MOZART'S HOUR
JAN. 27 BIRTHDAY

If all the notes
over your miniature statue
here at the grand piano
were to play here,
or we were to review
all of your sonatas
or to share your music dramas
concertos or cantatas,
or I were to follow
all the Masonic chords
offering a choral song
by myself on the organ
I'd give you a span
of all the music awards
from our public library
with any critic's wealth
beyond any augmented hour,
or if my diminished words
could hum and deliver along
at your distinguished powers
there would be saved
one a day-long Requiem sound
with red and and white flowers
on a divine grave ground
in the sun shine
of a brave Mozart
by the Rhine river bed.

ELIZABETH BISHOP'S DAY

February 8

A parting day
as you leave Cambridge
for the enlarged thrill
of travel to Brazil
we will always remember
your imparting to us
a sunlight's ray
by large snow drifts
as another semester passes
and in knowing laughter
as you return to your classes
we wait at a celebration
for the new Elizabethan energy
that loyally loves poetry
as did Sir Walter Raleigh
alerted by free verse
from those wisdom of phrases
of those who travel
to far countries of the universe
pouring out as ethereal images
of your royal poetry's perception
out of your lips and mouth
at the luncheon reception
we feeling a bit disconcerted
after the mourning doves
have also deserted us to go South.

DEAR EMILY

At Amherst
the leaves are scattered
in the shadows of snow
as my car seems cursed
and is unable to travel far
yet on the go
he choose to visit you
my sister,
it probably
does't matter
with all your
fair weather fans scattered
in a world wide tower
of Babel
where life never ends
with honorable friends
who offer you flowers
at a reasonable hour
at every season,
not willing to delay
or suspend a speculator's visit
to a greater poet any longer
we are your winter friends
no strangers in offering
to Em all their amends.

AT MENLO PARK

Meeting Burt and Chas
at Menlo Park
we silently greet to jam
for a brief time of jazz
in this detached place
scratched in my time
with so many memories
moves in the dark
as a fair breeze welcomes us
crowds fill along flagstones
near trees of a shadowy Bay
beneath a sudden downpour
showering on the highway,
as my itinerant poetry
conquers all thoughts
and asks my friends
to remove our small masks
on this free holiday break
as my words pass me by
and we ask why
we all feel lighter this Fall
in our cranberry sweatshirts
sliding over the grass
of Whitman's blade,
we eat spinach croissants
or brie cheese sandwiches
as if we are mendicants
beggars or troubadours
trading in our baguettes
pouring jet shots of whiskey
in green herbal Chinese tea
brought by an attendant
out of doors
on a tall food truck
who himself is barely awake
to serve our condiments,
as the sun welcomes
my talented friends
reaching out into the clover
with our continental luck
wishing for a verbal roust
about our musical lore
as when we had a teen band
called D'amour,
we remember that time
when leaving our home
in late adolescence
to view Leonardo's art at Rome
or with Michelangelo
in his Passion paintings to atone,
going on to exotic Paris
to try out for the French theater
with stoned understudy actors
where we are cast
in embarrassed minor parts,
remembering in DC.'s gallery
"Woman with Parasol"
or Manet in his "Steamboat
leaving Bologne"
we heard lectures on Cezanne
covered on the museum floor,
we talked about fine arts
and my one act plays
my friends as four stars
meeting up with
our San Diego friend Mathias
running away from home
with whom we easily
bonded with at the get go,
and spoke of soccer and sports
those reflections and reactions
of wanting to dine at the Grill
at the late opening
of St. Dennis' doors
with shared past photos
of us to last on the tennis courts,
remembering our lasting thrill
at our sophomoric parts
in all our Sixties happenings,
and when were cast
as freshman into Tamburlaine
into Christopher Marlowe's play,
here as the Bay's coastal rain
trails us on the ground
we speak of the secret wounds
on those lonely sea ventures
as lost sailors sound us out
we sense the hound of heaven
sailing on a parade of floats
from the West Coast
when we were shouting about
a plea to end to all wars
which still engulfs all our hurts
yet willing to get in and out
from a continent of ports
where everyone boasts on boats
when we found out love hurts
in our blue Navy shirts
yet we have our friends support,
trembling as glasses chime
and toast each other
for an assurance to be together
once more as a vanguard of brothers
when rays of the sun fall
we play the music in our time
vowing in our guarded memory
always to be temperamental friends
in a critically effaced feature
whatever life sends our solo way,
as our long day recommends
this memoir of that day
at Menlo Park ends.

AT CRANE'S BEACH

With a generous fur
of gentleness
yet apparently snug
my kitten murmurs to me
asking for a hug
here in a late winter storm
as icicles stretch out
along the Coastal highway
near frozen river beds
of the hinterland
in the woods
daytime traffic abounds
as our eyes do a double stop
at the red signal
by hanging lanterns
of travelling by street lights
Athena purrs on the rug
in the front of the car
to keep blanket warm
along Crane's sandy beach
I'm taking off my mittens
and get out in the air
to jog along
an expanse of waves
not worrying
how Athena behaves
near snowy Elms
watching two song birds
along the barrier waves
of a blue Atlantic pier
sing out in the clearing
as it starts to rain
in the January air.

WE TALKED POETRY

We talked poetry
for hours in late January
finishing each others
sentences on the banks
over the Charles River
the car mirror showed
huge chunks of ice jam
locked over the waterfront
in a thankful sunshine thaw
by the Longfellow bridge
footsteps of a bird walks
under a high cloudy ladders
of a no parking sign
grey shadows dance over us
you draw my profile
over my last poetry collection
your hair sweeps in the wind
watching a turtle through
the Cambridge red leaves
you want to visit Mt. Auburn
insisting to visit Robert Creeley
at his last resting place
you need a handkerchief
as my lights go out.

YOU KNOW WHY


You know why
we are both here
standing in the same line
wanting the same latte
as your lips tremble
in the shadowy corner
of the bright coffee cafe
with a last cheese croissant
on the chess table
this ruddy February
at 8 o'clock in the morning
the sun coming through
landing on a Picasso print
near the warming kitchen
a woman in a beaver fur
is asking me to help her
on the double
after seeing my car trouble
by barely clearing myself
out with a shovel
I'm offering to pull her out
of the bicycle lane
with her yellow French car door
caught in the grass thickets
of the fallen Evergreen
next to a fellow bachelor
who is lost as if a dream
in a weekend snow's ravine,
a few boys are daring to throw
snow balls our way
I'm wanting
to strain my neck
at the white windows
to see two eagles
by upper deck shadows
with a nest of a bedded secret
at a future day,
we're taking in the mountain air
up here in Vermont
to cross country ski
bright and early
at first light
on the fairly snowy slopes
feeling as an exile
on the high ledges
smiling with a hope
with the weight of a gesture
that my identity be renewed,
I'm reciting a Valery poem
in the recesses of my being
at nature's itinerant soul
whom he expects to empower
over February's first light
reviewed with a poet's business
as he reveals a happening
of blessing us with his insight
with an open country feeling.

VELASQUEZ QUEST

Diego Velasquez
asks only for a royal seal
not masking his astonishing
transparent several years
of service to his country
by finally climbing up
to watch his pictures
leaving his memories behind
with an artist's recognition
as he leans on his canvas
passing kingly family portraits
gleaming on the walls
and high ceilings
though well known at court

yet his plea almost fell short
of any hopeful support
though the good word is sent
by ecclesiastical authority
of Pope Innocent
and Phillip, the Spanish monarch
offering their dark cask of wine
and fearfully good letters
will open few doors for him,

who finally recommend
to give Diego his miracle

of a memorial regent award
with a better offering
of the royal seal over his chest
to be awarded when he is dead
and buried at his final rest
for his great art showing

and purchasing paintings
for the king while in Rome
and by showing great loyalty
at home at the Escorial,

surely his Sephardic past

stood in his way,

that's what prejudice

does to genius

even in our day.

JACKSON POLLOCK'S AGE
Jan. 28 birthday

Juxtaposed in his age
with a modern art's dexterity
covering over
a new portfolio page
Jackson colors in
an artistic phase
of red, green and lemon
splashing on a thick canvas
as if waving to us
from his studio
to wait for an attic of critics
who wait to see him
in a visit with my uncle
for only a poetic moment's ardor
watching Jackson's
oil spotted hands
from Freudian slips of mind
he even greets us behind doors
toiling with his palms
in his hip wide ability
of illustrating art's modernity
by taking a stance
at reshaping geometry
and art as expressionist poetry
shaded in by free expression
of a post- war traumatic time
with all the toiled dynamics
of a one act and life chance
into high dramatics
on a wheelhouse commission
for a small meditated spell
of his antics in a confessional art
upon another overly medicated day
doing his critical part
while standing over a canvas
of drip dry whitened sheets
in a newly painted mural
at a hallway wall
under noisy open streets
sunk with a desired awareness
by listening to jazz radio
without any critic's permission
to dictate his sponge brush
and explore connections
inspiring the spot on curator
of a pattern and surface
covering over orange paint
as if his rush-on life directions
would ease his worst inhibitions
and undesired anxiety
exposing five faces and senses
hidden in an attic of Manhattan
we follow his lively inspections
as these uptown critics desire
to unfold an imposing creator
part of a reputation
by praising his first exhibition
of colorful illustrations
with Jackson as as a live wire
carves a bas-relief
amid patterns of a furnace fire.

MANET'S DAY
JAN 23 BIRTH

Whether Manet perceives
extraordinary pitiable souls
on the streets of Paris
he still has time
to rush out
and buy new brushes
and meet his wife
by the Tuileries garden
as he paints life's discoveries
by exposing literary genius
in a portrait of Proust's
exemplary greatness
from his Swann or Guermantes way
in a sacred poetic face
by a lunary day
for us watching on his city stay,
or catching naked poses of Olympia
too embarrassed for the gallery
not to pardon a legendary mantra
of a luminary nature's parley
at adorning figures on the floor
by blushing gritty roses
and tulips in a glass vase
or at a museum showing
of Tama, the Japanese dog
slips on all fours
we suddenly remember
these portraits on Manet Lane
in Simi Valley, California
Boston or in New York City
no matter what rotten critics
say in the press to harass you,
they are soon forgotten
in our vicinity.

