A SAD STATE

by B.Z. Niditch

A shocking image has emerged appearing to show the moment the Turkish Prime Minister's adviser kicked a protester being restrained on the ground during anti-government demonstrations following an explosion in a coal mine that left 282 dead and scores injured. Breaking news feed Report Turk told The Independent the picture was taken in Soma, the town where the mine collapsed after the explosion on Tuesday. Mr Erdogan’s adviser Yusuf Yerkel confirmed in a telephone conversation that he was the man in the image seen about to kick a protester. In a statement released later that day, he issued a brief apology but claimed his actions were the result of being provoked by protesters. "I am sorry that I was not able to keep calm despite all the provocations, insults and attacks that I was subjected to," he said.
--The Independent, May 15, 2014

As soon as you’re born work and worry,
Windmills of lies are planted in your head.
--Nazim Hikmet, “A Sad State of Freedom” (1951)

Nazim Hikmet
today your revolutionary voice
is still a poet heard
as the miners' bodies
are raised
which once loved the sun
and beautiful Bosporus
we will not forget
anyone this mid May
in a fitful restless sleep
of relatives and comrades
knowing the groans
of those below
scorched beyond words
piercing our silences
and consciences.


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; Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest);  Le Guepard (France);  Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

ENLIGHTENMENT

by B.Z. Niditch

Image source: Poets for World Peace

This spring we plant
seedlings
on grounds that flower
covering the good earth,
and write in splendor
by our night lamps
as a new season rebirths
each poet's power,

Asking winter's icy justice
be gone this season
we reach  for deadlines
over a stalking press
to stamp out
in bold headlines
every reasoned grievance,

Yet the bureaucracy
drives us crazy
making us wait
in the cold for hours
and the plutocracy
ignores our pleas
for democracy,

We learn from Byron
Picasso or Shelley
with a artist's chance
for a dove's release
under the burning sun
when frightful furies
ask for war
we yearn
to walk for peace.


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; Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest);  Le Guepard (France);  Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

REMEMBER CHERNOBYL

by B.Z. Niditch

We watch the war hawks
in the media
with reckless rhetoric
and historic amnesia
getting in their last licks,
wishing to turn
their backs
on the clocks of 1986
at the horrific peril
of Chernobyl
when rains of death
spilled over the Ukraine
polluting our earth,
then missiles started
to dissolve
on Russian soil,
now the critics of peace
have resolved
to start shooting
even at the Kremlin
when we know our foil
is really about the oil
our citizens
choose peace
to ignore the breathless
lies for war.


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; Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest);  Le Guepard (France);  Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

WE ARE ALL SHAABANI

by B.Z. Niditch

Iranian poet Hashem Shaabani was executed January 27th by order of President Hassan Rouhani for “waging war on God,” “spreading corruption on earth,” and “questioning the principle of walayat al-faqih” (the Rule of the Jurisprudent.) A statement by Freedom House on February 5th condemning the execution said Shaabani was severely tortured and interrogated over the three years he remained in prison. It stated that Shaabani’s death illustrates Iran’s continuous violent repression of ethnic minorities.

Responding to the execution, Human Rights Voices writes: "To those who knew him, Hashem Shaabani was a man of peace and understanding struggling to extend spaces of individual freedom within the despotic Khomeinist system… In one of his letters from prison, made available to use through his family, Shaabani says he could not have remained silent against ‘hideous crimes against Ahvazis perpetrated by the Iranian authorities, particularly arbitrary and unjust executions.’ He adds ‘I have tried to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should have which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon to fight these atrocious crimes except the pen.’"

