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Thursday, March 16, 2017

Words of a Daydream

Amherst Common
—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA



IMPROVISATION #460
MARCH FROST

March frost
all over the field
of Amherst Common

Even in an elation
of Emily Dickinson
in a rope of first light

She expects
us for a poet's visit
her words seem to levitate.

_____________________

IMPROVISATION #459
MIGUEL JIMENEZ
(1910-1942)

Under the Andalusian sun
writing with purity

Birds are gingerly
eating their meal

Thinking for a moment
about the erupted words

that fill
his tabula rasa.
 





IMPROVISATION #445
THE NEON BUTTERFLY

The neon butterfly
touches the fringes
of the curtain

in the study
you hear Nabokov's voice
explain a lapidary deferment

which kept us familiar
by the sunken Neva River
far from home.

___________________

IMPROVISATION #444
IF YOU DOUBT

Even when you
doubt your eyes
and ears

or jumbled words
in your power to conceive
the Aurora Borealis

the time will suddenly
appear to believe
into a fervent poem

with nature lifting the bulbs
by the garden shed
in flower bed of Iris.






IMPROVISATION #443
RILKE

Rilke unwilling
to give up a word

at the edge
of the river

recalls the first
line

of hidden
gestures.

________________

IMPROVISATION #441
ADORNO

Adorno cannot sleep
he sees every note

in colorful shapes
scattering on the music stand

with retouching
his cadences and cadenzas.






IMPROVISATION #440
WOLE SOYINKA'S JOURNEY

Juices flowing
with loyalty
to the words

of a daydream
as freedom
strikes in symbolism.

__________________

IMPROVISATION #437
SZYMBORSKA'S VOICE

The voice
   of detachment

yet she enriches
every hesitation

of flowers fallen
in the figures

of Warsaw's tree
   sweeps.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

IMPROVISATION #442
AN OFF-BEAT POET

An off-beat poet
on the streetcar

outs the meter
and gets himself

the change
that justice expects.

____________________

Many thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today’s poetic “improvisations”; he says the poems “mark an evolution of modernism grasping onto one string of thoughts as on a violin.” Stay warm back there in Massachusetts with all those storms, BZ! For more about Nabokov’s butterflies, see www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/04/nabokovs-butterflies-introduction/378103/. For more about Nigerian Poet and Nobel Prize Winner Wole Soyinka, go to www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-bio.html/.

Today we have several poetry events in our area (which is bursting with spring right now): At noon, Sacramento’s Central Library on I Street will have a poetry read-around: bring your favorite poems (preferably by a writer other than yourself) which deal in some way with the season of spring and/or its side effects: keen expectations, irrational joys, irresistible celebrations. Then at 8pm, you have your choice of Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento, featuring Angela James, Adrial Doligon and open mic; or head over to Davis to hear Erin Rodoni and Lauren Rudewicz plus open mic at John Natsoulas Gallery. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 
 

Celebrate poetry!








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