—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock
WE'RE FINISHED
—Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch
We're finished now with lost keys, the dust
of accidentals and half-rests, the sheet
music disarrayed and uncollate, the song
was Rhapsody in... Naked Feet... the Prelude
to the Afternoon of... Malaguena, the coda
Schumann's, Robert can't del capo al... the head
is gone and recapitulation, the sympathetic
vibration of octaves resolving to tonic, the hand
____________________
We're finished now with lost keys, the dust
of accidentals and half-rests, the sheet
music disarrayed and uncollate, the song
was Rhapsody in... Naked Feet... the Prelude
to the Afternoon of... Malaguena, the coda
Schumann's, Robert can't del capo al... the head
is gone and recapitulation, the sympathetic
vibration of octaves resolving to tonic, the hand
____________________
THE CHICKENS WERE CACKLING
—Robert Lee Haycock
The chickens were cackling
Over some off-color joke
About a man running around
With his head chopped off
I didn't get the punchline
____________________
The chickens were cackling
Over some off-color joke
About a man running around
With his head chopped off
I didn't get the punchline
____________________
THE FRONT DOOR BEHIND ME
—Robert Lee Haycock
The front door behind me I've quietly closed
Shutting in warmth and dear ones and light
The heart of the Scorpion, not-Mars, red as rose
Stands guard this close watch of the night
The front door behind me I've quietly closed
Shutting in warmth and dear ones and light
The heart of the Scorpion, not-Mars, red as rose
Stands guard this close watch of the night
___________________
ATMOSPHERICS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
In an out of whack world—
cities crowded together with no
space left for design—
it was no surprise to see graffiti scrawled
across blue sky, six enormous
chalk marks like knife-slits in faded
denim, all aimed at one target.
Carson Pass? And a seventh slash,
sliced diagonally across, as if
angels were on a lark. Contrails,
said my rational mind. I rejected it.
I liked the pattern and
the texture, white on blue trying to tell
me something. Already changing
with upper-level winds.
It's June. Temps expected in the 90's.
I think I'll head on up-country,
see where the lines converge.
Poems airy-bright as sky-lines before
you ink them down on paper.
*
That afternoon the clouds piled up across
the lake, thunder-towers, castles with forked fire
in their keeps, rising out of cirrus that floated
mid-level above water, angel-skirts, shapes
dreaming themselves by moments changing.
I didn't know what to guess about the weather.
It had a mind, it had a wind of its own.
—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock
IN THE WILDERNESS
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
Hearing on the beach
sea voices
to listen like doves
at the Japanese yew
by a Zen garden,
my leafy eyes
open at first light
in face of the shore,
wanting to thank
Thomas Merton
explaining
for the living
the presence
of an absent sky
or earth at play
here in deep breaths
from my plenary nature
as stones wash ashore
by scribes now passing
to us with eyes
of visionary love
here by the Coast
and share a flurrying wind
on fields and ocean
by those prophetic poets
who are able to fast
far from movable feasts.
______________________
ATLANTIC PACIFIC POET
—B.Z. Niditch
Ebbed showers
disguised as rain kisses
by a mourning dove
for company
on the thousand year
Evergreen branch
as a lighthouse keeper
here in Maine,
near the language
of this tall tree
also remembers
the Redwoods
on the Pacific Coast
their conical crowns
as I wrote
by my first sequoia
from a luminous light
under in the tender sky
of an emerging sun
consuming a poet's
alembic words from
a newly seasoned solitude.
______________________
MY MAINE MAN
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
Hearing on the beach
sea voices
to listen like doves
at the Japanese yew
by a Zen garden,
my leafy eyes
open at first light
in face of the shore,
wanting to thank
Thomas Merton
explaining
for the living
the presence
of an absent sky
or earth at play
here in deep breaths
from my plenary nature
as stones wash ashore
by scribes now passing
to us with eyes
of visionary love
here by the Coast
and share a flurrying wind
on fields and ocean
by those prophetic poets
who are able to fast
far from movable feasts.
______________________
ATLANTIC PACIFIC POET
—B.Z. Niditch
Ebbed showers
disguised as rain kisses
by a mourning dove
for company
on the thousand year
Evergreen branch
as a lighthouse keeper
here in Maine,
near the language
of this tall tree
also remembers
the Redwoods
on the Pacific Coast
their conical crowns
as I wrote
by my first sequoia
from a luminous light
under in the tender sky
of an emerging sun
consuming a poet's
alembic words from
a newly seasoned solitude.
______________________
MY MAINE MAN
—B.Z. Niditch
Late as usual
without directions
sidelined and lost
on a back road
by a fruit stand
with no signs pointing
for this city slicker,
you rent a bicycle
from a speechless man
my sleeping bag left
on the bay side
of ditch water well
weary from insomnia
with no one around
by a ripening landscape,
even the skylark here
only speaks in French
as this song bird
embraces a branch
clasping the foreign body
of a lonely Japanese maple
with a welcomed countenance
fringed by woody leaves
and June bugs
on early maritime hour
taking a run with towel
in hand
through the wilderness
to swim in a coral lake
nature gives me
an inexpressible bear hug,
as I spy another lost soul
from neighboring Canada
with a guide book
aided by the muted farmer.
______________________
ALONG BOSTON'S DOCK
—B.Z. Niditch
ALONG BOSTON'S DOCK
—B.Z. Niditch
No loss
reciprocal letters
of your childhood friend
who has passed away
unexpectedly
now in the shock
of being overwhelmed
here at the ocean dock
where we sailed
in the regatta
on the Charles River
harboring memories
by the sea's waterfront
throwing pebbles
to the shore,
wanting to recover
our past adolescence
wanting again
to be spontaneous
with a school companion
who envisioned
our reunion
by summer,
yet there is joy
in countless encounters
with the orange kayak
you named "the B Z"
or you going underwater
swimming cautiously
in the language
of these shining waves.
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
Every poet's life is one poem until its translation.
—B.Z. Niditch
____________________
—Medusa
—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock