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B.Z. Niditch, 8 february 2013
DRAWING
It seems to me,
the Polish painter
near the pond
drawing in
my welcome
to his own service
by jagged lines
on his canvas
in a white blouse
has an endless
watch for color
with a dialogue
between this poet,
a charred surrealist
as well,
gathers around
an easel of aesthetic
interpretation.
B.Z. Niditch, 19 july 2012
ORIGINAL
Taken for the voice
of a sage
after resistance
to the contary,
refusing all laurels
for nearly being
only a memory
for truth,
without an echo
in annals
of tormented
ridicule,
Buried
as red flesh
without ashes
or speech,
no airs
only whispers
from crowds
who look away.
B.Z. Niditch, 27 june 2016
THE DISAPPEARED ONE
June showers in a heat
fall into our picnic basket
it must have taken hours
when the barbecue flames
rose on the lawn
in the smoke by the gate
under the tent of crickets
this Sunday after church
we heard a Beat poet's
parched voice
fading from view
on the street between rains
reading of his experiences
in locating the names
of orphans from the Argentine
called "the disappeared"
of whom Jesus was one
were hunted and rounded up
by the military state
almost vanished
whom he saved
as a jazz brother invited
a young man who was famished
for a Spanish meal and wine
offered a kiss of peace
and we passed the plate
and he stayed overnight
until dawn.
B.Z. Niditch, 27 june 2016
SYLVIA PLATH
Sylvia walked in a hallway
of pained light
through the window
it was always night
living for words
always in the shadow
of living out the hour
in her poetic insight
from an already blemished day
astonished at her nerve
at a man's wrath
Sylvia moved giving flight
on her own contemporary path
from a finely shaped mind
in a new confessional school
that others hardly would find
a bard to be understood
and cast out with an icy cry
of harassed laughter
wishing to write her name Plath
on the encased blackboard
rejecting all chalk sounds
that would be erased
to reinvent her past,
no one knew whom
was stalked after
such was her lot and rule
recognizing her own fame
she composed by the mirror
taking out her lipstick
not realizing any blame
and shut the door.
B.Z. Niditch, 27 june 2016
IN A TREASURE TROVE
In a treasure trove
of living words
there is no border
to love or define forgiving
it is already done
yet here we are in the sun
listening to Charlie Parker
deciding to explore nature
and reach a nest of birds
caught in dark branches
or here at the beach
we assure that inside
of a shell and rock
that a hurting turtle
is well protected,
we make our ways
through Platonic caves
until we motion
to divine a measure
that we will be connected
in a snorkel of wishes
through the ocean waves
to find and save the fish
from man's leaving plastic
and all sort nets and metal
to save part of our planet
below our earth's
geological shadow
we let go
from the diving board
and swim in our words
in a dramatic mile below
like Jacques Cousteau
surfing with
an environmental smile.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 september 2016
TELL ME EVERYTHING
Tell me everything my friend
about lighting candles
for the victims of fascism
about your love for the lost
of Christ,
for the scarred
from my voice's mouth
with Mary's eyes of sorrow
wishing to speak your parables
for those who look at tomorrow
with only an abstraction
yet turn it into
the avant-garde
migraine times
of Simone Weil
the writing letters
of Kierkegaard
Kafka and Gogol's
death wish
not to be known who yearn
to burn their life's works
as you start learning
about the trains of thought
those about to perish
when the late day shadow
of the sun remembers
the half observed,
those who served
the "Master Race"
or who still turn
away their Stalag face
at the cross in the Gulag
we still ask as Mary
for His grace.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 september 2016
MONDRIAN'S UNIVERSE
Art with all senses
the colors that sets you apart
hits you in the reality
in each of design
of a Dutch grittiness
in the sponged face
of your "Christmas Card"
along with twice
the combinations
of past and future space
leveled in the linear unknown
at touching up
the avant-garde
for when your
propeller splashes
us on this nape of orange
in a museum canvas
we observe merely the surface
of red sashes
of geometric shapes
Mondrian's fusion drapes
in an illusion
of luminous shadow
of eccentric waves
of ink dreams
brushed between two oceans
in a parachute of our senses
hushed as an eccentric painter
craves to line and draw on
all of our anxious emotions.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 september 2016
AUGUST DOG DAY
Seizing to protect a pug
by the kiosk
tasting bread and wine
amid the chants
of the choir at St. Paul's
in Harvard Square
forgetting all triangular
morning masks and mysteries
near Cambridge Common
you eye Elizabeth Bishop
stopping at the crosswalk
returning from Brazil
with her luggage
in the glittering heat
of August's still noon
amid a phalanx of red birds
reaching out to a blue slate sky
when the first light
decides to shine
in taciturn airless hours
feeling the angst
of Sisyphus
amid the purple flowers
burning from
a high mountain
as a stone unable
to move or rise for us
hearing word lines of poetry
from the ancients like Ovid
sharing on divine
solitary horizons
transfigured by gold star dust
or listening to sister
in a far voice dreams
from a Greek chorus
burning your imagination
as we are a little changed
in sleepwalking liquid silences
of endless fervid fevers
as David among his flock
like old Cinna or bold Catullus
among the Caesars.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 september 2016
A KID AT THE CHELSEA
In a hotel room with a small t.v.