Shaabani was founder of the Dialogue Institute, which worked to promote an understanding of Arabic culture and literature in Iran. He was 32. --Liberal America, February 10 2014

Today we are all Shaabani
no capital death sentence
for a poet's conviction
has been commuted
instead by his own voice
for justice
he was executed
from inky windows
of an icy prison
accused of helping
the Arab minority
and waging a war
on god in Iran
Today we are all Shaabani,
for over his pale shoulders
under staggered clouds
in a veil of farewell
on a crude dawn
we heard a call
of his name
and a bell sound
from his anonymity,
survivors may read him
to honor his famed poetry
we will freely outlive
his cold murderers
and those who try
to erase his memory.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

KALASHNIKOVS

by B.Z. Niditch

MIKHAIL Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47 rifle, told the head of the Russian Orthodox Church before his death that he felt guilty for those it killed. -- news.com.au

The arms trade
profits at the world's
children's expense,
who merely ask for love
or just a chance at living
now with no arms or legs
begging for food,
body parts now seen
on technicolor screens
with scars on skin
that cannot be erased
or some without remains
only the memory
of historical or geographical
error of being existentially
at the wrong place or time.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

INK THREATS

by B.Z. Niditch

A series of demonstrations concerning the anti-fascist hip-hop artist, Pavlos Fyssas’ murder by Giorgos Roupakias, supporter of the Greek political neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, are organized in European capitals by Greek immigrants and local left-winged organizations and students. - Greek Reporter         Meanwhile, mass protests against police abuses have resumed in the Turkish city of Istanbul, as well as in Ankara, the national capital, and in Antakya province on the Syrian border. The latest country-wide demonstrations began after the death on September 10 of Ahmet Atakan, a male aged 22, in Antakya. -- Gatestone Institute

Because poems
touch your faraway eye
and dictators
flee from word memory
silence cannot conceal us
from any occupying justice
our initials in blood
rise on city graffiti walls
over roofs and presses
others are written
with bark of hundred years
on old trees,
whether in Turkey or Greece
or anywhere on headlines
we hear impure speech
of the general staffs
who wage war
against people
even in nuclear times
only with ink threats
of our pens
can fascism be exposed
and die off.


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; LeGuepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

AT SUMMER'S ENDING

by B.Z. Niditch

In this zig zag life
still breathless for a swim
over reddish waves
at summer's ending
a patient first light
stills the crystal waters
where a sun reflects
the cork bottles we throw
overboard into the sea
containing peace wishes,
hoping on some muddy shore
a soft glance will lead
these words like shadows
to speedily embark
with our small voices,
or on earth-wise hooks
to crisscrossed fates
telling with our tongues
to stop quicksands of war,
that with elated eyes
by states along the equator,
between continents
or by a footbridge
children on all fours
at another humid morning
such as this,
searching for fish or shells
outstretched to sail
or diving along a salty beach
will discover our note
and bring into play
what Picasso's dove
would convey.


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; LeGuepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

THERE IS ANOTHER TURKEY

by B.Z. Niditch

Image source: Common Dreams, June 2, 2013, via twitpic.

In the mines
and slag-heaps
of bards and patriots
that our ears
do not follow
in the early June dust
of yesterday's cries
where all peaceful
people will crystallize
in freedom's march
like Nazim Hikmet,
his life stolen away
yet stone-hard
under a strong sunshine
of the mountains
he is there with you
for liberty
against sorry evasions
and invasions of the mind
from the wounded in body
in the heart of your cities
lodged by history's 
freed sheltered souls
yet a militant solidarity
suddenly without notice
enfolds upon another fold
faced by jury and injury
circles upon circles
not to be hesitant
or silent.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

TORNADO ALLEY

by B.Z. Niditch

A funnel cloud
of warning
in the eye of a storm
presages high winds
over towns and villages
a mile over
these monster twisters
breaking us up
as a string of souls
become casualties
uncounted
trapped as in a war
under their homes
from a massive path
reported from the ground
in a few live pictures
wrapped in rain
from roofs
under cars
near now barren trees
of shelters
children salvaging
a few belongings
dolls, toys, firetrucks
from a leveled land
emerge as survivors.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

