ELECTRIC CHAIR
you sit in the shadows
all wired as a Beat
from the Fifties
with Job’s counselors
sitting in judgment,
such is life!
when the sky fell in
and you were bathed
in sweat,
with the length and breath
of a guy, next door
who played with a dog
once upon a time,
now in minutes
the lights will go out
diminished clouds
above you,
poised for death’s rattle
unknown except
to headlines,
gasping in self- delusion
together
with your accusers
in the switches of fate.
THAT APRIL IN FRISCO
After watching
the Almadovar film
with my movie buff buddy
and actor in my one act play
back in Boston
talented Pillar from the Valley
that April night, 2002
feeling unconfined, etherized
from the dark theatre,
when Pillar calls me hip BZ
and almost falls
on the sidewalk face
and injures her own hip
wearing red high heels
doing a Marilyn imitation
near the cable cars
in the hills
hoping the harbor lights
along the waterfront
will make us feel a year
younger or sober
hoping for any phone message
or a message on my back
glued to our friendship
as it starts to rain
and we murder
a Spanish cinnamon roll.
KENNETH PATCHEN: A PASSING
When the jazz horns
rail out on me
I was reading
in the Frisco Chronicle
Kenneth’s obituary
how poets have to endure
late recognition
standing there
in my rainbow of a scarf
my sister gave me
by the glowing sunny Bay
wanting to ask Kenneth
for help
gawking at the dawn sky
hearing the gulls
along sidewalk cafes
knowing that in my music
and monster Muse inside me
when my blacked out memory
of my Beat past returns,
Kenneth will be remembered
from such mourning darkness
of penlight moments.
B.Z. 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; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. See more about Barry Niditch at niditch.blogspot.com, including info about his newest book, Captive Cities.