staring at cartoons, commercials
game shows and comedies
where at noon in a grainy stall
you leave your lame worry
for all the walled slogans
of graffiti
in a flushed shower
of a vocabulary
of assaulting words
(while I'm all in prayer
of St. Francis
with melancholy
but hope to attain
better in an after life)
with this continued
rainy abyss
waiting for a brief
answer of "Yes"
near my Advent clock radio
without an hour's prohibition
of sister doing
origami for a stranger
wanting to be spent anywhere
than in this hourly
Kafka burlesque
by the florid window
hearing a flock
of pigeons and a crow
in a metamorphosis
of humoresque
when the time is set
for creation
or to be at another
train track
to visit the 14th station
or else crossing
in another direction
at no man's land
at Christmas time
to be near Bethlehem's manger
yet an art director
wants to view
my play tomorrow
about Roualt's colorful clown
and coming down from
the bay at Boston
to audition on
off-off-Broadway
racked by sorrow,
I try to pray.
B.Z. Niditch, 7 september 2016
T.S. ELIOT AT ROCKPORT
It is to the rocks at Pigeon Cove
watching the cormorants
and not to the monotonous tide
at St. Ann's sandbar
that will salvage your name
it is to the ocean
and not to the fluid borders
that will embroider you
by the stones and surf
in the morning mist
of your mineral waters
that will anoint you
from the anchors
of the tourist boat
from Boston
through a water song shadow
that will offer prayer
to your conscience
in a cup's communion
and it is to the silence
of the eagle
perched on the harbor dock
in the windshield of the sun
that will lock your eyelids
into your torpor of mind
familiar though
a threatening storm
that will save the whole sky
in a flushed warm
August dog day
of a fevered heat wave
that leaves
your conflated memory
in language
by a daybreak sentence
to make any sense
as the birds chatter
and the clouds scatter
why does it matter,
by the parking lots
of visitors with their mirrors
of the past that enfold across
their own corridors
as maps are lost on bridges
and are caught by the lone sail
down the hills
by the rails of the last train
that sought to visit by the dunes
or pursue a wanton shadow
of days that are narrow
as you kneel by your bed
by nail scarred hands
knowing as the noon bell rings
and a choir sings
inside you believes the face
of a memoir
is being composed
and small birds are clinging
to Evergreen branches
by the muggy rose garden
to pardon us all in grace.
B.Z. Niditch, 27 june 2016
JUNE NIGHT: 1990
We sat in the parlor
while on the piano
we played the sonata
of Mozart in D major
for two parts
and from wayfarer songs
of Gustave Mahler
composed from his heart
after being caught
by the Bay's spring rains
played some alto sax riffs
and tried my best
even as a romantic
on the sofa to relax
we sang melodies
against sturm and drang
and sought refrains
while we enjoy blue birds
hanging by a hedge
near a cherry tree
knowing life is a gift
this June night
we rehearse Chekhov
of the "Orchard"
and in my own poetry words
of a bard's night verse
we acknowledge a kept love
even the cat slept tight.
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, 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
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
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, 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, 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
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
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
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, 14 september 2016
IN A DARK GROVE
In the dark grove
near the Seine
at the finish line
here at a church
near a Paris road race
midnight becomes the tree
of life in an Eden's garden
where exiles are conceived
in river bed dreams
of prayers to St. Joan of Arc
to deliver
a murmuring baby
who emerges smiling
by the greensward park
in a laurel crib's
smiling stroller.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 september 2016
A FUTURE POET
Who will wish
to become a poet
is a dreamer
of the surreal
who dresses
in a white suit
and coat of many colors
speaks in dada
from two tongues,
Polish and French
plays hide and seek
by a bench of a monastery
under hidden garden walls
the winds rise up
from the dusty rain
round his eyelids
near the edge
of the shore.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 september 2016
AT THE THEATER
Watching
"The Seagull"
with my friends
up in the balcony
with a confessional
love poem
slowly emerging
in my smiling
imagination,
there is no language
that could sabotage
or upstage
the Beat in me
with my sax of a soul
out here
in the provinces
of France
anyway
it is starting to rain
off the islands
and my girl friend
suddenly asks me
for tickets
to see Adele
wondering if our life
merely repeats
the family dialogue
from any generation
in any lyrical play
or musical language
will send me back
to my early childhood
making my thoughts
and aching spirit rise
between two continents.
