The Hypnosis of Unsuspected Language

Chica the Chihuahua

—Photo by Caschwa

EVENING
—Caschwa, Sacramento
 
Shortly before bedtime
We let the dog out
Into the back yard

She stood and pawed
At the glass sliding door
Then darted across the lawn

Chasing old dark shadows
Dancing in happy circles
Tormenting the underbrush

With her barely 6 pounds
Of imposing figure
Then she started the tour

Tracing the same dotted line
The children followed in the
Old Family Circus cartoons

Nose keenly to the ground
Inspecting each and every place
A cat, squirrel, or bird had been

Dancing in happy circles
Chasing old dark shadows
Darting back across the lawn

To come inside and sleep.
 

________________________

MARGRITTE'S "TIME"
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

The clock transfixed
and planted me
ticked me off
lapsing in the void
suspected of silence
by candlesticks
locked in solace
and absence
of space of this poem
framed by light.

_______________________

WOODLAND WEDDING
—B.Z. Niditch

Noonday bathed
on our pastimes
over rising shadows
of green highlands
of a country-gold course
by high-rise sounds
of a midsummer's
musical night dream
a procession hears
when love is calling us
from the cool pines
under a white canopy
spotted by angels
and baby's breath petals
near the underbrush echoes
of parachuting butterflies
under a blazing azure sky
as a poet reads
his believing words,
in keen listening ears
everyone remembering
their own connected lives
with amazing expressions
and nature's own tones.

 Maxfield [Parrish]'s Sky

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

PLAYING IN BUDAPEST CAFE
—B.Z. Niditch

The clock goes off, 1999
in my cold Budapest room
at the Autumnal Equinox
I'm late as usual
for my rehearsal
of Bartok's sonata in C
without excuse
know this music
pierced my sleepwalking
rush downstairs
with a strudel in hand
comb the river
with a cool breeze
by quivering hilly trees
on my tucked-out shirt
bells turn up from roofs
where at first light
a cyan blue sky serves
us another color
of unconsumed sunshine
feeling like a third horseman
holding my violin case
sonata notes and rosin bag
close to the poet
Atilla Jozsef's statue
suddenly recalling
as if in a mirrored epiphany
in another world
a critic who telling us
the trio we practiced
underwritten by Szigeti
was influenced
by Benny Goodman
when jazz modulated
our composer's music.

______________________

INTO THE QUIET

—B.Z. Niditch

(In Memory: Aug. 30, 2013)

Into the quiet
of a morning stillness
at dark green nature's
stammering consciousness
which refuses to pass us
without open faces
beyond our house narrative
still hearing your voice
Seamus in the lowly light
of the academic hall
touching the bright sounds
of you reading Beowulf
now you yourself, translated
to the chance of the unknown
on this elusive voyage
for us among the hypnosis
of unsuspected language
lost in shadowy breath
with the countless hours
of a proverbial dawn
you will always be here
at second light.

_______________________

L.A.X. AIRPORT, 2000
—B.Z. Niditch

Watching the handlers
searching for escargot
among the cargo
slow as snails
I wanted to take the rails
or any train
and raise Cain
but decided to write
some lines
longer than these
for all the pain!

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

FALL
—B.Z. Niditch

Mums and bulbs are here
in their beds
it seems like ages
what we already knew
fate, a garden, love
a stranger passes on
to review and already
bright orange and red.

_____________________

—Medusa

Chica

—Photo by Caschwa (Carl Bernard Schwartz)