PAUL CEZANNE'S WALK
January 19th Birthday

Cezanne writes to his son: Obviously one must succeed in feeling for oneself and in expressing
oneself sufficiently.

In Provence Cezanne walks
out of the doors of bards
among her poets, troubadours
painting bathers, nudes
walking over rude white stones
when you will paint
men playing cards
dogs on all fours
for a rendezvous with Zola
who encourages you
in your assiduous endeavor
for a lively clever adventure
and academic critics say
about your art's flat surfaces
or your sensory perception
Cezanne remains serene
departing for Paris
cautious in raising doubt
in embarrassed receptions
without his art's showing
great wealth in its visitation
from many monetary purchases
as he captures "The Bathers"
in their censor's direction
by a visionary impression
living often in willing isolation
of a Sistine-like still life
knowing art lives on itself
by its own recreation.

ICE FISHING DAY

The gull that snatches
fish from the ocean
as Arctic winds
pulls on our imagination
at the edge of the waters
by a frozen horizon
when here in Vermont
weapons sharpened in its origin
are wanted by fishermen
for an aboriginal spear
to survive the winter
as several guys hide
inside a coral rock
motion to me to glimpse
what is on the other side
of the docks and boats
as an eagle flies
over rusty roofs of the dock
in the feathery home harbor
among barges of Cod
upon a good haul today
by the lobster nets floating
upon green drifting waters
of an ice fishing moment
for these long armed souls
in dark lemon tattered clothes
trying to provide a living
we share bread and chowder
though we are lonely
concealed in the neighborhood
whether in alleys, galleries
or hallways of public libraries
wishing that louder waves
would speak to us aloud musically
with sunshine and not despair
in odes of Blakean poetry
through a piano's musical notes
for it is very cold on our fingers
to emote a lyrical song
there may be angel,
God knows,unaware.

SURFING

Whether surfing
for that French film
through tunnel vision
of a bad dream
it seems to have caught you
surfing on the sea
in San Diego, 1970
by a clenched board
holding on in slow motion
that you swim with the current
and channel a new song melody
with metaphysical words \
and red wine
that make you alive
drinking in poetry
in pursuit of the sunshine.

AT MY LATEST PLAY

With only minutes to go
until the Christmas show
proud of my latest play
in three far out acts
the audience is excited
to fulfill a fourfold stage
the young actor and star
reacts with a no fault excuse
sets himself loose
and starts to dance
sounding out
on the floorboards
bringing in the crowds
just hanging around.

JANUARY'S UNLIKENESS

Remember this Beat poet
in slow motion
with a radio
walking for a mile
along this ocean sand
when trees will not go
into exile being white
until winter's amnesty
packs up his close-packed gear
after a short run and hike
his flat feet exhausted
standing in a shower
of hot water
after talking a student out
of being a runaway
by hiding out
on Longfellow bridge
asking her to keep writing
her body of poems
telling her not to quit or stop
that it will take away
her gift of creativity
without reason
in gravity and time
or when she will surrender
to the dark side
of her Cambridge ancestors
as she tells me
one of her literary children
is an imaginary daughter
in her arbitrary imagery
of she who speaks to her freely
and dictates her lyrical words
that weighs on my memory,
telling her of Lazarus
who was in his life all new
as Jesus took to him
in a miracle of love and rescue
from an earlier captivity.

PLAYING BACH

Displaying my arpeggios
on the keyboard
playing notes of Bach
in the first chords of dawn
trying to be exempt
from worry and anxiety
weighing in this cadence
and watching leaves fall
from the large Oak tree
knowing I'm merely a guest
at Elizabeth's piano's lesson
with a musical memory
so much clearer after
dozing into a troubled sleep
from a contrapuntal melody
taking out my album photos
to smile at my theatricals
with my actor's shadows
before my double mirrors
of my plants
exposed in the frigid air
of a sub zero windowsill
housing my geranium
taking off my kid gloves
from frozen hands
into suspended breath
on thrilling remembrances
at opaque January days
along Boston's Beacon Hill
as a devotee of Emily Dickinson
no longer seeing
the swan boats moving off
on the green of Public Gardens
in my Jamesian childhood
but now viewing tourist ships
in the home harbor
gliding to a magical realism
in my Cape Cod neighborhood
unfastened and sequestered
like a hibernating bear
behind a closed winter door
waiting  anxiously to be warm
by the wood stove
as snow caresses the yews
hovering outside my shadows
asking the spirit of the deep
to redeem,shape and renew me
when time will not keep
by watching a fly -high bird
hiding in woodsy grassland
near a once greensward field
where a poet walks
slowly but deliberately
near the whitened gazebo
sharing a labored high wind
with rising waves
on overlapped grey waters
as an arbiter and judge
of music and poetry
reads stunning verses
of Homer's oracles
for his own daily odyssey
about running rumors
when suddenly a childhood
hymn about miracles
emerges from a pastoral past
now anchored with friends
back at his inspected kayak
asking God for a blessing
of a lasting sun's protection
from storm and stress
as he waits for the catch
and carry of a local fisherman
who hands me a salmon filet.

SO WE GATHER

Leaving endless snow
in the backyard
to play in chamber musicals
a bard will recite ballads
and play guitar
for all invited to my recital
and to toast a new year
nearby at the harbor bar
along the white flaked Bay
now scenting the sea air
from vaporous windows
with waves rippling
over silken breaking waves
until we awaken the shadows
at the first light of day
as sunshine opens our eyes
quickly covering over
a sands rocky coast
to share an evening's hypnosis
mesmerized as water slips in
to feed our porch plants
revealing a winter's irony
that we ourselves are by nature
praising a visionary solo
raising my musical fingers
over the piano
we mistaking quiet breaths
to sway the assembled guests
or those who wish to stay alone
amid silent verses
or wish to hear an alto sax
as we view parking signs
the windmill shatters
our matter of fact ways
at my flaming Blakean lips
with a human map to mirror
our swaying dance of notes
from nameless thresholds
in clarity of shadowy words
putting our hands out
and within to reach the length
of Martha Vineyard's beach
as drifting sky flakes
fall on the evening darkness
a poet watches the branches lift
at the last small white bird
heading South while hearing
an A.M radio stormy forecast
of a gusty Canadian avalanche
on a fleeting  mid -January day
welcoming you to waken
on fields of endless praise,
as an infinite warmth
wakes us out of any day dream
in my mouth's praise is sung
as a poem and melody emerge
joined as one lyrical phrase
from a universal tongue.

RAPHAEL'S SEARCH
(1483-1520)

Thirty seven years
of wishing to be known
Raphael paints the walls on
any cave, church, city alley
or dark Venetian hallway's home
to perfect a pastel art's ability
always answering his critics
in his own school
by a search for new techniques
to summon a young gentility
appearing dramatic at every forum
walking into any gallery's court
any day of the week
without even a quorum
to mark his intoxicating genius
on Roman stone and quartz,
to find his own passionate links
in a selfish assiduous way
aided of course by Pope Julius
leaving his church's sacristy
to invest in this young artist
on his own hopes
on that glorious day
when fame finally turned his way
though notoriously jealous
with those others around him
who use their own swaggering sway
to paint angels on chapel aisles
yet Raphael is justly eager
to drink from his own silver cup
with his own drawing style
to be worthy of grudging smiles
of those who are judging him
in Rome's higher up neighborhoods
thinking as he labors he needs
to be as cruel and corrupt
as to conspire with those fools
by covering up
any defiled memory
over an over-zealous nomenclature
at his latest frescoes signature
nor would he interrupt himself
for any blame in borrowing styles
or colors from others painters
to wash over his unique imagery
to get out his name first
and deliver his work early
on any religious scene
hiding the many pretended roles
that art critics had esteemed
for an early secretive posterity
from his libidinous nature's soul
that was needed to be redeemed,
not waiting for prosperity
in a lusty business of power
for his own curious end game
to reach for his consummate goal
by a devil make care attitude,
suddenly having to change his plan
as romance turned into venal lust
which shortened his life's vitality
from rumors of an unwise curse
followed by surprised days
and long legendary dream nights
of over-stated contemporaries
interred by echoes of the Sistine,
Raphael still wears a trinity ring
around his bejeweled bountiful neck
as he was the third of three kings
who attacks with his own personal fuel
the anointing of Michaelangelo
and Leonardo Da Vinci
in direct ambition to his own
yet constantly knowing his own worth
for there is no mercy in seeking
a just name on earth
and then hiding a weasel's bone
on many nights of lusty mirth,
preferring easy sensual beds
leaving a calumnious beck and call
though love was within his grasp
believing in furious Hell's mimicry
having caught a dreaded disease,
yet we know from wise Cleopatra
the snake is an ominous asp
with a vocal inheritance to surprise
taking its voluminous boastful toll
of all sensuously despised sap
whose venom will soon
leave him and his reputation dead
and away from paradise,
without much ministry's time
to paint along the gallery
its throngs of adored saints
from a gorgeous fresco's easel
to an arising heaven
for Raphael's brief time on earth
fainting away at thirty seven.

CARAVAGGIO'S  SECRET WORLD
(1571-1610)

Light from the dawn
falls straight along the stairs
into colors and tears
as clearly  cut sculpted prayer
and plainsong
transforms art into a masterpiece
of "St. Francis  of Assisi
in Ecstasy"
as you met what electrified
your life by your painting
without, purity , piety or pity,
he will soon add up the once divide
between art and architecture
covering his eye visions
with a part of camera obscura
that Hockney later identified
as a way of fearful insight
into Caravaggio's secret world
as hiding moments turned art
from a fresco's bright dawning
as the remnant of curtains fall
drawing in the fearful easel
of an artist's mature years.

