Sunday, November 16, 2014

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems


TRY OUT AUDITION

"I'm game," she said
waiting for the tryout
of her audition
checking out her lines
trying to be on point
in a whole-toned instruction
telling us she died
in her last four plays
off-off Broadway
as the artistic director
sleepwalks in the studio
from the subway curb
ankle deep in rain
to interview actors
under advisement
from his fugitive doctor
over in Denmark
not to be double minded
or vain
in his quest for his roots.



NOVEMBER BLUES

The rain, the sun is gone
the roots from bulbs
have already dried out
yet playing the blues on sax
to survive the coming winter
plants us blindly in the night
of our own hermetic habitat
that stays its resin and radiance
in a jazz violin's luminosity
far from the city's deepest waters
playing in nature's hands
from cool air night's darkness
here by the blue cliffs mouth
by Dover's childhood
early morning home harbor.



AT OXFORD

More of Auden's shadow
by a nameless fire
thinking among the books
against the library walls
spaced clear what glows
in a light wind's fragrance
breathing in his poetry
with two friends
who cannot decide
their assured fate
under a haunted sun
or desire to move
from England to America
in a jazz vanished time
chanting in a blind light
an astonishment of words
we put down by paper weights.

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