Satish Verma, 4 june 2016
What it was? Unthinkable:
he had become inaudible
to himself.
Intramurality in defiance?
or falling from perfectibility?
The terrible stench;
and toxic fumes rising from decaying passions.
The flesh middle age, blocked arteries
fear of schizophrenia?
Scion of royalty clapping for wheels,
shine and color
hanging by a thread of hate.
This was life without a hero.
Pacers-by caring for posters only
Whisking the sounds away.
Many in the one
nostalgia of shapes.
Satish Verma, 3 june 2016
Polarity hits you at face, Thoughts. Move
inversely. The deed, words, slogans
divide the eternity of time. No hygienic
patience. Persons coming from channels only.
The thing. Image in hundred mirrors.
Varieties of fakes and counterfeits. Foeticide.
Paedophile. Necrophilia. Peddling pink flesh.
It is. Peels of skin left on roads. Your shape,
my contours, his art. I am passing through
a tunnel. Open-and-shut. No end. No beginning
Two nothings.
Will keep on moving. Roaches are scuttling
like rats with wings. Their country. We are
outsiders. Strangers. Not to reveal the names,
No landmarks on walls, intersections, doors.
No vigilance, No corporatized pain. No
bleeding wounds.
Impatience. Nobody opens the eyes.
Long sleep. I pray, no waking up.
Let the global warming end. Let the
terror die of its own Aconite.
Satish Verma, 2 june 2016
The space was widening. Opacity was
Being. Antimatter in. You were scared.
Why this disintegration? Unthinkable hunger,
Incompleteness. Antithesis of universality. My
smallness. His greatness. The heat sucks the
blooms. Celestial dance of the destroyer begins.
The body makes I. Soul is me. The death
was climbing up the stairs. Hiding
in attic you were singing, refusing to see
the visitor, Dismissal of blast. Was a global
failure. How many bodies you are going to
count? Not enough graves. Mass burial?
or descent in tower of silence?
The sludge. Delta is disappearing. Nystagmus.
No land to build a home. Withdrawal. Poachers
are killing the tigers. Claws for power, killer’s
strength. A tall tree stands on ridge, meditating.
Peacocks are watching. Will be their turn
now? Eyes on the plumage. For clarity,
vision and wisdom.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
By the hotel elevator in Paris
on an impalpable holiday
is the loneliest scene
as sleep walking suit cased
hearing the AM
speaking of raging war
ethnic cleansing
final solutions
yet tranquilized survivors
by half -open faced sagas
of oblivious tourists
sandwiched between
bar and lobby
provide and divide space
to these seasoned travelers
reaching for teapots
and glasses of white wine
doled out with napkins
under doubled chins
from slow kitchen helpers
because it is always
a long trip and cold
from another's hands
looking up to the balcony
in the latest fashion show
losing yourself in mirrors
of soft lights moving you
away from Mozart's muzak
stumbling up the steps
to your inner sanctum
to celebrate sounds
of your lost appearance
by the vacuum
at sauntering in lost thoughts
by habitable towels
undressed by the sink
your mind not intact
or awakened by the rush
of blinded window last light
from your secret location
in a glance's view
of new information
as yet unknown saga
yet may be true
from any vetted apology
yet unspoken to atone
in any regretted vocation
or out of the blue pardon
among the wood's rock garden
there is a moonstone,
as in Stravinsky's"Firebird"
many notes of elocution's force
before a dancer's outside call
in full curtained voice
by the concert hall
with blinding secret wonder
a ballerina emerges in a theater
among nature's belladonna
on steps of connections,
out of rain and thunder
in a poetic word's
language's ballet
by answers and questions
to the critics' directions
at night and every day.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
The breadth of a bardic Beat
venture returns to my memory
after a run on Boston Common
on Memorial weekend
Elizabeth still photographs me
after a minor marathon
resting my feet
along the Charles River
in the blazing sun
taking off my sweat shirt
on the Esplanade
up to the mirror of fountains
where children play cards
laughing in their fun
now on the edge of the shore
a sail boat moves us in the harbor
where sparrows make their way
circling the azure sky
brushing by the trees maypole
concealed in birch branches
by the morning river bed
where a poet adds a parenthesis
and the bee keeper keeps watch
on this New England colony
in the shed with my amanuensis.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
Betting for a wait
before Memorial Day
inspectors arm wrestle
an innocent passenger
with a bandaged pulse
in a straight jacket
when four hours
turn into dusk
trying to shadow box
to bracket my own lines
of free verse poetry
in my daydream mind
encountering dizziness
from past turbulence
unaware of air pressure
from the force of sadness
my memory goes back
to my adolescence
of wearing a poppy
for Uncle Jack
year after year
on the green grave
with fresh flowers
and now removing
my Red Sox cap on backwards
taking out my sunglasses
yet speaking to another soul
with huge outrage who is here
burying her Dutch daughter
studying American history
at night and shadow
who was at a vacation tavern
given a date drug in a drink
at a good bye graduation party
trying to make sense of it
over the mirage of waters
when times are loveless
and war has cursed us,
with her luggage lost
filling out so many forms
in the commotion of flight
feeling so much alone
we share forgotten photos
our past hidden love notes
inked in a sleepless hour
by fortune cookies
flashing car keys
expired passports
in long corridors of stone
awaiting a holiday weekend.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
Some May days
one does not wish to think
too deeply, just do push-ups
on the gym floor
or sing a Sabbath hymn
that our spirit can't ignore
yet a poet emerges
through the library door
so contrary to his plans
locked without priorities
that he will stay
by the motioning clock
watching a coiled
garden snake in shadows
overgrown with mossy grass
submerged through a path
at my kitchen window
acting defensive in the garden
rattled without demands
makes natural sorties
as his shadow succumbs
and just slinks away
on this May doldrums day
waiting to swim in the waters
along the iron life-line fence
near a threshold
of sea shells
along Degas' blue rocks
waking up my memory
of the gold finch
with long wings
flying by a jetty's wharf
who sings us a song
by a tied row boat
now take a short swim
in the rush of a wave.
