
Ringo over predicable waves
who is going to my
Beat poem reading
hoping he would become
an ecologist
traveling like on roads
always of exodus
living in tabernacles
over desert borders
to protect and rescue turtles
sea lions, whales,
other mammals
by outposts
of crowded sails
under chromatic rays
by sunshine
with look-outs
over grassy island
Ringo is now
riddled by his own jokes
in his blue angler kayak
who says he noticed
my old Harley and fixed it
in the parking lot on the dock.
B.Z. Niditch, 30 june 2015
YOUR LYRICS
Unknown words
seep in your ears
but like Van Gogh
a painter shapes
his thimble of fears
a poet is often unaware
of hieroglyphics
until his symbols
of his enigma
become the grammar
of his poem's lyrics.
B.Z. Niditch, 30 june 2015
ALONG HOLLYWOOD BLVD.
Outside the squirrels
hide in the leaves
of Evergreen branches
on the hillside
a solitary singer
offers her blue Monday
tune in a raindrop
moistened by the language
planted from her tongue,
it is a time of morning silence
when our initials
are hung over
by the summer rosebushes
on a rubbed-out signature
in pure gestured breathless fire
the wind rushes to the memory
of a young poet's nature
in the wilderness woods
dressed by a motionless hour
near passer-by processions
of soccer stars on summer floats
along the corner
as a child with a new compass
wishes to be easily assured
to live in tourist pictures
from a pretense and charade
on a cash in Hollywood
and Vine lines delivered by
finely dressed actors for hire
on Los Angeles admired time.
B.Z. Niditch, 30 june 2015
SZYMBORSKA'S BIRTHDAY
July 2
1923-2012
Words aglow
even as you sleep
in spilled out memory
we recollect
your pocket poems
in our ringed memory
from secrets,wonder,voices
we have to love
with no hours to lose
when you open our secrets
from your nature's language
and tomorrow in Warsaw
the birds will be out
sunning themselves
in your house's ledge
returning to their shadows
and the four winds
of you translated in silence.
B.Z. Niditch, 30 june 2015
COMMODITY (1943)
to Symborska's memory
What an oddity
the world thinks of us
as a commodity
at a blink and loss
we are not to be sold
for forty pieces
of silver or gold
yet we are told daily
not to be temperamental
we are by the threshold
of a bidding war
to skin us alive
yet we want to console
our flesh to survive
hiding the yellow stars
in cattle cars
in the far country
we stand by the manger
as a stranger to the creche
or by Jesus cross
with 1943 nails
upon the tree
three souls are bargaining
for their lives
by Warsaw's ghetto gates
it starts to snow
we ask for angels
as a poets life waits
not lost to our manifold soul.
B.Z. Niditch, 30 june 2015
PEACE
At the light
of day that gives
us peace
by a labyrinth
of branches
in a hyacinth warmth
at the name
of the sea
which gazes at us
reaching for a shell
at a shadow of stone
by the beach lighthouse
squirrels climb the hill
at noon in a quandry
when life is at a standstill.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 june 2015
DIEGO VALAZQUEZ
born June 6, 1599
As a painter of the brothers
who brought to their father
the fiery bloody coat of colors
of a disfigured Joseph
dropped once in a well
like those who once desired
to hide from their guilty crime
yet we watch Joseph raised up
in Egypt to interpret dreams
became a Jewish dreamer
and beloved prime minister
to be honored for all time
for sin is shamed in history,
yet justice reigns, it seems.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 june 2015
THOMAS HARDY'S DAY
June 2
1840- 1928
Your novels and poems
leave us melancholy
to the accidents of fate
before we make decisions
we make alterations
from any rhyme of folly
and reach any probabilities
wrestling on words to wait.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 june 2015
A POET'S REMEDY
When you are down
and cannot think
and everything seems
to be wrong
drowning in words of ink
by broken mirrors of love
suffocating from the heat
we take a kayak
like Charon's oars
over the high sea
to enlighten us
in the cool sunlight
and breathe in ocean air
as once in the Adriatic
away from fields of wheat,
when a friend is in grief
open the doors to her
and offer Natalia a greeting
of daytime flowers,
give her no obstacles
in any dance of hours
for all miracles are welcome
in a luminous belief,
try to draw or paint
a number of pictures
as a bas relief,
when you were far
from home
and needing a plumber
in Rome
by the marble carrara sink
was dripping
by your Trevi fountains art,
we choose transparency
to do my visible part
and drew Natalia in a flight
of angel bird-song above
the shimmering mountains,
when you need any remedy
drink from a parlance
to command your vocabulary
at a sunlight's window
outside the cape,
or call on the Parisian poets,
Baudelaire or Pierre Reverdy,
or give ear to saint Malachy;
when I try to exercise
or play sax in the attic
to maintain my wise balance
by the music's stands weight
and not be sycophantic.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 june 2015
ON MEMORIAL DAY
After every war
we invent silence
even memory,
inside the quiet rooms
of our nerves
in the recall of him or her
will find us offering a prayer
when the sunlight appears
on Memorial Day
through windows of birds
who flutter up over our windows
covering May's cool heavenly air
hands outstretch to poppies
is reflected in our mirrors
along the surf's breeze
knowing we exist as words
become our lives
in every whisper
and tiny gesture
we choose to pick flowers
as a poet's shadow
turns in the high tide
drowning a remembrance
as rainbows in the waters
rise by the sea's headstones
choosing to revere
the silver thoughts
from our angel's occupation.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 june 2015
JUNE
It is June;
in the fresh air breeze
off the shore
we sight
as in my visionary dream
all week
as these bountiful trees appear
with its the small grass dunes
seen nearby
from a wooden bridge
when the sun is over us
and the air is clear
and we peek out to see more
of the ocean
at the tourist ships alight
to motion over the high tide
and Jesus is in us,everywhere
what a privilege it is
to worship as You are revealing
the spring to us
in a chorus of green and blue
to see the birch so white
now feeling renewed
and all His earth is bright.
