Monday, February 17, 2014

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

AT A USED BOOKSTALL

Standing frozen
by a an outside stall
of a used bookstore
enjoying French,
a nomad of a kid
notices PAROLES
"Words" by
Jacques Prevert
for fifty cents
putting my bus fare away
and with my new book
sit on a back bench
in the park
how could anything
in this world
compare with the way
this poet made out
in a language soaring
out of my hands
the sun came through
and I had a baguette
full of cheese,
what more do I ever regret
words, a roll, the river
nothing, but a fresh path
of ease.



SONG FOR A TIME  

Trying to write
a hit rock and roll song
but down on his luck
(this being off the record)
with only this one hit
played at local clubs
teen age years ago,
called"Chic"
this poet wrote
it on a jagged napkin
over a paper plate
this hot vanilla tune
created a local sensation
on the local radio station
for a whole winter,
but the big shot executives
from the Big Apple
said I was too hungry
for an easy success
because I would not change
the unfaltering words
of the tune
about someone close to me,
and was literally beaten up
like an omelet
in a New York minute,
yet "Chic"
was on local charts
for a frenzied season
which my classmates
danced to at proms
on windy street corners,
yet this emerging poet
was poor mouthed in subways
old coins put into his eyes
waiting to die for a song,
"When there was time to live
and love,"
my lyrics spoke to fans,
even at my lame adolescence
red eyed and out there
as a four seasoned refugee
walking like a runaway
no one recognizes for a Beat.



SORRY SIGHTINGS

An unsigned student visa
left on the coffee table
by your uncle's Parisian
opera glasses,
a sighting of Salinger
with an autograph seeker
to the recluse author
of "Catcher in the Rye"
lost to all appearances
at first light,
grief welcomes us
waiting for the dawn,
an owl rises
under nameless oak,
near a red spotted sports car
of teenagers
wanting to survive
a joy ride to celebrate,
quick flashes
of months that trickle by,
giving yourself sunshine
in a landscape's absence
on transparent miles
of travel. 

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