Art Has No Hearse

—Photos by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento, CA

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

FALMOUTH VISIT

A striking wind
moves and lifts
me under
my black umbrella
with the black sun-
shined sea
on the rays
of a sandy blanket
at Old Silver Beach
in Falmouth
childhood returns
today in my bathing suit
near the Child's riverbed
searching for rocks
and shells
after a brief cognac
unwinding near
weeds and shed
when along Buzzards Bay
recollecting on
the untold swings
over a dawn of church bells
a French artiste is drawing
on a canvas bench
mimosa flower designs
delivering them
over the greenway
in my summer neighborhood
I'm playing
a sonata of Bach
on my flute by a chimera
with my own
added cadenza
then briefly
on winter's
once-rested
anchored kayak
watching boat-
tailed grackles,
as blackbird
red wings fall off
the leafs of maple trees
while on vacation
fly fishing
watch a school
of humpback whales
who communicate
on the Atlantic
to sing and compose
for each other
for more than an hour
then we may deposit
my verse vision
at the wonder
of a day's wild roses
near the backwoods lake
by night's defenseless nests
as good sisters
Elizabeth and Yvonne
from Paris
and Lyon parishes
reach for their cameras
a jazz poet stops
poses in the light
of hip hop
hearing his
breathless riffs
and they understand
the ease
of all of nature's
spiritual guests
who awaken
at my Falmouth visit
to please us with insight.

 50 Years of Fashion, Phoenix Art Museum

WITH WHITMAN'S SONG

The shiny satin
blue waters
along the Hudson
quiver under the sun
fanning in the windy trees
with Whitman's song
curled in the wandering hull
of an invading river breeze
hears wavering seabirds
among lyrical loving
sons and daughters
unfurled in urban mirrors
a boat upon
an island pattern
the relaxed universal poet
of Ivan and Vlad, Jan
delivers his poetic persona
in a painful scented light
when your stolen days
rise in firecrackers
to be a city phantasm
flaming over Manhattan
in a dark verse pulsation
to have comforted
the nameless injured soldiers
our fallen brothers
wounded in the Civil War
heard from your enchanted
phrases as we embark.

 50 Years of Fashion, Phoenix Art Museum

LOWELL'S POSTURE

With little pocket money
and a Kennedy half-dollar
Lowell's posture
climbs up in shadows
of Beacon Hill
safe from mind-racing
in stepping out of the rain
from the Widener library
pacing up and down
the courtyard
with a privileged
bard's endurance
among silhouettes
of knowledge
tracing with his "Imitations"
by acing
literary illuminations
of Western culture,
now at summer school
facing students
at Harvard College
who encircle me
in the yard
with a quiz-kid-
justice attitude
feeling restless
at summer school
yet coiled
with lean soundbites
on Lowell's prudent moods
yet outlasting
unsealed archives
on a vacation's equilibrium
in a four-semester's stasis
from fortresses
of insight learning
wishing for
a yearning amanuensis
where the many lives
of a poet survive.

 Red Suede Shoes

MATISSE'S WALK

To walk with Matisse
by Notre Dame Cathedral
is to take
enigmatic notice
of shading-in after dusk
in a dark pastoral setting
from fate's
breaths of incense
in a geometric
shift of time
as a whimsical
bird surfaces
high on
the boulevard
out of a repainted canvas
in a singular intimacy
with cut-outs
of macramé
by his windowpane
borne from
a floral of laughter
when template
shadows of earth
are renewed
from painted sills
in a rainy seasoned garden
by the flats’ budding trees
turning a horizon around
at an easel in the Paris park
by the landscape's
convoys corner
across his wistful
living fingers
in a thrilled wish
of an artist's
twisted shapes
by night light
feverish lanterns
yet not too embarrassed
of pardoning
a woman in a hat.

 "My Boyfriend is Strange"

A BRAQUE DREAM

Floating collage
illumined with a dance
of shining images
on the first painted blues
covering a round canvas
fainting in primeval stages
draped to recognize
an opacity of a Braque dream
in a sleeping water bed
delivers painted
loving skylines
with visions of descent
in a mirror of color coats
of restless tongues on rivers
from symbols of honeyed
geometric shapes
of a visionary cluster
from wingless calligraphy
in an insightful shroud
assuaged as
a language memory
passing by
a monochromatic luster
in the submerged waves
from cubist tunnels
in a disguised backdrop
decomposed as beacons
in running sunlight dust
of uninhabited spells
scattered from oilcloths
in a futurism
of painted clouds
which depart
over the Seine.

 El Dorado Hot Springs, Phoenix, AZ

MONDRIAN'S DAYDREAM

When on ordinary days
we escape as we run
or cycle in reverse
away to the city museum
wanting a quotidian way
out of the traffic
and mundane
we turn to
enigmatic paintings
of Mondrian who shapes
the dynamically expunged
language in a luminous
pure colorful exchange
of orange and red
in denial
in any before aisles
presented painting
or expunged drawing line
in language of our universe
from all yearning exiles
as half-closed eyewitnesses
we half laugh or smile
in our faint
yet marvelous
elemental reactions
to your experimental canvas
it is disclosed that we learn
from his abstractions
that art has no hearse.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

EDWARD HOPPER'S TIME

—B.Z. Niditch

It is as if on a movie screen
from your legacy's sundown
as we stare at your art showings
in your drawing of Watteau's clown.

A pioneer showstopper
as art clearings engineer
with Warhol and Pollack
Hopper's colorful part is clear.

In a choppy sea by the Cape
he climbs in surreal geometric shapes
as in my dramatic, astonishing quatrains
draped in a realistic enigmatic veneer.

In your sign language of our time
desiring an hour in the museum
at an age of war, crime and fire
you inspire a fine daring dream.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch and Cynthia Linville for their fine feast in this morning’s Kitchen!
 

 

 Celebrate poetry today by starting at noon with 

Poetry at the Central Library open mic (bring poems on 

weddings, marriages, partnerships and/or mutual discovery, 

preferably by someone other than yourself); 

then in the evening you’ll have to make a choice between 

Poetry Unplugged at Luna's (Lara Gularte 

and Rhony Bhopla) or Poetry in Davis (Andy Stewart and 

Kim Stanley Robinson), both at 8pm. 

Scroll down to the blue box 

(under the green box at the right) for info about these

and other upcoming readings in our area. 

Celebrate living in a community where 

you have so much "live" poetry to enjoy! 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
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