Latest items:
B.Z. Niditch, 12 october 2016
ANDRZEJ WAJDA PASSES
We remember your films
"Ashes and Diamonds"
"Kanal," "A Generation"
"Danton," "Man of Marble"
and more;
we will not forget
your historic movies,
nor the patriotism
of a life affirmed
in a ragtag century
of Auschwitz and the Gulag,
that poetry will choose life
in spite of the Nazis,
and the Communism of the Soviets;
we will plant red poppies
on the solitary grave
of a Resistance fighter,
wishing a solidarity of peace
for a new generation,
with your films still shown
to our own underground.
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.
B.Z. Niditch, 19 september 2016
WALDEN POND
On the Concord river
we sail my kayak
in denims
by a swarming
nest of hornets
a fawn is rustling by trees
we're spreading
lines of Thoreau
at my students
orientation
wishing to hold
the hands of language
flashing love and nature
by first circles of light
with a glow
in companions
breathing hard
in a marathon
from grassy hills and dunes
under dry orange leaves
as new Fall acorns drop
we run into shadowy strides
as a horse back rider waves
to us down hills
of open songs
over Walden Pond trails
by breezy gestures
of the wind.
B.Z. Niditch, 19 september 2016
SMOOTH JAZZ
Smooth jazz playing
at a natural good night
for my last gig
buried over
quarter notes
drowning in
poetry pockets of sax
asked to play
at a birthday party
warmed by wood stoves
in a Fall midnight hour
watching a bird
through windows
chirping under trembling oaks
in the soft showery rain
the whole length of hours
remembering
the French onion soup
and vanilla pancakes
on the fire near
the floorboards
to watch dancing
and propose
a toast that persuades you
that the thirst
and hunger
of our menu wheelhouse
is perfectly arranged.
B.Z. Niditch, 19 september 2016
THE MOON'S SOLITUDE
In the moon's solitude
waiting to read
new poem sequences
among the last red leaves
waiting to play sax
in the breathing of waves
from a montage of pages
in my impatient mind
outside my window
are stars too embarrassed
by grieving
for the silent woman
a longtime friend, Anna,
who has family in Paris
telling her the only answer
is to love a heart that is light
and she asks me to play
a lucid French piano tune
of her childhood
before she left for America
the Germans invaded
her luminous memory.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 september 2016
SCATTERED TIME
On solitary horizons
loosed as days lost
combing through
scattered time
of metamorphosis
with hours to appease
us in a poet's analysis
by stardust fleeting words
on nature's face of it
in a poet's abyss
from a visiting memory
breathing in my initials
by lunar landscapes
telescoped on Maple trees
mulling over Chopin's
waltzes once composed
in another century's breath
losing myself
in a dusk of shadows
out in the French countryside
on a rose garden bench
praying for peace
in an open field of orange
and red leaves
over Monet-like river beds
near the monastery fence
at daybreak's solitary sun
here on meadow fields
of strawberries
gathered in Autumn
when the nascent doves
of Picasso in a reddened sky
fly away South to keep warm
like a runaway adolescent
fleeing parental storms.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 september 2016
PLAYING CHOPIN
Playing Chopin etudes
under his miniature
on the piano
by my twenty-somethings
with my gestures
disclosing my unshaven years
that spilled out
the lyrical muse
of a musical romanticism
that faintly enfolds us
at my recital on pages
of belated practice
here in a sheltered hall
north of the city harbor
for a poet needs to live
and play by a river
as he needs
the saints of Jesus
reading aloud as a debut
the Romantic music
of my apprenticed verse
from my rustling hands
practicing in three languages
suddenly in the thunder
of my audience's hands
the applause like the wind
was deafening.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 september 2016
MEETING UP WITH BEATS
There were five of us
who spoke together
after our shielded reading
during a partial sax recital
when time came to a stop
and were translated
to passing glances
in a memorial of the Beats
on a free wielding
rush of our words
by keeping
the lamp burning
at my dancing verse
out in a changing season
of a strong voice
aiming at
swaying at your cool
flirting audience
suddenly inescapable silence
as if to say,
we are taking off
in our night shirts.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 september 2016
MANHATTAN RIFFS
Wherever a moon is sealed
here for my waiting gig
to play new sax riffs
the street lights shine
on a leafless tree
my girlfriend trembles
shading in
an oil portrait of us
or when fading out of love
watching a silent red sky
having lost hope
by the seaside green
yet composing a jazz solo
among swaying dunes
under a solitary gazebo
from my old telescope
viewing the meteoric stars
above Brighton Beach
when Whitman or Crane
visited the Brooklyn Bridge
those spans between
parental storms
of my own visibility
here in Manhattan
writing in nine circled bars
on this voiceless night
by an unmade bed,
anonymous sunglasses
a live elm
with my initials on it
a comatose clock,
with my name and memory
returning to me.
B.Z. Niditch, 17 september 2016
WAITING TO FISH
These October mornings
waiting for a line of bass
or any fish to appear
losing no time
on the shore's tall grass
by dawn's dock
in a row boat or kayak
over the motionless shore
on Atlantic's ocean waters
embracing an opening wave
by a back up school
of salmon in a frenzy
then motionless
in an A.M. silence
of too much cool memory
already tasting the filet
fried and cooked
along the sea.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 september 2016
THE TAXI CAB MAN
The poet asks how much
as his Dutch friend
puts his hand
on the meter
does not dare
to talk about money
at new year's time
they are both tired
and stood up tonight
by their double dates
two bouquets of roses
lie on the front seat,
the poet needs to
study French
in the library
on the back bench
waiting for his exam,
but he will not take
the cab driver away
from his grave yard shift
lasting a life time.
B.Z. Niditch, 14 september 2016
TO ROCK THE BOAT
To rock the boat over me
knowing an aging poet
is always in exile
shipwrecked on the ocean
or by merely visiting
the company of another.
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, 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
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, 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, 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
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
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
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, 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, 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
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
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.
Latest comments:
4 may 2024
Weronika
Boli bo rektoskop to nie gadżet analny, więc
4 may 2024
Jutro jest niewyrażalne i nie do odgadnięcia.
3 may 2024
violetta
Drzewka do jedzenia:)
1 may 2024
Tak;)
1 may 2024
kb
złotej*
1 may 2024
kontoler żłotej poświaty
1 may 2024
samo życie, każdy swoje brudy ma, lepsze czy
1 may 2024
romantyczny to romantyczny, prawdziwy taki
1 may 2024
ten ketchup to fakt, trzeba przypilnować przy
1 may 2024
interesujący przekaz, jak dla mnie o własnej
1 may 2024
ucieczka z przewidzianym powrotem to też stabilizacja...
29 april 2024
Nie jest niczym podyktowany:)
5 may 2024
wiesiek
5 may 2024
absynt
5 may 2024
Satish Verma
4 may 2024
absynt
4 may 2024
kalik
4 may 2024
wiesiek
4 may 2024
Satish Verma
3 may 2024
absynt
3 may 2024
wiesiek
3 may 2024
Satish Verma