THE JAZZ POET
Line by line up
crowds are in the shadow
in the sax riffs
of my new translations
feeling their body of joy
as the music sounds
from landscaped heirs
off islands of the sea
where adventurer tourists
on a large ocean liner
hear me in an opulent time
playing smooth sax
in the cool night air
risking my new melodies
by once frozen lips
on rowing
words of memory
no longer poisoned
by motionless lovers
nor abandoned by absence
for warring times
of fiery alarming devotions
under cold sleepy covers
now my good gestures move
as red and orange leaves us
with voices embracing Fall
when everything is new
in voices of water and wings.
PASSING BY
We are passing
to another season
with fresh sunflowers
in our garden hands
poetry will survive
all barbed wire
of poisoned jealousy
beyond villages
of freezing grey
as in a Hardy novel
watching departing feathers
counted on flying wings
on tall grass ravines
and murmuring shadows
from tall branches
as a mourning dove sings
by a sailor lost at sea
at the light of a tumid river
and now at peace
we’re trying to make amends
after a tourist jaunt
though the coppery rain
quickly covers us over
with clay sky memories
of a new Autumn
leaves us by cool rocks
under a shadowy orchard
wanting new friends.
B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher who resides in Brookline, Massachusetts. 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; HawaiiReview; LeGuepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. His latest poetry collections are “Lorca at Sevilla”,”Captive Cities,” and “EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE” published by Penhead Press
Copyright © 2016 by B.Z. Niditch
Randomly Accessed Poetics 