Shark in Cape Cod!
—Photo by Wayne Davis
—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Paintings by Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903
SHARK
An Atlantic great white shark
off sunny Cape Cod
wanders in the dark
a shadow of an old movie
sighted at a distance
on a beach day
playing hide-and-seek
most leave the shore
after a wandering peek.
Papa Moe Aka
(Mysterious Water)
ON THE BALCONY
We stared at the calm sea
over the Cape balcony
when we were eleven
hearing us play a Brahms
Sonata #1 for Violin in G Major
(“Rain Sonata”) at our debut
as you played a grande piano
to accompany me
staring at my fingers of agility
Natasha too had a grin of pain
with living signs
of a heavenly adolescent love
whispering in a Russian accent
an encouraging translation
of a commanding Psalm 91
feeling the sun shine again
to forgive my nascent ability
as a gust of cutting wind
by a mourning dove
and scent of incoming wave
from the demanding crowd
of Boston symphonic critics
or Romantic word lovers
by bowing chestnut trees
who hear birds and crickets
sighing through thick Oak
a hymn-singing spoken sound
making the stand-up poet proud
and knowing it was spring
by the dim Atlantic ocean
this very hour a brushed breeze
motioned to him upon the apron
upon their chorus of redwings
that even the seedlings
under ground opened
at this hour along the river bed
to a new yellow crocus flower
by the wooden music shed.
Tahitian Landscape
SUMMER SEARCH
You took off your shades
watching may-flies, honeybees
and tropical birds
reminding me of Gauguin's
paintings of Tangiers
the umbrella on the beach
kept us from the wide sun
and jelly fish on the shore waters
had us thinking of dangers
so many close calls
we sometimes felt
by our manager
to have a metamorphosis of words
we are reaching out of fears
but hearing only silence
here in the desert of sand
we are like pirates in an oasis
or compliant strangers
waiting on the strand.
Tahitian Landscape 2
T.S. ELIOT AT CAPE ANN
Near the marina at Cape Ann
T.S. Eliot after
a short morning malaise
takes a constitutional
by the Atlantic
near a wide pendulum
of shadowy waves
sits on his favorite bench
by the beach of the blue island's
waterways along sand shells
with the sea and rocks
holding him aside
to reading a French poem
by Baudelaire
with the birds about him
feeding from Elms
fallen in a sunshine vision
reaching a staircase
where daydreams
become real in his finer words
he slowly walks into a church
there are granite cobblestones
and a crisscrossed ceiling
in a shadow eyeing the God
over the long hallways
covering bone china
of white seraphic angels
on the gleaming windows
near the port-of-call garden
with the language indecision
of own future poems
in his back pocket
like Messiah’s hidden secrets
revealing a pardon.
la Orana Maria Aka
(Hail Mary)
YVES TANGUY'S ACOUSTICS
Your hand-to-tongue colors
with acrobatic disguises
implode as telescopes
hung under a silent liquid
of the full-mirror moon
with a painted appearance
rung from enigmatic tropes
on geometric canvas boards
over the sea’s geographic ropes
with ambrosial cosmic currents
on the other side of the Seine
peaks over your wide lyricism
fading over crowning answers
of imaginative appearances
reins in a city knowing prism
for our swooning landscape
of his psychiatric wounded past
by acoustic sounds discovery
from a significant dramatic
in Tanguy's surreal analysis
that a fainted idle personality
may remake your regained fingers
to enigmatically override us
in your newly arrived
ground to an American journey
by an unreal metamorphosis
out of a new-found surrealism
washing out cinematic colors
drowned on your canvas
with your floating lines
yet lodges in secrets
of a past nemesis
in the attic anteroom
from the absinthe of melancholy
that burns your war wounds
into your own caustic tapestry
knowing your intuitive escapes
from chances of a deep sun.
Mahana No Atua Aka
(Day of the Gods)
NO ONE IS COLLATERAL
No one is collateral
or sequential in an audition
at our outdoor shock theater
to play this Hamlet scene
with Cordelia's lover's part
in mixed gender factors
as if we are performing artists
or had been occupational actors
waiting until summer stock
transfixed on those bummer words
to fulfill our lines with emotion
from an influential Antigonish coach
wishes from us
his distinguished devotion
and wish for a revolutionary concept
transforming the poetic script
we view a Browning's delineation
of several assured monologues
in modernity's writ
and review his primary portraits
of our waiting disguises at heart
in the matured dialogues of plays
both comic, historical and tragic
performed at Boston, Oxford
Nova Scotia or Stratford-upon-Avon
we are all here to suit or crown
the desires to pivot soliloquy of art
that inspires and follows a poet
to a museum, gig or symphony
for we are not merely granted
a wise postscript and sound board
to supplant or quote literally
but to dig up notes from memory
in rehearsal to control
sharing our lines’ rendition
over the director's choice
to deliver a rival yet universal
divine voice in every soul
but sending out shining words
on grounds to be tomorrow's
contemporary stars of the age
with the flare in camouflage
of a bright laurel crown
in silver filigree bars
for a language of renown
that will inspire, assuage,
quarrel, curse, but not silence us
as a chorus up on stage
as we are fired up
we recall an enlightened
verse, page, chapter
or to analyze the insight
and factors in Twelfth Night
for the molten-high critics
taking in the music and language
of Illyrian dreams envisioned
at our Shakespearean company.
Woman Holding a Fruit
GROWING UP
A brother is doing
deep breathing on the island
as his good friend Peter
a French teacher
is stammering on the beach
with the words of Baudelaire
puts away his playing cards
on the park bench
after reading a chapter
from Melville's Pierre
tells me my cat is missing
on the shore of the Cape
as Igor, our neighborhood
jazz drummer on a blanket
under a lemony umbrella
and former scat singer
and child wonder from Russia
is contemplating upon
a favorite drawing of Vermeer
with his son Gregory
over the June sand castle
while feeling airy
like a vessel out of shape
as a vendor is spreading
peanut butter on a cracker
for his daughter, Maria
but she wants a condiment
of mustard on her hamburger
as any wild teenager
who brings a lipstick mirror
with her to the beach,
as a life guard boyfriend waves
at her smiling by the corner
of his eye
to come into the water,
and a poet says a quick prayer
in a silent contemplative way
to prevent the sky diver
from having an accident
on this Father's summer day
as my cat shows up
on my checkerboard
eager to play.
Still Life With Teapot And Fruit
Today’s LittleNip:
AT THE PUSHKIN STATE MUSEUM
—B.Z. Niditch
for Leon Baskt
Leon,
whether a painter
or an illustrator
with all the data
of an innovator
water colorist
a photographer
a famous book illustrator
passionate fashion designer
for the Russian ballet
after 150 years of your birth
and on your anniversary
you are still missed.
_______________________
—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today’s fine poetry, and of course Paul Gauguin for his sensuous paintings of life by the sea!
To read about the tagging of the shark, go to www.capecodchronicle.com/en/5125/chatham/269/Season's-First-Shark-Tagged.htm
To hear Mirela Capata play the Brahms violin sonata, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXTjBxn3Ed4
Where Do We Come From? What Are We?
Where Are We Going?
—Painting by Paul Gauguin
Celebrate poetry by heading over to
Luna’s Cafe to hear Eva West and
Lee Foust (plus open mic)!
Scroll down to the blue box (under the green
box at the right)
for info about this and other upcoming readings in our
area—
and note that other readings may be added at the last minute.
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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