B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

A VISION OF TINTERN ABBEY

How words and paint capture

the haze and atmosphere

reading a sense of light

and surge of water colors

covering chimney and roofs

from our racing pulse

and untamed mouths

eyeing genius in our glances

from a disappeared sunshine

between two English misty worlds

of poet and landscape artist

Wordsworth and Turner

motioning seasonal images

in our still lives.

VALENTINE'S DAY

This beat poet

plays his sax

smooth jazz under his fingernails

in a striped suit from Harrod's

with its two broken buttons

once over sold and now pawned

losing his trembling voice

from a poisoned argument

hearing my pretentious ex's

croaking crocodile tears

and bullfrog laughter at this gig

who hands me a St.Valentine

shaped in a clawing cat's form

with a orphaned heart's reputation

once of first class sterling gold 

now tarnished by memory

with my less than sacred ring

still on her pinky finger

in a smokey bronze atmosphere

leaning over me at the piano

asks if she could sing the blues

with her clapping castanets.

MY FIRST READING

In an anemic midnight

before a hypodermic 

needled atmosphere

of a grilling microphone

after a wild goose chase

to find the club

for my first urban read

under the vapor 

and strobe lights

morning is coming up

overlooking the park and river

and wanting a crepe 

and one Jamaican coffee 

decide to play sax

to waken the crowd

who now dance to my tune

and listen to my riffs 

and words in French 

and English.

B.Z. NIDITCH is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher.

His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review; LeGuepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others.

He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.