B.Z. Niditch, 24 september 2016
WATCHING
Watching from a telescope
heights of stars
after my bicycle ride
rests along the Bay
meeting a lost sailor
who caught yellow jack
in islands far from home
here at a frozen shore
ice fishing in a few holes
that he plummets
in halting waves
on waters
at the home harbor anchors
rescuing my orange kayak
still anchored for the spring
as a Canadian robin appears
along the shore.
B.Z. Niditch, 24 september 2016
ASHES
"Have a nice day"
say the living neighbors
who do not envy the lost
as news reports
on victims ashes
in Europe and Asia
cannot speak or reply
to the unthinkable
in an absence of gazes
from tiny snapshots
ex camera
in a former life
concealed among caves
and white stones
along the beach
your luminous eyes
cannot hide ourselves
on the unspeakable.
B.Z. Niditch, 24 september 2016
THE CHILD SOLDIERS
The child soldiers
smile and gaze
in a nightmare
as your furniture
and personal pictures
are being removed,
then you are taken away,
there are few
photos of you left
bathing on the sea
or up on skis
or on a white mountain
vacation,
no one to greet you
in the city market
without any fruit
or vegetables
in a time of war
reporters visit
after the horror
who now stare
at your losses.
B.Z. Niditch, 24 september 2016
FALL BLUES
A Beat poet
cooped up like a canary
in a New England winter
tired of TV. screens
and faded old films
clouded over
his bloodshot eyes
wanting to be a runaway
or a Rimbaud
here in Vermont
a red French wine
takes out his sax
to play riffs
along the Green Mountains
yet afraid to be
terrorized from a water bed
abandoned from home
and his made up
spiritual exercises
with a crusade
against his lost friend
shows me her balancing act
in his disturbed universe
by throwing a football
from the Patriots
telling her a Chinese proverb,
"Tension is who you think
you should be, relaxation
is who you are."
B.Z. Niditch, 24 september 2016
TWELVE CANDLES
Riding on my bicycle
with a broken right arm
and break in shoulder
after soccer practice
hurting from
a bully's wound
in days of Mercurochrome
still smarting on your body
of thought when left
with a shadow of memory
yet your anger smolder
over a first leather jacket
from your birthday party
after seeing
a James Dean movie
here on an Autumn day
you walk with a free ticket
to the Cape Ann museum
a pug on the sidewalk
accompanies you
with a Van Gogh postcard
from your Dutch uncle
still intact
in your side pocket
broken sunglasses
from today assaults
of an insensate encounter
you climb up
the art house steps
waiting to visit the moderns
taking out your oils,
notebook and poet's pen
unwilling to take any blame
for being an origin
B.Z. Niditch, 19 september 2016
IN MY GARDEN
Six outgrown petals
in a corsage
of last summer rose
not forgotten by time
a first woodland love
by wandering days
over my album leafs
page of my poems
in mute muse and stone by
the waiting hedges of vines
by yellow hyacinth groves
I'm in a Fall blue blazer
with apple scents
in faint trills
from my sax
playing in my backyard
along wind swept trees
along the home harbor Bay
by dangling shadows
of now ripened raspberries
on my walking path
holding my life within.
B.Z. Niditch, 19 september 2016
ON LENGTH OF DAYS
Words fall on me
on length of days
with the same pulse
of verse
as on my kayak
rolling on the bluest sea
on unexpected hours
or trekking
over back roads
watching cardinals sing
over Jacob's ladders
in an open language
of seasonal herons
climbing on mountains
a woman in red high heels
tells me she has lost
her tourist visa
and passport
on the last ship at eventide
holds my matches
on the sandy coast
for a neon campfire
near my hammock
out in the neighborhood
under the town's light
hearing my sax sonata
in the white deserted sand
my words wash over you
with a butterfly net
at the freshly
painted gazebo
by the lighthouse
luminosity
in wonder
of woodwinds
over blanket
quilts of love.
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,
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
11 may 2024
Satish Verma
10 may 2024
Jaga