B.Z. Niditch, 20 april 2015
PLAYING HANDEL
Playing Handel
in my mind and head
playing you
for a month at a time
at the end of the war
hearing the rain
falling like the 1945 nails
of the Cross
on one small corner
of the universe
in sound proof studios
on the ball infields
or by the ocean sands
under a beautiful foreign sun
washed bodies of water
with you swimming out,
your notes not lost in visiting
to honor the righteous
in the concentration camps,
when you feel
like a thousand days
of long suffering,
we can always hear you.
B.Z. Niditch, 20 april 2015
WHAT IS NATURE
Say to the clouds
give up your rain
to the scaffold
give up your poets
who want to live,
to the grassland
stay back for March
for soccer games
to the dunes
crush the sap of Maple
for your morning pancakes,
by the marshes
have a cup of Bourbon
from Paris here in Warsaw
to remember me by
who will always
be back to the edges
of nature.
B.Z. Niditch, 20 april 2015
WHEN A NEW VOICE ARRIVES
The sun disquiets
our memory
as a surrealist poet
signs autographs
against the elm
after his urban read
then after a party
in his honor
plays his alto sax
from chapped blinded lips
addressing the eager crowd
on the riverbed peace garden
recounting my a double life
as a poet and musician
asking only
that millstones be created
from language into bread
on a hungry street of fountains
for a surrogate future
making even a lily blush.
B.Z. Niditch, 20 april 2015
MARCH MUSIC
Shadows fall
near the mirror, coat
and once soiled banner
held on a marathon run
in March
from another time,
wanting to play sax
as my notes dance
in a good mood
vibrating a curious scaling
from our chilled out tones
to sway smooth jazz.
B.Z. Niditch, 20 april 2015
ON A NEW CHAIR
Someone is whispering to me
about the chaos
of intangible memory
our shadows hidden in Warsaw
by a Milosz library
near a lemony canary in its cage
as seen in the sunshine
at the edge of a wine glass
left to me by grandmother
my guitar standing in silence
near the serene reading room
waiting to be played
by a visiting exiled poet
full of suspicion
murmurs at his own fate.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 january 2015
ANDRZEJ WAJDA, DIRECTOR
Your Polish films
in black and white
under fascism's history
gave us deeper insight
into hunger, tyranny and misery,
knowing the thunder of war
from our lack and poverty,
that only in such dialogue
have we a brilliant diary,
with a wish again
to be in laughter.
B.Z. Niditch, 9 january 2015
PERHAPS
(for Tadeusz Konwicki
22 June 1926 – 7 January 2015)
Perhaps watching
the Konwicki film
"Salto"
with Zbigniew Cybulski,
the Polish James Dean,
last night,
brought back
the times
after lectures
when we would sneak
into art theaters
for two foreign films;
then afterwards
how we would lay
on warm blankets
intertwined with
the grass
by the Charles River.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 january 2015
"IDA," A POLISH FILM
Only if you had been
an adolescent Marxist
in a post revolutionary era
or a later day Christian
after a religious age
has passed you by
at a May Day march of time,
when only children
inspire your absence
from the lost crowd
by the river's edge
alone with your notebook
holding onto a birch branch
with your carved initials
waiting for your lover
or in the silence of a monastery
from a retreat by iron doors
could you expect "Ida"
to surprise you.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 january 2015
POLISH NEW YEAR
Despairing of fathomless cold
birds wait on the fountain
for rain water over stones
by the war memorial,
two friends from the country
wrapped in leather jackets
sleep in turn after celebrations
of the new year's century's peace
one wakes with a poem
the other turns his back
and finds his lost motorcycle
by a church's stained window.
Latest comments:
18 may 2024
kb
jakoś kojarzy mi się z "siostrami wielkiej
18 may 2024
no chyba że pomieszkuje
18 may 2024
zdaje się że nikt tu już nie mieszka
18 may 2024
bardzo
18 may 2024
orzeźwieni... prawie jak otrzeźwieni... i to
16 may 2024
violetta
Może w lipcu będę miała takie wakacje:)
16 may 2024
jeśli tylko
słońce w płynie..
15 may 2024
Weronika
Za jeszcze jeden rejs!
14 may 2024
Mam takie oko :)
14 may 2024
Jaga
Zwierzęta upodobniły się do koloru otoczenia
14 may 2024
To naturalny suchy i pustynny klimat. I tam są
14 may 2024
Klimat taki, że nie był i raczej nie będzie,
20 may 2024
Satish Verma
19 may 2024
wiesiek
19 may 2024
Satish Verma
18 may 2024
Satish Verma
17 may 2024
Satish Verma
16 may 2024
Satish Verma
15 may 2024
Jaga
15 may 2024
Satish Verma
14 may 2024
Satish Verma
13 may 2024
Satish Verma