MEMORY OF ANTHONY HECHT
(1923-2004)
JAN 16 BIRTHDAY

Life was suspended
for that unsuspecting hour
as Anthony Hecht
read his powerful phrases
directing our minds to our nature
trading in the literary Muse
at long sought- out words
over his loose quatrain of thought
who taught us to think and choose
to open our own unsuspected gifts
from imagination's poetic lore,
without an arbitrary excuse
for our own sinecure
with his own politic translation
into a passionate critical spirit
arranged from his own calculation
as he crossed his knees
on a large academic chair
over a Oriental rug
awesome in his elevated insight
at an ease of reading
as Anthony excels in a legacy
with ill fated signs connecting
to unfold new worlds
through a mighty ear of language
filling in what love attracted
and not left or lost by his age
for he reads slowly on pages
of an unsettling horror of war
reflecting over his words his view,
giving us in the audience
bereft of a second chance
to renew our impressions
of his bountiful commentary
when memory revives that time
of personal adolescence
each January the 16th
an original voice is gone
reaching out from a train ride
in the coolness of our direction
when visiting his unique presence
at my third visit to Manhattan
as if upon Hamlet's stage
at hearing his personal soliloquy
of verse set to musical showers
on the back of a swan
somewhere near Emma Lazarus
as her poem will deliver justice
over the icy brackish waters
to sons and daughters
on Ellis Island
as they land by the Hudson River.

MY POND POEM
(for my mother, Betty
at her 98th birthday,Jan. 16)

An unborn nest from the hill

cries out from a voice

of small birds calling out

between a Vermont valley
and Green Mountains

writing my pond poem
with a skeptical pen with words

barely covered with icy frost

the sky wakes up for you

as you sing  to yourself
by the distilled fountain
with twenty winks of memory
fulfilling your morning alert

for your last day dream cry

still gazing up from my miracle
near the evergreen branches
by the ski loft by thanking
an angel of Israel
for saving our lives when
we children fell on an avalanche

wanting to understand

why the lichen rocks are disguised
in a dawn's flakiness of snow

as we slowly climb down
from the shadows lift
through snow flakes branches,

soon unborn trees will bloom
and blossom in a spring garden

from childhood's cold frosty path

as sounds will echo even at night

from an unwise twelve year old
with new year red mittens

hikes down White Mountains

asking pardon for a nature
lost in a morning's forest
wanting to have Apple Betty
and toll house cookies
or lemon and lime pie
to dwell in my mother's kitchen
through shadows of first light
in the wellspring of time.

A WINTER'S READING

Feeding on the avante garde
an adolescent life
begins to pick itself up
in the public library
among missing persons
and parts of a small city
after fishing for red salmon
in Scandanavia
returning my book from the shelf
to read Soren Kierkegaard
a wise poet and philosopher
who once called himself
"a corrective"
trying to be a knight of faith
to live in a moment's discovery
surviving in a really selfish time
in his darkened middle age
discovering to be a letter writer
capable of a better love
one cannot taste or touch
yet has a closeness undercover
wanting to shout out to God
and Regina his bride and lover
riding over the wide streets
yet going home to a meal
of horseradish and beets
as if we are living alone
in a magician's dream world
of Bergman films
yet praying in familiar words
like Hamlet in Denmark
to catch his mouth on a wishbone,
seeing the ice cover the rink
in the dark marked alleys
choosing his silences wisely
wishing to think and pray
under a lamp stand
marking out a passage
his head hanging
in a humped position
thinking how to understand
wintry nightmares
going over town circles
in his snowy shoes
through spring wounds
at hours of summer walks,
watching Fall's country foliage
in a wish to serve in the light
with grace's permission
not turning into a loss of age
from our great physician's voice.

SPECULATION

Feeling for a boulder's crag
from flakes of a morning
of a scary blind man's bluff
up from the snow country
on the White Mountains
of a cross country's ski resort
on Vermont's sporting lodge
grappling with an exam
and to share my words
for a January poem slam
wanting a passionate time
from old  touch football skins
in wintry games to win
by waiting for hide and seek
in a speculation of making
my bare mark of my initials
on a named tree of life
wriggling and sliding
by holding onto a branch
on the Green Mountains
in hiking boots
on my way down
escaping fears of an avalanche
looking over my shoulder
turning my concentrating rhythms
into scuff lined patterns
chilled in my yellow jacket
winding down pikes in shadows
as a transformations of numbness
holds me up on my Christmas gloves
yet knowing a small inner voice
offers to light my way
though shadows haunt me
watching clouds reminding me
of one of Dali's paintings
surviving the cold hands
that feed me a thin crisp cracker
covering me by eyelashes
of the  morning first light sun
as humming whispers of chants
opens my heart up
to my solitary plaintive songs
in soft melodies blushing
on a parched thirsty Thursday
starting to pull me along
by snow packed down hills
as a dancing blue bird
reminds a solitary poet
of a thrilling childhood awareness.

ON JANUARY'S CIRCLE

Contradicted by the cold
beneath the rough rocks
along the seaweed
checking out my kayak
in middle of the morning
getting my bird wings
for a visit from the South
with my cousin Lee
returning from the Gallapagos
to view the fauna and turtles
recording her misgivings
of the plane as she arrived
in a heart of personal equations
of likely survival
wishing her winter visit
to a poet's reading was an occasion
in a split obligation
at her sudden arrival
bringing me a poster
of Nabokov,almost disfigured
she found in a yard sale
on her travels
and a shattered rose flowerpot
of my great aunt.

READING HARDY

Reading poems
of fate and pessimism
forgiving myself
for the place mats
of topical uncertainties
as a visiting relative
and guest
suddenly emerges
from her announced taxi call
asking for strawberries
and hot milk
night snow freezes her in
mumbling nights of memory
from a family album
in front of the lamp
our words would have been
in a cover of my latest book
suddenly eyeing
a bear outside on the field
and locking the door.

ANOTHER LIFE OF DAVID BOWIE


Singer of conflict
and simmering agony
between a victorious
life and inflicted death story
to pass on to David Bowie
in his own persona
translates us
to keep us rocking
from our cast of mirrors
born like Elvis
on my birthday,
January the eighth
searching for a higher power
as in kabbalah's metamorphosis
always surprising
in recognizing the genesis
of reinvention's memory
in his last hour.

THE LAST OF MITTERAND

Watching this French film
here betraying scenes
from my own cultural past
in a discreet dialogue
on food, couture,politics,
my family ties in Grenoble
are still close to my words
hearing the Alps eagles
and other mountain birds
outlasting a critic's audible
screened arrival visiting me
there is nothing not bathed
in the wounds of my poet's time
hoping after the Paris demise
life is worth saving us from grief
from a noble collapse
of embarrassed survival
before my eyes of disbelief.

SEA TURTLE RESCUE

Here on the Cape Cod
feeling close to a sea turtle
wanting to transplant it
as a challenge to make her
or him safe on bowing waves
running roughshod
on different bubbled buoys
without any chaotic angle
of an ocean's mimicry
with an unobstructed view
going counter clock wise
challenged in my swim suit
to reach a dock barge
doing my rescue of a sand turtle,
knowing the turtle is untangled
surfacing a hundred miles
near my damaged anchored kayak
from a wintry series of storms,
suddenly seeing a baby whale
a humpbacked entangled one
on a back up fishing line
near Woods Hole sanctuary
in a mud fight of survival
knowing young scientists
are doing their good deeds
making my day a memory
in my diary of a helpful arrival
as a poet- journalist
with data of a trade off
vetted to a barrage of questions
to enlist and watch the turtle escape
to the smiles of the sunny sea
once curled in netted wrists.

BY THE CHARLES RIVER

Assailed by doubts
and plausible words
for my own spiral notebook
carrying my term papers
after class on my thesis
with a skeptical pen
held on a rhetorical wish
to have the world be blank
on my metamorphosis slate
to be able to be composed,
impassive and diminished
on the precipice of success
after the abyss of exams
the sun harvests its noonday
as a poet rambles on
drawing portraits
under a college wellspring
in a book of knowledge's despair
with red eyes sighting proverbs
to wish my delivering impressions
will translate into a poem
when sitting alone on a park bench
along the Charles River
as Robert Lowell strolls by
on his way up to Beacon Hill
thanking him for his last book
"Imitations"
and talking about Baudelaire.

JOHN SINGER SARGENT'S PORTRAITS
Birthday January 12

Taking the underground
by subway to the museum
waiting to view Sargent's portraits
as an adolescent
watching with my binoculars
his watercolors
dabble in splendor
as if dreams of great art
create a lucid light
opening the Jamesian door
of my imagination
in panels along the hall
helping ease my own solitude
from my downcast eyes
along the fine arts wall
brushing away a fainting time
of first family aristocrats
in Venice or Boston
flirting with the scholarly critics
with the gall of an artistic life.

A WAR'S ENDING

Great silence
in a self revelation
across the war weary field
drowsy from meadows
in rows of still voices
denied a blue sky
through dense forests
in a jungle rot of bones
from the dusty air
with a new hunger
shadowed by ants
asking to see one tree of life
recognizing its roots
with its own artificial limbs
Bach fugues in my head
playing me on a harmonica
as my mouth whistled away
with chords of bodies
reciting a few hymns
by a long river
demons delude you
from echoes of machinery
over disarmed mind
without stained passports
broadcasts, transports
trains of thoughts
squalls of sleeplessness
on capsized mirrors
in a vanished morning diary
as spring floods crush  the ants
watching pushcarts of beggars
within a distant shot of carnage
that even the chance wind
of a camera's moment
will capture a Siamese cat
that even dragon flies
lodged in your hat
escape to obey the war's end.

