Four Poems by BZ Niditch

Whitman and I

On back roads
we remembered our hands
opening our letters
on landscapes of wind
visible except to dreams
of those who hold lamps
to itinerant poets
with an alembic alphabet
motionless as our body
in a new language hour,
nothing is foreign to us
Walt, but earthy to everyone
as trees, springs, shadows
cool off all hidden tongues.



Marathon Day

Rumors in the city
that a poet takes chances
in hours of days
barters for warmth
under his back pack
fixes on breathing in
enigmas and omens
unchained from words
in an absurd time
of a language
that feeds us on patience.



Those Sixties

When Warhol
opened his Factory
everyone wanted
his fifteen minutes
to get known,
but other realized
dreams would be uprooted
as entangled graffiti
on city walls
stars in films would fall out
bend and fade by morning
and Andy himself
in a self-portrait would be
a manifesto's assassin's target
within publicity's range
of a once familiar face.



Urban Recital

Taking a taxi
in a wintry snow
late for my sax gig
riffs of flakes
on the windshield
a flagon of vodka
and fried potatoes
next to me,
the scent of notes
full of whispering words
and probabilities
as the driver intimates
in Russian
he is not charging me
if will play a solo
my hands not knowing
any boundaries
as we crash
and barely escape through
a half opened door.

BZ 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.  His latest poetry collections are "Lorca at Sevilla," and "Captive Cities."  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.