Monday, June 6, 2016

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems


THIRTEEN CANDLES

Riding on my bicycle
with a broken right arm
and break in shoulder
after soccer practice
hurting from a bully's wound
in days of Mercurochrome
still smarting on your body
of thought when left 
with a shadow of memory
yet your anger smolders
over a first leather jacket
lost from your birthday party
after seeing 
a James Dean movie
here on a June day
up the Green Mountains
of Vermont
you walk with a free ticket
to the museum
a pug on the sidewalk
accompanies you
with a Van Gogh postcard
from your Dutch Aunt
still intact
in your side pocket
with broken sunglasses
eating a spinach croissant
from the French menu
at the cafe restaurant
you climb up 
the art house steps
waiting to visit the moderns
taking out your oils,
notebook and poet's pen
unwilling to take any blame
for being an original.



JUNE BLUES

A Beat poet
cooped up like a canary
in a New England winter
tired of TV. screens
and faded old films
clouded over
his bloodshot eyes
wanting to be a runaway
or a Rimbaud 
here in Vermont
with a red French wine
takes out his sax
to play riffs
along the Green Mountains
yet afraid to be
terrorized from a water bed
with a nightmare
abandoned from home
praying with exercises
for his lost friend
a picture shows me
her balancing act
on a film shoot
by writing a love poem to me
out of her disturbed universe
I'm throwing a football
against the wall.



WATCHING

Watching from a telescope
heights of stars
after my bicycle ride
rests along the Bay
meeting a lost sailor
who caught yellow jack
in islands far from home
here at a frozen shore
ice fishing in a few holes
that he plummets
in halting waves on waters
at the home harbor anchors
rescuing my orange kayak
still anchored for the spring
as a Canadian robin appears
along the shore.
 
 

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