LAST FRENCH POLITICAL VOICES

Mendes-France - Radical voice for good

Clemenceau- I did all for you with my reputation untouched

Petain - fascism first, patriotism second

Mitterand, socialist once and for all the elite, his heart and heat in the right place

Chirac apology as a nation for collaborating in mass murder of its citizens

Giscard- power justifies being empowered

de Gaulle- the military call

Hollande- multi cultural France, indeed!

Jospin- who me?

A MEMORIAL GROVE

In Sacramento
small saplings are taken
and planted
from our civil war days
when one brother
is committing Cain's deeds
by going his own way
slaying honorable Abel
supplanting a murderous sin
of hatred's cold stain
for the spring's garden's rain
sent onto Capitol Park
in a memento to pardon the fallen
for all our exalted comrades
in their straining labors
thundering the somber words
of Whitman's sweating ode
in neighbors disarmed for peace
as pollen poppies increase
in the sullen rain showers
we remember our covenant
from the park's red flowers
as the blood of our nation
amid hidden tears were shed
at Lincoln's famous
emancipation letter issued
in a lyrical proclamation
by America's favorite son
before his assassination
to ratify a better miracle
who represented us
in a pact of agreement
by an Illinois senator
who represented us
in the government
who spoke bravely in an oration
to sanctify our freedom's sake
in our consecration
from man's slavery
for forsaking love
yet asking to be
forgiving to one another
commenting on to be unafraid
but to have a sister and brother
to pass the torch of liberty's grade,
to another generation,
not yet since creation above us
gave us in loving King Jesus
in his reckoning
gave us a full pardon for all-
without any condemnation
as Lincoln forgiving us
in an irrational infighting time
by elucidating about the laws
which forced black citizens
to carry back breaking loads
he held out for the people's cause,
now we have a commemoration
allowing for our obligation
and bragging rights
to treat everyone with equality
by raising its transparent issue
for slavery is no human right
seeing in each other a grace
enlightened for democracy's face,
we now may praise
those living and dead
raising us up to be heard
on our annual memorial day
we magnify and chant as poets
from our coronation's quatrains
in wonders of added memory
from a city advising editorial
or ranting in halls of justice
which exhibits our fallen flag
to survive Abe Lincoln's words
in presenting our honor codes.

OSIP MANDELSTAM
Birthday Jan 15

Dreaming of a heroic past
by a classical poet's
Russian birthday cake
around Christmas time
on many colored candle lights
recalling your exiled time
you sense Stalin's breath
nearby the river beds
already living under
a faint grassy grave
not forgiving a sentence
ambushed by your time
yet his heart aches
to pass over
the crimes of his era
as an unripe sun bakes
over his iconic memory
reminding him of divined days
of his strolling by the Neva
with poetry in your meditations
hearing fainting sounds
from the body of saints.

WHEN JANUARY IS REAL

In the crunchy first snow
making my way back
from a pilgrimage to Vermont
losing my old travel map
wandering in darkness
on a country road
watching a black bird
with mirrored eyes on a night
by the green mountains
by a withered elm branch
reciting Robert Frost
in my teaching memory
wanting a lost poem back
here in this wilderness
wanting the right exit
and brunch to go forward
as my car scuttles quickly
from tangled black ice
in a grove of birch shadows
my breath freezing
with an echoes wind
and persistent inner voices
whispers promised directions
once known by heart
praying my car will heat
and start up again
holding on
to my white metallic mirror
on the dashboard
to comb my wild hair
reaching out to
a tiny cat who quietly hisses
circling around me
my years wash away
by a burnished light
managing to make it home.

THE MUSIC LESSON
BY VERMEER

The woman plays
at the virginal
we watch through
the tilt of the mirror
by the soft light
entering a Dutch door
touching the harmony
in Vermeer's focus
at the white jug
along the wall
at angles of cello
along the floor
from shadows
at the linen drawer.

TURNER'S LANDSCAPE

The visit
of the poet Wordsworth
to Tintern Abbey
recalls his boyish days
of a pure mind resting
as an easy hermit
learning high thoughts
about these nature's woods
by the earth's sycamore
in a shadowy forest
forgetting wintry despair
between curved rocky fields
separated in a childhood
of crispy red leafs on hills
turning near a few pastoral trees
as lyrical shadows rest
wanting to share
his own natural beliefs
here in the Wye's burning sun
a neon butterfly glows
on a water fountain basin
over a whispering breeze
winding by a low bridge
scented with pale pastel
covering a greensward landscape
in the wind's shell
waving by emerald grounds
of a caroling blue bird
he lingers at this horizon
in sounding ironies of nature
by the song of a wilderness
swelling into grey water colors
from adamantine drains
outside a fingal's cave.

PIERRE BOULEZ PASSES
(Jan. 5, 2015)

Your serious serial music
plays on from ethereal
sonic booms
making one delirious
from your electronic themes
deconstructing the past
assumes a new modernity
alighting Big Apple clouds
as shadows
of my early wintry dreams
at the cold snowy windows,
yet an adorning sun enfolds us
in your bereavement today
inviting and reinventing
Boulez's atonal vision
showing charming shadows
of a rhythm's acoustic tempo
watching you conducting
the Philharmonic as a boy
my uncle having the score
on my lap and legs
today no shroud can hold you
or begs more at your loss
as heads toss
from your vast audience
in France to intoxicate us
you supplant your notes
from your disarming baton
as critics note the transparency
from a feverish symphony
waiting at the visitor's room
for you to sign your autograph
on my concert program.

CORRIE TEN BOOM
1893-1992)
(In memory)

Every life,
every soul
every kind
of every torture
from fascism's gate
is indebted to you
for choosing life
for another.

THE FIR TREE

(In memory Bertolt Brecht
Jan 10, 1896-1956)

In the late Fall
we stood there decked out
among your tall green branches
celebrating by those ignored
or who can ill afford
to buy you after all
for their Christmas hallway
always guessing that you
came from the Black Forest
who can be sure
at the best of our intentions
when our time seems so barren
even with your conventions
along the spire
where hungry birds
need to rest
rising by a rose of Sharon
asking Bertolt to be our guest,
with poetic words
on the stage of Mother Courage
in an honorable mention,
the fir has bright bells on
even an icy decorated star
over the light's desired top
why do we not stop to recognize
who you are
with the world so well instructed
yet today one will hardly read
just march
off to war for sin and greed
losing the finest citizens indeed,
we know that in our hearts
Christ Himself bleeds
seeing through strife's injustice
when we forget our part
to visit the sick and cold who flee
among the lost troubled refugees
having sung "For Great You Art"
as your body hung on for three hours
coiled at an entangled
old wooden Jesus tree
double- crossed at Calvary
bowing to your Father
on your knee
yet at the judgment bench
we too must eat, drink, feed
dream,love or breed
even as we are politically incorrect
like Bertolt Brecht,
we acknowledge your birth
on each tenth of January
having a repast of your memory
in Germany and the States
as a trumpet and fife
reaches for taps
to stir the waiting crowd
back to life
for those who are with the poor
who survived the collapse of war
stirring a pushing crowd back to life
who come to visit the bush now
and sit by the crowd
to celebrate the holidays here
only the fir tree remains
once so astonished and proud
even after wintry snow and rains
the fir tree has not vanished
nor have your unbowed remains.

BZ BIRTHDAY:JAN. 8

When a poet arrives
at the world's backstage
few critics are alarmed
at the Apollo theater
in Manhattan's Harlem
that he survives with alto sax
to show up with live music
charmed by his knowable Muse
to read from his poetry,
then relaxes to schmooze
over his solo page,
born the same day
of Elvis Presley birth
has an early encounter worthy
of an earth -wise musical gaze
studies classical and jazz
shaped at a young age,
BZ loves swans on the Cape
art and what is modern-
Eliot, Crane and Auden
jams as a kid with John Cage
in a metamorphosis focused
and sifted as a grain of wheat
would go into sands of solitude
in the desert like the Baptist
eating locusts and honey
and washing another Brother's feet,
goes in the wintry snow
like his hero Dr. Zhivago
to a monastery for a retreat
when the gods set him loose
and escapes as a Beat.

B.Z. NIDITCH BIBLIOGRAPHY


POETRY

  1. ELEMENTS (M.O.P. PRESS, 1980)
  2. FREEDOM TRAIL (WINGS PRESS, 1980)
  3. A BOSTON WINTER (REALITIES LIBRARY, 1982)
  4. UNHOLY EMPIRE (THE BROWN MILLS REVIEW, 1982)
  5. A MUSICAL COLLECTION (M.A.F. PRESS, 1984)
  6. EXILE (HERITAGE TRAILS PRESS, 1986)
  7. INK DREAMS (PARVENU PRESS, 1986)
  8. ON THE EVE (NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL, 1989)
  9. MILTON (EARTH WISE PUBLICATIONS, 1992)
10. THE LOT OF THE POET (JVC PRESS, 1993)
11. INSOMNIA (PAISLEY MOON PRESS, 1994)
12. CRUCIFIXION TIMES (UNIVERSITY EDITIONS, 1999)
13. AM/PM (GOOD SAMARITAN PRESS, 1999)
14. THE INSIDE-OUT WORLD OF B.Z. NIDITCH (LUMMOX PRESS, 1999)
15. TWO POETS: ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND (GALLERY PAMPHLETS, 2001)
16. THE POET (PROPAGANDA PRESS, 2002)
17. FIVE POEMS (TANTAVA PRESS, 2002)
18. CHILDHOOD (SLAPDASH UGLY CHAPBOOK SERIES, 2004)
19. MR. POEM (SLAPDASH UGLY CHAPBOOK SERIES, 2004)
20. POETICA (SNARK PUBLISHING, 2006)
21. POETICA 2 (SNARK PUBLISHING, 2006)
22. PORTRAITS (PROPAGANDA PRESS, 2008)
23. BOSTON FALL AND OTHER POEMS (ENCIRCLE PRESS, 2008)
24. BEFORE LIBERATION (MINOTAUR #52, 2008)
24. LORCA AT SEVILLA (MARCH STREET PRESS, 2011)
25. FUGITIVE POET (THE MOON PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2011)
26. TEREZIN (PHRYGIAN PRESS, 2011)
27. CAPTIVE CITIES (PRESA PRESS, 2012)
28. EXPRESSIONIST POEMS OF B.Z. NIDITCH (MINOTAUR #73, 2015)
29. EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE (PENHEAD CHAPBOOK SERIES, 2015)


