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Friday, July 26, 2013

Incredulities of Summer

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis



RUNNING MEN
—B.Z. Niditch

(After one of my favorite abstract paintings
by the Italian Sandro Chia, 1982)


It's a hot blue dawn
by open windows
on the Bay's edge,
running men
sure of their laps
as in the painting by
Sandro Chia
here for the marathon
in perpetual heat.

_____________________

BY MY WINDOW
—B.Z. Niditch


On a sunny afternoon

in an easy chair

imagining by windows

our pre air-conditioned

precursors centuries before

is to answer nature

back with Wordsworth
and Coleridge
in a Romantic way,

or hearing Fingal's Cave

an overture

is to feel safe

from earth tremors,

and all-absorbing news

here to fathom nature,

human or otherwise, leads

me back to fix the window.

______________________

TRANSPARENCY

—B.Z. Niditch


To make up

for any time lost

by a cafe with a cup

Monet blue

reach out by the wharf

to the home harbor,

turning my camera lens
toward the lucky gazebo

along an impressionist sea

a painter brushes

past the tourist stop

near my parked bicycle,
offering me a free lunch.

_______________________

IN THE MUSEUM GARDEN
—B.Z. Niditch

You sit in the Zen garden

like Rodin

without explanation

or how the day
is mild,
the sun, glorious
as gardenias

and you, speechless

close to yellow roses

near a window to nature

reaching out for words.

_______________________

BY HOCKNEY'S POOL
—B.Z. Niditch

Morning fades from sunrise

along Hockney's pool

by art's full window

there is no departure

in neon rapture

between earth and sky

as Hockney on the Coast

paints in the shade

his own gestures

opening up 

for eternity's exhibition.



 Dry Thistles
—Photo by Katy Brown



ARRIVALS ON RETREAT

—B.Z. Niditch


In the retreat

it's about time 
to explore Merton

by ripened morning glories

and tune out the night,

on a green sleeve window

from storehoused memory

and sing sightless

from silent meditation.

___________________

FALL AND RISE
—B.Z. Niditch

In your absence
sunflowers
at the stained glass
windows for a visit
to a glazed new light
in a remote town
afire with fullness
of the prophets' words
in midst of olive groves
recalling the Zen garden's
first-blown breezes
on your sweated brow.

____________________

ON HOLD
—B.Z. Niditch

Words jump at you

by lakeside windows

putting my time on hold

where larks light on

all the aspen trees

here by a Monet shore line

of wild flowers, sitting violets

hyacinth and honeysuckle,

celebrating in liquid quiet

every incredulity of summer.

_____________________

HALL'S POND

—B.Z. Niditch


Leaning from my window

a noonday sun motions

at the beginning of dawn 

by birches

anchored nearby

leaves and sparrows,

now dancing over branches

through dazzled whirlwinds,



even the pond and sky

are in a blue jay flutter,

astonished to be glimpsed

by a daybreak poet.

_____________________

PAGE AFTER PAGE
—B.Z. Niditch

In the public library
immensities of words
underline our solitary time
of windowed nature
only your own mask
is never taken off
or renewed
nor does the sea beckon
for the city street lamps
enlightening beyond
your own desk
in a dark corner
without a muse or echo
only the hidden eyes
drop shadows
on little alembic screens.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

CITY CAB

—B.Z. Niditch



Passing a night ambulance

hearing Coltrane's riffs,

those lively fragments

making life on the asphalt

more than posthumous

for a city poet lost in traffic.

____________________

—Medusa



John Dorsey featured at a recent 
Foam at the Mouth reading in Sacramento
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
[For more of Michelle's photos, see 
Medusa's most recent Facebook album]