The God Who Consoles

—Photo by Darlene Flanigan

TUMBLING YEARS
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

The first year
I saw the diving swans
the constantly moving group,
three ballerinas
under the sun shower
at noonday
followed by Cinderella
on the blue-mirrored lake
toned as a poem
in the warmth of June
shredding her white
primed feathers
in the airless landscape
as the third Aurora
in a swan song
with oracles
for her silent partner
in the mid-lake
with jumbled music
for the fourth swan
interlaced in a circle
of flowery arms
and nape of her neck
on the journey's duration
followed by a fifth swan
named Chara
over wells of water
as incarnations of dance
rise by curly bed rocks
shells and shale
by a porous acrobat
the sixth, an anonymous one
we call Narnia
caught in a flash
of camera and lightning
for a brief pose of birth
skims a chilled darkness
through silver liquidity
in a mute absence
of solitary secrets
from a growing afternoon
on a row of waves
of my tumbling years
at the last chain
covering space and time
at the ports of voyage
by water pillar statues
under the suns' reflections.

2G

—Photo by Katy Brown

KEPT RIDDLES
—B.Z. Niditch

Opening files
for the past years
on a mouth
of my poet gifts
left open
to flesh out
the past days
swallowed in time
wanting to know
how it happened
before last war
after a plane crash
on my father's field
which almost
shipwrecked us
with scandal,
trying to keep it simple
it says on
my dad's shirt
as a memory
was once created
and imprinted
in all of us. 

 Bunker Tunnel

—Photo by Katy Brown

AT A PARIS THEATER
—B.Z. Niditch

Almost blinded
by the crowds with parasols
with a somnambulist's
white stick as a cane
street walking
in a spa's search
nervous for my plays
first night performance
desperate for a cure
as any hypochondriac
of eccentric pause,
now burning inside
on my broken-down bicycle
waiting on pin needles
on a hot Paris night
to appear on the stage
before the rehearsal
with elegant dancers
in pink chemise
you take refuge
with champagne
in hand
at the ballet doors
and behind mirrors
fixing my 'stache
for an evening's
light pleasures
with a teared napkin
from the balconies
on your sad complexion
wishing for just one
unexplained French kiss
of surprised insouciance.

 Shadows of the Past

—Photo by Katy Brown

MAX ERNST'S LOPLOP
—B.Z. Niditch

Noches from the sun
under the longitude
of tomorrow's phantoms
unmade half-speech
from winged gestures
torn from shell flowers
on a frail dawn sky
of black tulips
from flowering roses
on a head
of agonized blue fowl
not known to earth
or hands, meters
nor names or time
along fountains
of short leaves drifting
in agony and aeons
from a ghostly spent ego
of secretive rivers
burning auroral murmurs
that speak to the luminous
and eulogize clouds
sheltering you
in your studio
glittering with red color,
slopes recounting memory
but still no song
by smattering fissions
in rampant shaths
over the orphic fires
on aeolian mornings
in ironic pastel
covering the impromptu canvas
drawn from abstract
with prints of purest 
conflagration
birds are repainted
and ashes refreshed
and you, Max Ernst
exiled to yourself
in a half-quartered
mirror oversized
where modernity's silence
reaches over
to clutch the ephemeral
warmth in the last act
of the narrowing light
in gravitations formed
these conjunctions of surprises
of mobility blue
your vestal pallet whispers
of myth surfacing
fathomless as water swells
and hyacinth colors dazzle
at animated logic.

Yellow Jasper

—Photo by Katy Brown

BY THE CAPE'S KIOSK
—B.Z. Niditch

Sensing warmth
in the earth
a young widow spider
climbs up the rose bush
sunshine devouring
everyone dazzled in sight
the boy on the bicycle
now fixes a tire
near the gazebo
watches the flute player
with urgent fingers
hobnobbing with Mozart
on the sand dunes
soon passes the plate
to the veteran card player
for his last supper
on the island
before the rainy season
grows utterly dark.