FICTION

1. LOST AND FOUND TRIBES (JVC BOOKS, 1993)
2. MOZART'S BIRTHDAY(FOUR-SEP PUBLICATIONS, 1994)
3. MOVIE BRATS (FOUR-SEP PUBLICATIONS, 2002)
4. MASKS AND BEARDS (FOUR-SEP PUBLICATIONS 2002)
5. 3/TRILOGY (FOUR-SEP PUBLICATIONS, 2003)


MEMOIR

1. WHAT I THINK (MOON PUBLISHING, 2009)


MAXIMS

1. A MAXIM A DAY: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO B.Z. NIDITCH (ZOIKS PRINT, 1993)
2. MAXIMS AND APHORISMS (JVC BOOKS, 1995)
3. THE BOOK OF MAXIMS (LUMMOX PRESS, 2001)
4. DICTIONARY OF THE 21st CENTURY (FOUR-SEP PUBLICATIONS, 2002)
5. THE LUMMOX BOOK OF DAYS (LUMMOX PRESS, 2001)


PLAYS

1. NINE PIECES FOR THEATER (FOUR-SEP PUBLICATIONS, 1995)
2. LIFE IS A DRAG (STAGE WHISPER, 1995)

A PARIS PLAY

Yvette- artist, girl friend
Robert- Play write
Gerald- Larry's brother
Linda- Gerald's girlfriend
Hank -actor plays Larry

Scene Hotel room- Paris

Y- You thought a change in scenery from New York to Paris would enable you to write.

R- Changing blocks on the arrondissement won't change my writer's block. I find it hard to live

with myself after Larry who became my discovery passed away after I made him a star and now

has faded.

Y. I know that he was more than a discovery of yours after I changed the linen on the bed.

R. He was your lover,Yvette too, but you don't want to take responsibility for any of your acts.

Y. You think you deal only with the unpredictable but Larry was your idol and your last

chance for love and what you are capable of creatively. Yet you want him chained to your

beds of memory with no freedom for me.

R. Be grateful Yvette,after the play I wrote for both of you.

Y. Robert, life's a bitch by any hard drive obituary and for you to take Robert's diary and journal

and turn it into your play is an insult to him even though his memoirs will explode.

R. I will give him the credits.

Y. He was your love object and subject.

R. Yes, but before he was just an actor on the soaps or in some dirty short shorts.

Y. And you never cleaned him up.

R. We both tried to heal him from his habitual drugs dependency.

Y. He hit bottom even as your bond to him became bondage.

R. He was more than any character.

Y. Larry had character, larger than the live posters in the theater districts of the world.

R. Where did it get him, a child actor in an early grave but at least he gave you your child

you always craved.

Y. Because you wouldn't get me pregnant.

R. It was not the time.

Y. You only had time for Larry.

R. You should talk.

Y. I  tried to leave Rory with your yente mother in Brooklyn but she refused so Rory is with

my mother and father in Provence drinking at cafe Lamartine.

R. At least he is alive after your biopic pregnancy.

L. Which you filmed for your special biopic television series of the month.

R. Now Rory is famous as well.

L. And you are infamous. You made Larry a household celebrity. But when the crowds cheer

your your Paris Play tonight, Robert we will remember Larry.

Y. Robert, I do love you, even though you are an egomaniac.

R. Thanks.

The bell rings. I think the actor who plays you and me are here.

Gerald ,Belinda, Hank, enter arrive.

Y. Here Robert give them the program.Your identical twin Gerald plays you and my half sister

Belinda plays me and Hank a graduate student of the Columbia and the Sorbonne plays an

unforgettable awesome Larry.

Gerald ,Belinda and Hank enter.

R. Hi folks. Here is a drink and another script of the play for a quick reading.  How are you ?

B. We have jet lag but we have memorized the play on the way over.

H. I am Hank and play Larry.

G. You remind me of him. Where did you find this awesome hunk!

H. Robert picked me up in a bar. Yet it's an honor to play such a real life character.

G. It is brilliant, but how you knew and understood my brother Larry.

B. It's as if he were here now with his body and soul as yours and you are his mirror.

Y. I am still in his body and soul and I have the proof in his man child.

R. My own mirror is broken except for this play within a play.

Robert goes to the mirror and smashes it.

The end.

THE POETS

In the beginning
was the Logos
of the Creator
with its words and psalms
then the passing of Torah
to the generations
from the poet David
hidden in the shepherd king
or have you heard us sing
out to the nations
the shout out of Moses
Aaron and Miriam
in Exodus and Numbers
from the great "I AM"
to the generations
or reading Solomon's maxims
or taking the risks of lions
and fiery furnace
when heeding Daniel's part
who read God's heart
inspires, stirs ,calms
Zion's desire for worship
in the Old World hours
reaches the ships of the new
as the awakening Puritans
empowers raising
the pillar of fire
for the New Judah Pilgrims
of America
praising with their lyre
who gave us a purified desire
who tarried with her poets,
were married and were buried
in their fabulous generations
yet the Word continued
in the miracle tradition
uncrowded and nursed
by Emily Dickinson
who labored as one alone
amid the raucous crowd
trying to atone in her lore
to take away man's
heart of stone
or like our proud Whitman
like Lincoln to have us free
with a language's majesty
a comforter of justice
in our time of Civil War
we learned from Amy Lowell
and studied under Robert
you who must choose well
must search for language
on a wisteria path
for poets who are our guides
dwelling in so many areas
we quote Juan de la Cruz
and Teresa and various saints
while baptizing in a church bath,
now we are faintly realizing
what it takes in life to cope
from poems and scattered prose
at strife of reviews on Poe or Plath
guiding us in their dicey imagery
searching for lyrics on hand
even on the New England snow
we wish on our bed
for a ready Muse
within reach of pen and ink
with energy to make us think
like our century's John Ashbery
who confides to us
from his quirky imagination
in a new way of critical scope,
or with noted gentility,
we meeting with Gary Snyder
on the Northern Sierra slopes
when he quoted with Zen's ability,
then we can all go back
to awaking the presence
of a children's chorus
as give us another chance
at a Blakean and Harlem
Renaissance in resonance
or hear the rants of thunder
of a starry eyed Prometheus
or gaze at the wonder
we chant by Jesus' hard cross
and caught unaware by the rhyme
by the bard Edith Sitwell
Eliot, Stevens or brother Auden
in a more modern timely romance
who belong and are begotten to us
you may also give us a line
in a song for our scarred generation
that your words may become divine
so put your hands in mine.

THE BEARDS (A PLAY)

Time-1970's
Characters
Barbara -the  friend of all beards
Annette- the party host
Mike- an escort, former hustler now an actor
Jim- a student ,understudy and an aspiring actor from U.K.

Place, A party in any urban setting in North America. here set in D.C.


A. -  I'm Annette. I call myself the friend of all beards, and the host of tonight's party. Drinks

on the house. Bottoms up till the top of the morning. Have one on me.

M.- Hi Annette. This is my friend Jim. He's black Irish from London. Oh my. Can you see

by the dawns light. Glad you could make it here Jim and didn't get lost or picked up on your way

over. How's it hanging?

J. -How you talk in front of these women.

M. They love us. These women with all their make-ups are all beards.

A. So what gives Mike away tonight.

M. -You all want a new beard, Annette. Here is Jim. Not bad. huh.

A.- You sure know to pick them. Who is he ? He looks like family, He's on television. I talk to

all my family on the TV.  That's my daily reality show. From noon to five. I once brought a

transvestite over from  channel 8. No one could here tell she was once a guy an hour before. Her

name was Helena in a hand basket. But she ripped us off. Even walked off with my best oriental

rug along with two of our regular customers,the former Rabbi Diamond and our best friend Don

Deacon who is also an actor with a fine company. But that's the way of the world, up or down,

straight or gay. Straights liked my husband but often bored me. Jim is the new born you brought

with you. He's cute. Here is a name tag, Jim. I'm Annette, the party host. Oh Jim where have you

been all of your life. Who really are you, sweet heart, hope you are going my way, dear, in from

the hail and the rain.

J. Yes I am Jim from an always from Great Britain where the queen rules and sorry to say my

country is not that great since we lost our head in the Empire but that is another story.

M. Britain , he tells me is becoming now multi cultural and imbued with the troubles over there

he came over here since he is a wanted man.

A. I can see why. He can be more than a hunk for our calendar men here.

M. Don't mind Jim. He just needs some s and m's and if he needs a bit of black tan and we

are grateful to supply, isn't that right folks and we take your orders on the spot.

J.-Mike invited me here. We are in the acting studio together. I'm his understudy on the daily

 soap opera "Modern Days".

A. That's where I see you; you're the sexy lawyer whose grandma gets kidnapped by the rock star.

M.- The skirts here prefer the company of guys like me for we are their amusement, their

Saturday night entertainment. Who is as clever actors as we are since early in life we have to

hide our identities and have to take on others. Like my favorite all night companion of many

years the stand up comedian Mr. Moody and his friend the T.V. screen writer of ghost stories,

Mr. Dogwood who are no longer with us. They had to hide who they really are.But we outsiders

are always looking in for though we outsiders are not on reality shows they are really the most

real having suffered an identity crisis all their lives and explain to us in music, song and poetry.

A. Like some Jewish or black people rise up because of persecution not just back in the day.

M.  Everyone has a secret from the world, especially thespians or lesbians.

A In my research on you, Mike,  we found out you once a choir boy, teen hustler, a dance

instructor ,and now an actor who now also plays a down and out street detective on the weekly

T.V. crime drama "Surfers Survive" set in Malibu. Channel 12. Thursday night. I watched the

show and got in touch with your agent Tim Goldberg now Tim Berg my, ex husband. It's a small

sex world. I know you dated Tim.

