Thursday, August 28, 2014

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems


TWENTY TWENTY

Fervent
to explore 
all that's out there
with my Beat eyes,
playing riffs on my sax
at my first gig
wishing to be invisible
or a year younger
hearing no hissing
wordless voices 
in the crowds
making my way
as the punk band
opener closes his act,
my mind goes back
to the Beatles
first appearance
and Dylan Thomas
beginning 
as he spun out
his lyrics and play
on both sides
of the pond
at first shy
then exploding my notes
in optimum visions.
 
 
 
TOXICITY CITY

A false lover's lane
on any country field 
in Toxicity City
can contain
consequences,
I told a guy at my gig
who asked me 
where such love is
around here,
I told him
such love 
may be off the beaten track
or in unfriendly wood
where there are ticks
in the midst
of an August heat wave
or by the Cape's shore
on wet blankets
but you can ignore my advice
that we can guess
his neediness
that quickly turns a person
into poison ivy
if he is so aroused,
anyway,
he was a dare devil
made his moves
and thought 
he met his mate
that night
but the next week
he had cooled off
but she left him
a hundred miles away.



ENVIRONMENTAL POET

On earth and sea
by mourning doves surfacing
on the resonate sky
the shore was more pristine
in my childhood
than we ever imagined now
in our memorable eye
and the metamorphoses
of nature
from our crouched bodies
looking back
over the ocean's tide
which once held us
in its secret language
over the wide space
carrying my memory today
by my freshly painted
orange kayak
with my binoculars
on gigantic wave ways
to travel amid the sound
of fish and bird
yet in the shadows
of summer's toxicity
amid noisome
flesh and blood
of uncaring human beings
who leave things behind
these local yokels 
or tourists
dropping items 
in the water
like slippery combs
or napkins, 
bottles disregarded
from fast food lunches
we are determined
to clean up 
what wastes our time,
to create lines and words
like the clear sunshine
as light overflows on us
in this season to remember
on a discolored Cape.

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