—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Denise Flanagan, Newton, MA
WE ARE PASSING
We are passing
to another world
with fresh anemones
in our hands
they will survive
all barbed wire
beyond the wheat of the pale
in villages of freezing grey
My heart hears feathers
counted on flying wings
beating on tall grass ravines
and murmuring shadows
Heaven knows each village
all branches of a lost family
by the light of river
and now at peace,
though the rain
falls on six poplars
it is quickly covering over
the sky memories of Autumn.
_____________________
WHAT IS A POET
Line by line up
in the shadow
of a translation
from landscaped heirs
of the oracle bearers
and miracle enchanters
off islands of the sea
where adventurers
carry the hero body
to the Homeric figures
in the rising thermometers
of added voices of Ulysses
by the unwelcome home
of another generation
augmented on sons and daughters
boats pass by as Penelope watches
a heroic mirrored face
returning from warring winds
So many years of poetry
recorded by farewells appear
even on a Synthian and Ural
jeweled crown and spear
by the loving gate keeper
playing on words
writing as a rival fabulist
with a navy in review
as an iconoclastic scribe
along the flower river breakers
not abandoned by absence
or times of devotions
hearing a tribal chorus
wait on blinded voices forever.
We are passing
to another world
with fresh anemones
in our hands
they will survive
all barbed wire
beyond the wheat of the pale
in villages of freezing grey
My heart hears feathers
counted on flying wings
beating on tall grass ravines
and murmuring shadows
Heaven knows each village
all branches of a lost family
by the light of river
and now at peace,
though the rain
falls on six poplars
it is quickly covering over
the sky memories of Autumn.
_____________________
WHAT IS A POET
Line by line up
in the shadow
of a translation
from landscaped heirs
of the oracle bearers
and miracle enchanters
off islands of the sea
where adventurers
carry the hero body
to the Homeric figures
in the rising thermometers
of added voices of Ulysses
by the unwelcome home
of another generation
augmented on sons and daughters
boats pass by as Penelope watches
a heroic mirrored face
returning from warring winds
So many years of poetry
recorded by farewells appear
even on a Synthian and Ural
jeweled crown and spear
by the loving gate keeper
playing on words
writing as a rival fabulist
with a navy in review
as an iconoclastic scribe
along the flower river breakers
not abandoned by absence
or times of devotions
hearing a tribal chorus
wait on blinded voices forever.
IN MY ARCHIVES
In my archives
small teeth of words
bite years of experiments
with language fragrances
partitions of proverbs
fragments of alphabet soup
with celery sticks
and oyster crackers
with my joy knowing others
discombobulated by life
will have a rooted communion
drinking in my globular ideas
reaching into my Kultur files
and spells to know more
than any abandoned exile
or rosetta stone prophet
than a moment
before your flight
before you are translated
in a return of wisdom literature.
_____________________
A JAMESIAN MOMENT
Needing a Jamesian moment
in Manhattan or Paris
when you are always here
over five stories to tell
love from a mismatch
from an old understanding
to catch an abandoned train
of the master's thought
only for art's forsaking us
do we speak in luminous tones
an all-clear signal
by the deserted wind
to signal for tendrils
and exiles by the river run
that he too trembles
with us at this hour.
IT IS SO IMPORTANT
It is so important
a passport of memories
going nowhere
as a Mozart miniature
on the grand piano
about-face with my initials
engraved later on an
acoustic guitar case, a tree
in Central Park
hearing a ram's horn
by a touched-alive
metronome by notes
of my restlessness
until my uptown recital.
______________________
THE RETURN OF CHUCK CONNELLY
No art is ever ended
or left on a scaffold
or roped off, drip dry
in a museum or mansion
but is a liquidity’s
of color and shaped
expansion of your eye
in an antennae's extension
for second viewing
and third showings
here in a museum
in your art house
no misguided lights
of cameras are inside us
but emerge
from others’ sabotage
like a Van Gogh ear piece
on hold back cul-de-sacs
in loveliness
of stone
from geometric shapes
of flesh in a tour de force
we are resurrected
as art like jazz atones
in anecdotal riffs
on an ambivalent landscape
through terrifying voices
in self-inhibition
until the time is ready
for a measure of disclosure
by significance
of a catalogue or recollection
absent on art wall anonymity
from the wold's envy or enmity
no invitations sent out
from original cave artists
in aboriginal connection
with new-found fossil bones
waiting for a gallery exhibition
in abstract modernist expression
Chuck Connelly, you do not return,
you never left us.