B- I'm Barbara, the boss for this party. I also watch you daily on your soap. It's part of my routine

after bagel and canasta. Oh Jim the other actor too is here. I can see all your talent running

through your knickers. You are fabulously handsome. So was my ex, Rod, and after a no fault in

Vegas left me a rich bitch. Then he ran off with Annette's ex husband. Sounds like a Soap too.

J- I'm Jim Quinn.

B-How fascinating! How you carry your lines! Right though your body.

Barbara runs her hands though his pants.

B. What sexy pants you have;they make me pant. You remind me of an actor and avatar who

was always going on about the plays of Christopher Marlowe. He knew every one of Marlowe's

lines, ''Who ever loved that loved not at first love."

M.- As my understudy Jim is learning my lines.

B- Dear Mike, you are my escort for the night and I am your angel.

J. (whispers to Jim) Barbara and Annette are they are our hosts or bosses?

M. They pay us for the night to entertain. Now Annette don't put us under a glass box and try to

classify us.We are not caterpillars or Nabokov's butterflies. You don't yet know us deeply or do

you think we are just shallow actors.

A. I find you men just fascinating. Forgive me if you think I can categorize any of you my guests

or put you in any camp or cast you to suit any playhouse which pays you for acting out in my

own house. We give out free tickets as publicity for our next showing and telling.

J. I'm at acting school co-starring in Mike's new flick "Blue Beards"  now in summer stock

playing young Ronald Firbank in a new play.

A. (holds a plate in her hand)  I'm Annette a  host, cook and the friend of all beards who are

cool, cruel or campy. We take our pick here. Mike have a knish. Potato or spinach.

M. I'll take one of each. But in my profession I have to watch my figure.

A. We all do around here.

Annette passes the plate. Here Jim take one. Barbara and I are barbiturates we  just ate.

Jim takes Mike to his side and whispers.

M. As my sidekick you can be a watchman tonight to let me know what is going on. It's not just

another city cocktail party with artsy queens who are well read and bred. It's also a time to come

out.

M.- Jimmy knows what we're about don't you. His Irish eyes are smiling.

J. - I'm getting my wings among these birds.

A.- I'm the city angel to young actors. Eat ,be merry and gay.

B- I'd like an hors d' 'oeuvre myself. Keeps me from being too conversational since there are so

many Mr.Rights here. I was the first notice Mr. Con, the artist and his policeman's ball guy, Joe,

under the table looking my missing third diamond ring, Con, the one's that's forty and still wears

Joe out and I'm never wrong about men though Cons been to so many party balls to be humiliated,

rejected and wronged before. I maintain the ones who appear so straight and narrow always

make a last wish to come out for a little joie de vivre. I can't blame them. Who can hide in the

closet all your life. The trouble with Con is he is always on the run or grabs the first hot buns

in sight and runs away making it a long night especially having a home body or cuddle puddle

buddy away from home to snuggle up to especially after he pulls a big job, if you know what I

mean or am I mean enough to say it.

A.- To entertain and be a party host is to humor and amuse. Without Jim and Mike there is are

no fun guys for a party. That's why we don't put on masks or hide ourselves in a masquerade.

 B.- Mike which service were you in. You are so muscular. Oh my!

Barbara feels his muscles.

 M. - I was in the Navy, just for brief maneuvers on the Potomac, I got picked up and was once

almost quartered on deck. You look surprised, Jim, unfortunately I jumped ship running away

with a cabin fevered boy.

B. I hope you both don't get cabin fever. Our mouths are a watering hole.Eat a piece of angel cake

Jim or have a cinnamon stick .A politician from Tokyo told ,me it's good for the Japanese diet.

M.- You are all so pater familias. I was once considering being a soldier but that was when  I was

eleven on dad's army base but daddy was too macho for me. Annette, may I have something to

munch on.

B.-How about another sugar daddy?

A.- Anyone in mind for your plate or palette, guys.. I'm on the starvation Tokyo diet lately

myself after the Mediterranean and South Beach one failed us , isn't that true Barbara?

   B.- It seems with Mike and Jim here on arrival everything is hot stuff here, Annette.

    M-. Any pot , java or speed?
   
    A.- Always pleased to lend a hand. Cool cats like yourself can lick the cream off your plate.

    Annette hands Mike something in a napkin.

    M. Thanks, I'm up for any thing that feel good. With a psyche degree from the Johns at

Hopkins I actually run a part time therapy escort business. I'm the private agent always on call. It

might save your life. We teach exercises, grooming and how to be hot to trot or to become a

gigolo. Here's an introductory free coupon .

     J.- Thanks, it's a little uncomfortable but look at those guys going for it under the table.

     B.- No, they just found out I lost my wedding ring and they want the reward. Hey guys

get out of there immediately.

      J.- I hope they won't get in trouble.

     A.- Everyone in here leaves their troubles out the door; so you can leave any cabin fever

or depression there too.

      J.- Is that right? I have been depressed  lately in America and have taken to uppers.

     M.-My suggestion ,Jim, is if you plan to be a street walking working boy have on

perfumed mace while walking at your own pace. It prevents being robbed ,manhandled ,and

or goosed on the streets after midnight by any gentleman , politician or cop.

      J. -Have you been a pro, yourself?
     
      M.- It was actually on Wall Street as an intern that I learned  that most of life is prostitution.

Growing up and down and over at the army base we found everything is a maneuver and combat

so we have to protect ourselves from even our friendly enemies. These days they come in all

sizes and shapes.You see on these rainy days everyone needs an escort and rubbers to get them

home safely.

     J.-Why is that, Mike?

     M- Maybe it's because we are all at war with ourselves. I hope your'e not getting cold feet. I

can quickly warm them up Jim. Here we make it safe for women but you know it's always wise to

carry a safe until when it's needed.

      J.- Trying to get a rise out of me, Mike?
   
      M. I don't have to. I can see it coming.

       A. -You can always take the floor or the bed.

       M. -I worked daily on the street and church hopped on Sunday. I liked to give pleasure to all

 the members of the body,very ecumenical. Always after the service to service."

      J.- You are funny but sacrilegious even in the sack.

       A. -Don't be such a wet blanket Jim, we have cold showers after our rise and shine.
     
       B.- You do everything just so.

       M. I like the way Jim plays with his cigarette holder and condom with such finesse.
     
       A.- I cater to my public in private. We do not worry about who is attached to who. We have a

very famous guest list but now a days with the internet and men in grey law suits whom we escort

are known as our dandy candies. We make our own business arrangements. Here is our party card.
     
       J.- This party is so real that you can always give us up to unreality or your own fantasy.

       A. -That might be part of our sex appeal.

       J. -But if everyone needs a beard but Annette are there others who want to cut your beards

off?

       M.-They can try to hide behind a mustache but wherever you are you can put on gay

radar whether in the lights of Broadway, with farm big boys or ranchers, rodeo riders who steer

us or political back bench guys or or those who dress up in a black Jesuit suit it's all to suit

yourself up front on in front of you if you can't see it from behind.

      J.- This place always seems to be in arrears. It's a little hairy this whole business here.

      M.- Or hair raising.

      J. These ladies seem hell bent in fixing guys up. Is it the result of the cultural or sexual

 revolution when no one would pay any lip service to them. This house with all its finery

 and winery seems of ill repute.

  M.- When my old man threw me out of the house said it was too much freedom that gave

  us the supreme court's civil right to Sodom, but he was a rock ribbed Republican and he

 made me leave my house for this one. These beards put me up for a year.

      J. -That was very accommodating. But Mike did you suffer from your dad's rejection?
 
      M. Mom has accepted me and at Christmas visited me here and Dad has recently relented and

came around but one of the beards here goosed him.

     J. I hope your dad ducked.

     M. Dad played football.These gals sure need some action if they wanted dad in a sack.

     J. And a little satisfaction.

    M. When dad first threw me with the keys that's when I myself had the idea of a runaway

dating service and became an escort too.

      J. -You seem to be a good sport at it,Mike. How do you live your days when you're not a

working boy.

      M-. On my days off I start my day early at the gym, and work out and these free days

seem to work out for me. Then I meet someone and go off somewhere and get off. Some guy

picks me up and the tab and takes me out to lunch, then I hang around the library or the park

like most people you meet in life you are killing time or trying to spare your own life from too

many complications so you make your money wishing for a large tip for knowing all men are

suckers in their own way so you mind your own business.Then I try the early bird specials and

make a date.

         J.- Do you have a choice in guys.

         M.- I've been with cubs, bears, twinks, fems and fats ,slaves wishing for plantation scenes,

with many powerful hands on master debates with P.H.D. 's with all orientations and players

from the Ivy Leagues, major, minor and bush leagues ,baseball, football ,soccer and hockey

dream teams by playing hard or softball just because we do them in the locker room isn't

because we just love them; I've been with the ins and the out, the closeted, the married, the

looking for action and reaction; I've been with them in the sock puppet theater, shock drama club,

schlock theater, the schlong and short of it, the counter culture theater,among the hung who have

been marginalized, the buttered up, the hungry eyed, the blue- nosed, the thirsty ,the lost and

found, cum si, cum sa.

       J.- What a way to live.

       M.- It might not be for long. This life has caught up with me. I may have to settle down

or settle for less.

       B.-You boys suddenly seem so serious.

       A-. They have a lot on their plate. Have an hors deuvre, these are tiny hot frankfurts on a

toothpick or stick.

       J. -What's with these skirts. No action, a bad marriage or divorce?

       M.- It's that we amuse them more than straight guys and these women live to be amused.

They want to be taken out and have a good time. Don't you want a good time, my understudy.

        J.- I just want to act. Do you have any more parts for me to play?
   
        M.- Your part in life is to act up.

