B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

TWO IN AUGUST

You take off
for the Coast
after two dog days
on a sleepless hotel roof,
headlights are scorched
on the overlong highway
the A.M. is muffled
by talk radio or war horses
when a little jazz music
breaks through static,
we find brown bananas
in the glove department,
to cry out the window
even for poets
is blind faith cast
from bloodshot eyes,
yet between signs
and abandoned trucks
and facing funeral cars
for half a mile
we cannot concentrate
or find the maps,
trying to play word games
is not metaphysical,
suddenly the islands
appear out of the sea
we become aware
with a couple of breaths
of the bay side air
and look up
from the dashboard
the sun soon over our heads
sand between our feet
the body of ocean
to our rescue.



THE LOST SWAN

In the cool wind
bending the ocean floor,
Leda,leading mute swan
in the half light
like a painted veil
in gone from the sea
from our home harbor,
sweats rolled down
my back as rivulets
shiver near
the orange kayak
and my migratory guest
of years of affection
has foundered
on a dawn of no return
even my silence
may in verse
reach her
flowing like my wishes
of a former lover
past the distant Coast
beyond the sun's cover
under sackful vaults
of azure sky-blue.



NAGASAKI ANNIVERSARY

The dust swirls
when day breaks
clouding our senses
by the peace garden
a red sun glances
away from our lenses
when the wind caresses
us for a few minutes
viewing gas masks
knotted in bodies
on unfriendly corpses
now nothing happens
on a soundless street,
everything comes to a stop
in a horizon burning
opening to flower
a monument to memories.