HAMLET'S SKULL
Inexpressible except by verse
open in the mouths of angels
are your remains not buried
or burning a Blakean soul bright
in the snow of grave winters
of old England or in new chapters
you live because we live on stages
in a reckless age of ground zero
often dulled by, abandoned
by popular entertainment
or abomination of universal will
we play you again
shaped by fortune in nature
or skilled in majorities
of the dull politic
and chattering classes
that we approach you
with love in dreadful overkill
but you are dear Hamlet,
be still and know no grief
we invite you to watch us
with new costumes and cast
for who wrote of your past
had an understanding of belief
that your skull and skill
in my hands will outlast my words.
_____________________
CALLING ME SHAKESPEARE
At a stage
in a bright walk-on
from my many costumed
make-over for the competition
before The Original Theatre
got off the ground
sounding off-off-Broadway
in a broadside ticket
for a free performance
for the matinee's green tea
when a massive snowstorm
hit our rehearsal
and all the roles
were in context reversed
for a once-in-a lifetime
Sixties midnight showing.
_______________________
OPENING UP
Opening up
to tendrils of clouds
in epiphany absences
of escorted souls
lost on blind dates
of calendar blackouts
in dream sequences
of life departing as an anchorite
finding a love letter
in a prayer closet back East
next to the Russian
abandoned tea room
where fortunes are made
with chocolate cookies
by dying faultless
on lingering sleep houses
until your free dream
turns into daily nightmares
of ocean liners sinking
or war's landmine fears
or your future poetry's double
is not a spouse showing up
we will be optimists
not matter what prognosticators
say about the rain or snow
in the forecast.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BY THE OCEAN-FRONT GAZEBO
The air turned cool
by the ocean-front gazebo
Alone on the sandy beach
near the rocks and stone
of this home harbor
to hear sea-voiced echoes
or share my art prints
in abandoned frescoes
a solitary bird draws us
emerged from the dunes
he too was searching for
the living waters and bread
as my cello string
broke into a Bach solo.
________________________
Our thanks to B.Z. Niditch and Denise Flanagan for their tasty work in the Kitchen today! B.Z. writes: Here are my poems with your theme last week of abandonment. My poem on Chuck Connelly is about an artist played by Nick Nolte in Life Lessons, part of a trilogy of short films in New York Memories, directed by Martin Scorsese in 1989. Also: My new collection, Everything, Everywhere (Penhead Press, Chapbook Series #4) is available on Amazon.
Opening up
to tendrils of clouds
in epiphany absences
of escorted souls
lost on blind dates
of calendar blackouts
in dream sequences
of life departing as an anchorite
finding a love letter
in a prayer closet back East
next to the Russian
abandoned tea room
where fortunes are made
with chocolate cookies
by dying faultless
on lingering sleep houses
until your free dream
turns into daily nightmares
of ocean liners sinking
or war's landmine fears
or your future poetry's double
is not a spouse showing up
we will be optimists
not matter what prognosticators
say about the rain or snow
in the forecast.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BY THE OCEAN-FRONT GAZEBO
The air turned cool
by the ocean-front gazebo
Alone on the sandy beach
near the rocks and stone
of this home harbor
to hear sea-voiced echoes
or share my art prints
in abandoned frescoes
a solitary bird draws us
emerged from the dunes
he too was searching for
the living waters and bread
as my cello string
broke into a Bach solo.
________________________
Our thanks to B.Z. Niditch and Denise Flanagan for their tasty work in the Kitchen today! B.Z. writes: Here are my poems with your theme last week of abandonment. My poem on Chuck Connelly is about an artist played by Nick Nolte in Life Lessons, part of a trilogy of short films in New York Memories, directed by Martin Scorsese in 1989. Also: My new collection, Everything, Everywhere (Penhead Press, Chapbook Series #4) is available on Amazon.
Congrats on the new book, BZ!
—Medusa
—Anonymous Photo