Wave 2

—Photo by Katy Brown

MALEVICH'S "WHITE ON WHITE"
—B.Z. Niditch

Copious yet alone
round granite
in execution
of the body printed
outside of time
no sameness of trees
along the Arbat
shadows starlight
on a thousand ladders
of pink-coated
frozen faces
left on Gogol's neck
trembling on zero clouds dashing
between centuries
bridges, colours, ports of call
O, sea of bird voices
on distant isles
where orchestras
with cones of pines
echo distantly
on high bluffs
from halos of sunshine
on a child's sky rain opens
lungs and breath
visiting from Russian sailors.

Heron Doubled

—Photo by Katy Brown

LORCA'S BIRTH AND DEATH
—B.Z. Niditch

Lorca,
I celebrate you
every June the fifth
with wine and rice
save a fandango
and a tango for us
a song of the dawn
on slate rooftops
with small birds
who sing a Spanish melody
only on this anniversary
who form a chirping chorus
near the sky of rain showers
you have not departed
from this earth
blood weddings are waited on
with precious spices
thrown on the couple,
you are part of my life
the holy stars welcome you
at this new moon
of a Pentacostal night
you visit New York City
the new world opens
its thousand gates open to you
Whitman greets you
Hart Crane
Emma Lazarus,
new voices at Ellis Island,
Ginsberg
Langston Hughes
Ashberry
all the lost souls
at ground zero
those kids of all rainbow colors
who steal
your penny ante books
from the public library
so they may cry alone,
forgive us, Lorca
forgive.

Bars

—Photo by Katy Brown

AT VIA MALA (for Boris Pasternak's Memory)
—B.Z. Niditch

With green by your side
in this flooding sun
an only friend
from blinding whirlwinds
a tourist battling day dreams
to escape near the Urals
the dawdling cries
of mountain crows
walking long kilometers
to escape
those who would hunt you
down, child poet
refugee, escaping soldier
in a  haphazard
acquiescence
of time when fate
or haphazard death
itself unarmed
in a ripened dawn
from vindictive shadows
dazzled down
as an endless summit.

Golden Gate

—Photo by Katy Brown

BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN:
BZ AND VAN GOGH

They pulled out
part of my ear
you know, like you,
poor Van Gogh,
suffering for art
our eyes widen
from our long suffering
why, we do not know
but we will not give up
even in our sleep
when word pictures come
to mind at all hours
of the night
why cannot say why,
today the sky is secluded
from clouds until harbor light
makes us cry for beauty
of the Bay side swans,
very ashamed of our looks
we smash our mirrors,
for we were both handsome men
you spending hours
with your back on the fields
among the ripest wheat
I on the beach forever
under the sun or on the boat
when attacked
in our skin
here in the midst of bitter heat,
now our ear is not intact
but we will not react with fear
or sin against life,
we are still a sharp-edged poet
and artist of streaked shadows
for our God is near
closer than our breath
with our few friends
who believe in us
and will not forsake us
nor will we, Vincent
retreat into the terrible sin
of self-hatred in a miserable pit
giving way to self-mockery
in self-despair, but have grace
as we are aware
our art and poetry still give joy
from our fingertips and lips,
we still feel the rain on our faces
over the dock and boulevards
as the lighthouse shines
watching guys play cards
and drinking wine,
the new jonquils and daffodils
are out by the seashore
let us, Van Gogh
work on our lines
of drawings and poems
enjoy a croissant
with coffee spices
and not try to figure out
why you and I in our aloneness
have one less ear hole
will some day be made whole
if not in this life
then in a better one
with saints and the God
who consoles.

 

Cold War Madonna

—Photo by Katy Brown

RECALLING MY LIFE
—B.Z. Niditch

Overheard
by the bird house
in fly away time
by mourning doves
who drink the waters
of their sanctuary
under bright aspens
pine needles and maple
thirsting from streams
by parallel springs
of once-snow gardens
where labyrinths
of sea voices sky rise
on changing faces
of branches. 

 Marsh Grass

—Photo by Katy Brown

Today's LittleNip:

Love is something eternal, the aspect may change but not the essence.

—Vincent Van Gogh

_____________________

—Medusa

Beach Heart

—Photo by Katy Brown