B.Z. Niditch, 1 june 2016
The city opens in Buenos Aries
thinks of its good fortune
in having Jorge Luis Borges
upon the literary ladder ring
as a poet's higher critic
researching amply for orations
reaches on the library wall
for life's diction of explanations
located by antiquities design
here in his Eden of a living room
explores paraphrased commentary
rooted by vast heirloom histories
when beseeching a scattered fiction
located at pastimes, places, signs,
in presences, phrases by art masters
covers bizarre geometric lines
on global geographical maps
as an intelligent mind encounters
visions,awakenings,horizons
epiphanies,memoir and diary
in a glossary of personal testimony,
as Titian and Tintoretto appear
on his artistic projecting screen
over Borges recent revelation's lips
silently records what shapes
all of man and woman kind
from Creation to Apocalypse
when a sculpture of Donatello
closes the the curtains of his mind
which drapes his world era,
then Mexico landscapes appear
on a Spanish veiled scrim
drapes a freeze of Diego Riviera
and Frida Kahlo vanishes with him
Jorge suddenly hears far off notes
of Mozart's musical miniatures
in a played sonata part on his piano
as he leaves with his last exit
at the contrary atheneum's archives
with a good friend driving with him
after a morning's addendum,
returning from his study guide
now rests on the patio
under a generous sunshine
as he feasts on salad, filet of sole
and a pepper mint herbal tea at noon
feeding over his verbal finger tips
with a mouth of shared herbal wine,
soon this scholar Borges is reading
his parchment of a Torah scroll
sent as a day dream fiesta arrives
reading his Aleph, Bet it seems
as a thousand birds rise to circle
their way to the South pole
from an Argentine celebrated sky,
later a twilight lit city will dazzle
the stars through dusty blinds
by guilds of a history's wrinkle
he yearns for an hour in the park
listening on a hilly breeze
to jazz sax riffs till dark
by wide greensward of trees
as a Cinereous Mourner's ashes
rise on the shading
of a seasonal four lateral wind
a black bird sneezes on branches
for an exile's miracle kiss
near a rural cattle ranch lawn
on a bench by coral flowers
he hears an astral visionary's call
on an hour's masked starry sky
to sip from a proverb's looking glass
in a talisman's floral flask
disclosing a new lyrical translation
and reading his creative reviews,
yet hearing of the burning books
on the news from Germany
upon learning of persecuted Jews
how a carnival festival
or a holiday maker can quickly
turn to war and fascism's sins
in a devil's abyss,
Borges has compassion
from his depth of thinking
in an alpha and omega's creation
to span over a radical fashion
at a magical realism's generation
to challenge millions of poetry fans.
Gert Strydom, 1 june 2016
She wears a kind of apron,
both of her hands are full of paint
where she is standing on the dark-red porch,
some shadows are burnt into the painting
and weeds bubble out at the steps,
both of her hands are full of paint
where she is observing it, does frown, and does drop the paintbrush.
She gazes at tables on a hobbling street
and weeds bubble out at the steps.
She does talk thought struck
but looks at Spanish building and a sea background,
she gazes at tables on a hobbling street
and later she moves around in the kitchen
and she has to serve some food
but she looks at Spanish building and a sea background
and she is scared that her husband is going to notice her newest painting.
She wears a kind of apron,
and she has to serve some food
where she is standing on the dark-red porch.
Satish Verma, 1 june 2016
Slicing thoughts, destiny
timeness of present, trying to watch
inside. The inverted question. Mask
removed.
Your own progeny spying on you,
disowning the moon bears. Beyond
truth was a huge wall. Ensnarement.
Whispers silenced.
A vast void. Interpretation of disguised
Voilence. Hostilities in elliptic orbit. Moon
slaughtered. Death was quick, spurting
the blood. Smearing the intelligence.
Paper weight. Surface tension. Shrinking
supreme. Parthenogenesis. Breaking
the square. Ending of scrolls. Cosmic
disorder. What brains were thinking?
Long speeches. Verbatim fuel. Nubile
bombers. Circus of mediocre legends.
Failed epidurals. History is squinting.
Select values are outworn. I am watching
a very red sunset.
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