        J. But what about a real life, Mike. Does it have to be based on scenes of fantasy.

        M. Have it with me. Let's give it a go.


Mike takes Jim's hand and they go off together.

The End

LIFE OF THE POET(INTERVIEW)

Anonymous
BZ Niditch- the poet

A. You are a poet of time and place. Am I correct?

BZ. Writing and living in New England in 1972 at a time of confessional poetry. It was no

accident that there is a subsequent decline in confessional religion in the American Sixties as it

happened in England in the 18th century with the rise of Blakeanism and romanticism and the

beginning of a loss of theism, Manichaeism, and subsequent Methodism, and in Russia with

Blok, Mayakovsky in the twentieth century and the emergence of modernism was the loss of any

Russian religion. You see with a void of religious sensibility becomes a void of sense.

A. How did you inform yourself in your dramatic and traumatic era of like minded poets.

BZ. I studied with fine critics like Helen Vendler who liked my poem on Auden.

A. You like Auden and Eliot.

BZ. Yes their conversations and conversions had a consuming influence.

A. You lived in the Fifities with Mccarthy and Stalin  still around.

BZ. Gorky knew in his maxim "America and Russia, just across the Bay."

A. The peaceniks were popular as well.

BZ. Any war of words served like borscht cold and hot made few of us lukewarm to explore our

soup full of generic poetry.

A. What has happened to American poetry ?

BZ. Identity politics took away the poet's self motivation and casts out imagination. That takes

away your ambiguity. Also such identity politics marginalizes and homogenizes a poet and

then to make it generational was worse when the son or daughter of a poet tries to play a

part and take the role in a future nepotism , like the political dynasties it's all over. Our

individuality is our safe self hood in which the state does not confer its motivation on our state of

mind and leads to a state of a soulless despondency and state despotism.

A. Who did this?

BZ. The media taking its cue from Antonio Gramsci decided who was the best fit to destroy

the idols of capitalism yet with its best kept secret, its language which is our last defense of

culture as Orwell well knew. The media penetrate and perpetrated its values everywhere in the

culture in the name of social justice. It sounds so noble.

A. What of Russia?

BZ.  Look what the Stalinists did even earlier with Freudian or Western psychiatry by giving out

poison pills to alter its greatest minds and its hardened life savers to the masses sensibly and

ostensibly to alleviate their long suffering revamping its medicinal and mind altering chemicals

into a world of tranquilized torture system which the dissidents exposed so brilliantly about its

system, how the state bureaucrats took over Marx's sociology to become Lenin's economic hacks

which potentially and eventually gave us the reality which gave birth to a Stalinist genetics fraud

like Lysenko as the culture collapsed except for its brave dissidents. Look what happened to

Doystoevskian, Tolstoyan, Berdyaevian or Soloviev's Russian Christianity and to the humanity of

Russia after the Revolution.

A. And what happened to America?

BZ. When Russia was a nightmare America was still a life of dreams.

A. And now?

BZ. Gorky's maxim comes to mind , Russia and America are just across the bay.

A. So we are approaching the Russian model? Are you serious?

BZ. Narcissism is close to the cult and occult of fascism.Sadly it began in earnest of the Sixties.

We are still walking through the same hall of mirrors. The media and camera tell it all.

A. Is that what your novel "Movie Brats" of a movie within the reality of a movie is about.

BZ. Yes, how Hollywood has a Russian -American plot always on the set in America as she

invests her life in the so called master minds of the mass media and goes down the tubes.

A. How can it be changed?

BZ. There must come a new Samisdat alternative to mass popular culture.

A. But it would be a minority of one.

BZ. One who believes in the individual soul has the life of the poet within,leading to the survival

and revival of a culture.

A. What has been your literary interests? Did it coincide with your political thought?

BZ- I probably take a French view for I share Faulkner's hopes that through Christian brotherhood

Southern whites and people of color would embrace. I myself marched with Dr. King. Jewish

people were in the front for equality. But to witness some in the black community embrace a

race based  sympathy for a Farrakhan Islam of fascism and anti-semitism and to have such

people not realize the black slave basis and racism in Islam and to turn on Jewish people was

shocking to me. For a fan of Ellison  and Baldwin, it's unimaginable that there would be

such a literary arbitrary backlash toward the Jews. That the Germany of Beethoven and Mann

would embrace Herr Hitler or the Russia of the great novelists and play writes would have Stalin

in power for so long sometimes still confounds me. I'm like an enfant terrible.

A. You take a French view of culture?

BZ. Pascal, Stendahl, Proust, Mauriac, the Maritains, Gide, Sartre, Weil. Then down the road to

deconstructionism. Critics have pointed out to me Beckett connection in my plays and prose.

A. What has happened to France.

BZ. A segment of North African immigrants go along with Jihad; hence a cultural divide, racism

and anti semitism.

A. You were in your youth a Roosevelt liberal.

BZ. Then after the war we started to see in the U.S. students from Spain arrive and I hoped to

meet a Republican. But Dulles brought in the sons of Franco followers. I met one fellow whose

father fought in Russia for Franco. Franco had some Jewish sympathy within his genes he knew

every Spanish soul has some Jewish roots, even himself.

A. You have Sephardic roots.

BZ. Mendes, on my mother's side, we received Pierre Mendes- France at Brandeis when he lost

his seat in Grenoble to a Gaullist;have a stamp of him, a hero of France.

A. You became more conservative?

BZ. I stayed a classical liberal.

A. Are you in shock now.

BZ. To see the party of Roosevelt embrace racism of a different color and the Moslem

Brotherhood, Hezbollah etc. is to lose face and faith in the democratic divide.Yet French

writers are speaking about Islam's demographic desires in novels and are well aware of it as

in the popular novelist Houellebecq's "Submission".

A. Which Italian writers do you like?

BZ. Svevo, Moravia.

A. And English?

BZ. Dickens, Orwell, Graham Greene and the Anglo- American, Henry James.

A. Jewish writers.

BZ. Enjoy the Israelis except when they are consciously self-haters and berate themselves

for the other narrative which is false. It's sad to read non believer Israeli writers.

A. You hid yourself for many years.

BZ. I do not like public posturing or any pose imposing on me.

A- Do you write every day?

BZ. Poetry,plays, fiction, maxims.

A- Did the internet help.

BZ. I enjoy feedback from my readers.

BZ NIDITCH  MAXIM DICTIONARY

ABORTION- A  matter scattered between mother,doctor,life, death and God.

ABSTINENCE- Has a femininity all its own.

ABUSE- A key word in today's injustice collecting.

ACTIVIST- Idealist with a long resume.

ACTOR- The dream for every girl, the nightmare for every mother's son.

ADONIS- A pain in the ass to the gods.

AESTHETE- Love the body of thought,and the human body as paradigm.

AFFAIR- Something for the indolent.

AFFAIRS- Someone has knowledge about,but no one acknowledges.

ALCOHOLIC- Co-dependent on A.A.

AMBASSADOR- A king and politician's reward.

AMERICA- While Russia was a land of nightmares,America is a land of dreams.

ANATOMY- A doctor's body language.

ANDROGYNY-What every great writer has locked in his body of work.

ANGEL- What every seeker needs and every child-like soul longs for.

ANIMAL- What every human longs for.

ANTI-CHRIST- The last incarnation of the Holy Roman Empire,

APARTMENT-See bachelor pad.

APHORISM- Contains no future for conformism.

ARISTOCRACY-What everyone of quality aspires to and is jealous of in its inequality.

ARMY- The general will,

ARRESTED- Something unexpected in every childhood.

ART- Never answers the questions and is not suppose to.

ARTIST- Drawing out of yourself.

ASPIRATION- Negates frivolity.

ASSASSIN- The ass and sin of the body politic.

ASYLUM- A place reserved for confessional poets.

ASTROLOGY- Only for superstars barred from heaven.

ATTORNEY-   A high class job for a bureaucratic bungler.

AUTHOR- What every authority should ignore.

BACHELOR- See apartment.

BACK-BITING- A religious ritual.

BACK-STABBER- Excels in politics, sex and religion.

BAG LADY- Everyone's neighbor.

BAGEL- Must be eaten while talking.

BALLET- Something  most American parents don't want their sons in.

BANDITS- All politicians.

BAPTISM- Infant immortality.

BAR- Where a gymnast puts his drunken criminal weight.

BASEBALL- A drama where every American boy with balls eventually everyone strikes out.

BATH- A ritual of secular irregular baptism.

BATON- Something we conduct or wave at.

BEACH- Where everyone pretends to be a lost mermaid or a lifeguard.

BEAR- A honey or a horror.

BEARD- Every actor's escort in a whisker.

BESTIALITY- Man's affection for animal magnetism.

BEDROOM- Where secrets are laid.

BEER- A substance which makes one permanently middle-aged.

BEGGAR- Under the czar and commissar a hungry serf and soul.

SAUL BELLOW- Alter ego for Allan Bloom.

BERTOCCI BROTHERS- Personalism personified.

BIBLE-  Truth, no libel.

BILL OF RIGHTS- Constantly redresses the wrongs of would be despots.

BIRTH- Crying out for life.

HAROLD BLOOM- Alter ego for Western civilization realization's literature and culture.

BONHOEFFER- Became a German saint.

BOOK-Something that cannot be put down.

BREAD-  Those who want to be buttered up but accept a hand-out.

BRIEFS- In America, it says i all.

BUM- Someone that no one will look behind.

BUREAUCRAT- A paper pushing social democrat.

BURIAL- Always late and unexpected.

CAMP- Where a mother fears her son will go after sixteen.

CASTRATION- Anxiety as a substitute for a prostitute.

CELAN- Understood his life in German not in Germany.

CELEBRITY- The goal of political, sexual and musical identity.

CLOSET- The case of a re positioned or repossessed case no one today wants to be found in.

CHAOS-  Vaporous in life, vacuity in death.

COMEDY- Killed by pop culture.

