The Lagoon
—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
JULY NIGHT SHADOWS
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
Air is wide by the shore
hovering breezes summon
a spiral sea high tide
outside my porch,
two bluejays lock
on rings of leafy trees,
as Tiger and Lily
cat walk obstinately
each so sure of themselves
as in an ardent fire dance,
quietly lost by dragonflies
and flaming lady bugs
under a smoke-cloud moon,
a fox is silently hiding out
near shadowy bushes
thistles and tall dunes,
the town cafe is closing,
a sax is heard
in the distance
and a motorcycle driver
in a James Dean shirt
with a poem in mind
moves the handlebars
along the ocean roadway
in the sodium last light.
____________________
WATCHING SEED OF THE WEEK
—B.Z. Niditch
Watching the deceitful comedy
film by Bergman
Smiles For a Summer Night
around a keg of beer
shadows of spiders
move on my warm skin
transcend the dialogue
for the fourth time
trying to concentrate
by repetition of the lines
translated in plain words
across the screen
nearsighted
with ragweed's dog day
carrying its hidden
pollen in the night air,
hearing a few neighbors
closing an Asian umbrella
from untiring steps
on the roof
returning from the shore
with muffled voices
whispering in other tongues
I'm drifting away
by night's vocal chords
from actors on the remote,
sea birds disperse
with endless song
and chatter
toward the Bay
on a vacation lock-up
craving sleep
yet remembering
to shower water
on the ripened vines.
_____________________
SUMMER BACK-UP
—B.Z. Niditch
hearing a few neighbors
closing an Asian umbrella
from untiring steps
on the roof
returning from the shore
with muffled voices
whispering in other tongues
I'm drifting away
by night's vocal chords
from actors on the remote,
sea birds disperse
with endless song
and chatter
toward the Bay
on a vacation lock-up
craving sleep
yet remembering
to shower water
on the ripened vines.
_____________________
SUMMER BACK-UP
—B.Z. Niditch
Night shadows
from a friend's letters
opposite mine
that have no answer
on the granite coffee table,
requests from poets
to write blurbs
for the back of their books,
old fan missives
sent back from Paris,
a love letter
incantating those phrases
you never forget,
a note with picture
from a torch singer
now doing backups
on television specials,
a Flamenco guitar play
invites me to his recital,
but I'm backed up for months
in words from this poem
translating me
to the heavens,
now up to the telescope
on the green hill
mounted for latitude bases
to view a full moon,
here in shadowy bodily light
to keep out mosquitoes
banished in fading quiet
to console the evening.
Shoe
—Photo by D.R. Wagner
ON REMBRANDT'S BIRTHDAY (July 15)
—B.Z. Niditch
Only when our time
alights
on your self-portrait
do our eyes move slowly
in your gestures
you live again
a few steps
from us
no stranger to debts
hunger
and long suffering
for an artist's fate,
painted with charcoal
drawn inward
in a transparent silence
with a familiar soul
facing us
with compassion.
____________________
DALI'S "GIRAFFE ON FIRE"
—B.Z. Niditch
Nightly blue
of Venus de Milo
brightly serious
rimming the sky
on crutches
of a somnambulist
revealed though paint
huddled in softness
on evening water beds
in recreation from stone
the statuesque beauty
in modernism's idiom
drawing out myth
twin women awake
sleepwalking
through premonitions.
___________________
CASSATT'S "THE BATH"
—B.Z. Niditch
Cherishing warm waters
jutting out at her feet
in the tiny basin
for the delicate girl
as an extenuation
of a whispering speech
we never hear
only in the tone
of the painting's
quiet narrative
breathing in
at a pristine
Paris drawing room
of an exile,
shutters down
in a studio's solitude.
_____________________
A VIEW FROM THE CLIFFS
—B.Z. Niditch
Winslow Homer,
your marine colors
off the bluish Coast
oiled for our nature
breathing out in dawn
between deserted shadows
you frequently recapture
as waves to us
recounted in memory
to our human eyes
motioning on oaks
as well-dressed blue birds
soar over sea voices
of eagles and hawks
with a few gestures
to a consummate sun
we daydream
brushed back by high tide
from the earthy rocks
gazing at the open cliffs
by the light house tower
in the home harbor,
a mirror and patina
in range of a silken ocean.
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
DEPARTURE (MICHELANGELO)
—B.Z. Niditch
Through the last
template of our memory
transcribed by genius
as poet and painter
in a search for words
transfigured by language
and drawing in colors
in moving patinas
on walls and chapels
sculptured by genius
hands enfolding clay
into our centuries echo.
_____________________
—Medusa
Sign in Building
—Photo by D.R. Wagner