COMMUNISM- Began in a museum, died in a mausoleum.

COMPOTE- Desert for pleasant peasant dining.

COMPUTER- An outdated key to knowledge.

CON ARTIST- The most successful fools himself.

CONDUCT- Good behavior or savoir faire of would b saviors.

CONGRESS- Votes tax, not Pax.

CONSPIRACIES- Designed to bring us to our knees.

CONSTITUTION- For the people who sign in their name.

CREATIVITY- Lives of calculated miscalculation.

CREDENTIALS-The essential existential way to expose your identity or resume.

CORRUPT- The person next to you who interrupts you.

CROOK- Always a governmental stick.

CROSS- Cannot be hidden.

CULTURE- Sticks in one's throat.

CURSE- One does it with one's eye and mouth at the same time.

CYNIC- A hater of  truth.

DANDY- Indolent without being silent.

DECADENCE- What every current age thinks of itself.

DEMIGOD- What every politician desires and aspires to.

DEPRESSION- An expression which out of anger cannot speak its name.

DEVICE- A hidden forbidden sex toy.

DILETTANTE- One who dabbles in a tower of Babel.

DIPLOMA- Something that seemed of value and is of no use.

DISGUISE- An unwise artifice of being human.

DIVORCE- Something for nothing.

DON JUAN- Deceiver of himself a dramatist and believer for only himself.

DORM- A brothel of old norms.

DOWAGER- Propriety based on property.

DREAMS- Something everyone wants to share.

DUAL-The 19th century's passion for a fashionable honorable marked death and tragedy.

DUPE- A politician we just voted for or supported.

ENGAGEMENT- Begins by sighing and ends the same way only with estrangement.

EROS- Bears its own cross.

ESCORTS- Usually make good sports except in the courts.

EVOLUTION- Best left to to the survival of Darwinism.

EXAMINATIONS- How would be doctors succeed.

EXILE- What every poet, Jew, ex premiere and religious feel.

EXPERIENCE- Location of the witness of the doomed and the reproach of the direction of the

scammed and damned.

EXPATRIATES- Wait to become stateless.

EXPLOITATION- Has the force and face of degradation.

FANATICS- Only like other fanatics.

FASCISM- The hooliganism of the moment using the weaponry of sadism; dresses in its own

fetishism when in fashion.

FATIGUE- A student's constant complaint.

FIG LEAF- The first couple's coverlet and point of contention.

FILMS- Must have the right location,locution, direction and elocution.

FLATUS- No one speaks about after a second act.

FORTUNE- The young strive for; the lottery of the gods.

FREUDIAN- A slip of our lives.

FUTURE- What time strives for.

GAB- An idler's preoccupation.

GENDER LINE- Sex exchanges but in individual motions.

GENIUS - Wishing for a mother's offspring dream and a father's nightmare.

GRACE- Saints accept.

GRIEF GROUPS- People who live in the company of the dead.

GUILT- Something we inherit and pass on.

HABIT- Our religion.

HADES- Not a place of solace for gentlemen or ladies.

HAREM- Helots and harlots.

HOUSEWIFE- The toughest occupation no one admits to.

HOYDEN- What a milquetoast wants for his sauce.

HYPOCHONDRIA- The only disease without a cure in its pathology.

HYPOCRITE- What no politician, spouse or priest will confess to.

HYSTERIA- The lying claim against women.

ID- Something every ego toys with.

IDOLATRY- The media's try at  a pagan religion.

IMMOLATION- Where Wagner led and conducted his followers.

IMMORTALITY- Only God knows who gets it.

IMPOSSIBILITY- The life ability of a poet.

INCITEMENT- The eternal temper tantrum which causes all laws, wars of the sexes, indexes

of religion.

INDEMNITY- The identity of a slaves wages throughout the ages.

INDOLENT- An adult difficult child.

INNATE- A state of mind we cannot give up.

INNOCENCE- The only word and concept we somehow cannot remember.

INSIDER- Wanting knowledge which knocks others down.

INSINCERITY- The sin of all politics, economics, ethics, sex and religion.

INSOLUBILITY- When the only solution is chemical change.

INSPIRATION- What others think other poets have.

INSULT- Something one reserves when others feel the sting one deserves.

INTELLECTUAL- Someone who hangs up up a picture of Henry James but forgets to turn

the screw.

ITINERANT- A preacher- beggar for souls.

JACUZZI- A household requirement for a pagan ritual bath.

JADED- When the colorful lose the shade of their color.

JEALOUSY- Every lover's undercover dream and scheme.

JEWS- A history of prophets.

JEZEBEL- Idyll idol worship.

JOCK- A strapping man.

JOURNALIST- Someone who wants to be in the headlines but has to settle for deadlines.

JUSTICE- Never expect and you may be surprised.

KING- What every man wants to be.

KLEPTOMANIA- What every boss fears.

KNEEL-What secret believers do.

LANDLORD- Only God must love him.

LAUGHTER- When freedom takes over,

LOST TRIBES- A problem of exile and dislocation.

LOVE- Sex and religion account for its popularity,

LUCK- The religious say it originates with Lucifer.

LYRICISM- What every poet and lover should strive for.

MALL- Where people act like bitten animals.

MAPS- Something school children toy with and generals destroy.

MARTYR- Someone has chosen for a belief.

MEDALS-Given to those who trust but do not think; and those who cannot forget.

MELANCHOLY-Contributors to the mind, distributors to the heart.

MELODRAMA-Every  fact of life beyond the scene of the second act.

MEMORY-Something one ponders of the past existence.

MESMERISM- Television.

MILITARY- Always reliving the last war.

MILK- What every baby at every age wants.

MIRACLES- Sought be the childlike.

MONASTERY- No one to escape the masses.

MORALIST- Every teacher's dream and student's nightmare.

MOSES AND MONOTHEISM- Always under an attack.

MUSCLES-Something men are bound to.

MYTH- What no one can renounce.

NECESSITY-Something everyone complains of.

NEIGHBOR- Today we cannot know to love.

NEUROTIC- The only contributor to a society whose nerves are a variety.

NONCHALANCE- What every mother cannot stand or understand.

NOTICE- What everyone wants but no one expects or suspects.

NOTOREITY- A variety of the press found in the mud.

NYMPHOMANIACS- Always at work out of libraries.

OBSOLETE- Incompatible with life's preoccupations.

OCCULT -The religion of those who have been tried by every cult.

OFFENSIVE- Something that armies have in common with all civilians.

OFFERING- Something every consumer, preacher and rumor expects.

OPERA-Life's buffa.

OPIATE- Today's drug of mass psychology.

OPPOSITION- Begins with a supposition.

OPTIMIST. What every American is suppose to be.

ORATION-The speech of revelation that defies speculation and negation.

ORDINARY- Something no one will admit to.

PAGANISM- The plagiarism of God

PAIN- Follows when temptation wanes and elation is in vein.

PAINTERS- Iconoclast or house painter.

PAJAMAS- For those who despise or depose of their own body.

PARADISE- A paradigm for all lovers or repentant thieves.

PARIS- Only for would be lovers or poets.

PAROCHIAL- Those who refuse to move or be moved.

PHARISEE- A member of a church who dismembers or won't extend the hand of other members.

PIRATES- Those who want other goods.

POETS- Those who live by signs, gestures, words and wonders.

POLITICIANS- Those who like to speak off the cuff.

POP- American soda canned art.

PORTFOLIOS- Carried by would be somebodies.

PRANKS- Pagan exercises.

PREDESTINATION- Religious destiny of futurism.

PREPPY- Sophomore forever.

PRESS- What impresses us then depresses us.

PREVIEW- One's first draft of one's vision and revision.

PRIESTS- Confession of life and afterlife.

PRIVATION- Poverty of soul, abundance of spirit.

PROBATION- What every child expects.

PROFESSORS- Those who must constantly learn and unlearn.

PROGRESS- In the sore eyes of rationalists and a sore spot for idealists.

PROLETARIAN- The rich who want to be a working stiff.

PROMOTION- Sainthood for yuppies.

PRUNE- Someone who has given up passion fruit.

PUBLIC- Always anonymous but never autonomous.

PUBLIC EDUCATION- For bureaucrats, democrats without prospects.

PUNCH-A drunk with fisticuffs in hand.

QUEEN- Always a royal manifestation.

QUOTAS- Always unremarkable.

REALISM- What romantics are forced to turn to.

RECEPTIONIST- Have a predisposition and preoccupation for smiling.

REDEMPTION- Few take an advantage of though it is free for the asking.

RELATIVE- From whom there is no exemption.

RELIEF- The feeling when one graduates.

RELIGION- None want to take or touch up on.

REPARATION- Food stamps.

RETALIATION- Learned in every school and law school.

REVENGE- What the ballot box is for.

ROUSSEAU- Where the natural brother is already in utopia.

SATISFACTION- Our own undoing.

SELF CRITICISM- Must lead to something higher.

SHOTGUN- Always shot before marriage.

SOBRIETY- A word people will shake their last glass at.

SPORTS- For some sports or caddies.

STUDENTS- Hate to read what they're assigned.

SUICIDES- Rarely coincide with life.

SURGEONS- It's better if they don't touch you.

TECHNIQUE- Begins with pride, ends with invention.

THINK TANK- For future army brats to ponder on their computer.

TOY- Child and grandfather's play.

TREES- Children and poets swing on.

T.V. - Where everyone is a god in his or her vaudeville.

UNCTION- Even the non religious respect its function.

URBANITY-The citified have made their mark.

VALET-Everyone wants one.

VITAMINS- No one can be proven, unproven or know their value.

WIT- Cannot be conjured up or put down.

WRITER- Begins in childhood, ends up the same way.

XENOPHOBIA- Makes a reaction possible.

YESTERDAY- The day we've forgotten.

YOKE- Bondage to cholesterol.

ZOO ALL A TRY- For those who prefer the love of a dog to the love of God, woman or man.