ENLIGHTENMENT

by B.Z. Niditch

Image source: http://www.stopthesewars.org/

From his base
after Jack enlisted
he changed his mind
to be war resistant
trying to forget
the sand in his breath
and a thousand images
in a state of death,
What am I here for
he would ask
feeling out of breath
as Jack was handed
his appalling gas mask,
pulling his own weight
now hidden with his friend
Jackie in a trench
watching for an enemy
to what fateful end,
yet they became grateful
here on this park bench
when T.V. interviewed
even when AWOL
they called for peace,
their mind was renewed
and the world made sense
when all wars could cease
and they would make
a difference.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

MAY DAY RECOLLECTION

by B.Z. Niditch





The other name
safeguards
your identity
life's green card
matches the form
of a poem
and works to shelter
our absence
from betrayal
with an urgent
wish to be not an exile
but an open door poet
scenting no caution
to live among others
in sisterhood
as a brother lip syncs
his soul music 
with a solace of speech
here in an open air
labor festival
I am asked
to urban read
my fierce verse
for all soaring singers
peace partisans,
consumers of the sun
survivors of fascism
and freedom rides,
lovers of natural species,
animal shelter providers
and to recollect
those who stood here
before us.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

TIME FOR THE INDIGENOUS

by B.Z. Niditch

Former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt goes on trial
Image source: ianbunn

 

The big people,
even prime ministers
face the cry of justice
all over the world,
think of it
through international law
we may now retrace
any dictator's steps
with his cruel hostility
when in a past century
of genocide and penury
he could decide our fate
as a head of state,
now the ordinary people
can take the stand
among theft and murder
and speak up
as witnesses of atrocity
and have the back
against those who plot
the misery of others,
after all,
nothing is more true
that we are
all sisters and brothers.
 

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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

THE DISAPPEARED

by B.Z. Niditch

New Pope Tied Up in Argentina's 'Dirty War' Debate
--AP,  March 14, 2013
Image: Jorge Bergoglio, Prepósito Provincial, en 1976. Image source: EstrellaDigital

                  for Pablo Neruda

Where are they
the children
the lost
those living in memory
in our solitude
those without strength
who march with us
in solidarity
who sing with us
toil with us
write on walls
all over the world with us
in prisons
with us
forever
clinging to a future
of the disappeared
and dispossessed
of the earth.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

FRACK YOU

by B.Z. Niditch



artistsagainstfracking.com

Frack you,
for all your flaying
of the earth
sinking us
in the quicksand
of limestone
by the dirt husks
of pipelines
with so many hands
pressuring big oil
and powerful forces
to harass
the echoes of nature
near orchards
on upturned grounds
covering floral clean air
near the mountains
of fauna and gardens
the harmony of oceans
to spiral out of hand
with upheavels
taking ready made shovels
rolling into our environment
we, lovers of the earth
are crying out
for human helpers
to alert the planet.


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

HORSE MEAT LESSON

by B.Z. Niditch

Meat industry under scrutiny as horsemeat scandal spreads --CNN, London, February 15, 2013
Image source: Cream Bmp Daily

Ordering for four
at our table
but unfortunately
for our sandwich
there is no label
now smothered
in ketchup
and pickles beside,
one does not want
to be snide or rude
but why does the food
taste funny
when we asked
for our money back,
and what stealth
is involved
for the meat rack.

Here's to your
good health,
no great deal
that buys
what they advertise,
we expected no trick
like-wise, scandal
stealth or treat,
for it's no hearty meal
that makes their wealth
only a steal,
as we learn a lesson
while we eat,
it was not hamburger
but horse meat!


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.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

DAS CAPITAL

by B.Z. Niditch

Image source: Ron Swanson Wisdom

Grandad said,
"No one should be
a money machine,"
"Greenbacks",
he called money
or sometimes monopoly,
when he discovered
an ATM
outside his bank
after slaving all night
since he was seven
and turned away
he was expiring
on the pavement
because thieves
broke into the bank,
"What's the difference
inside or out"
he whispered,
"Most people
live by default
the bribe taking pols,
editorial writers
monocled judge
and hung juries
even at
this neglected hour
fear on the street
on a bankrupted day,
now grandad
you are gone
encircled by time
in rooted bitterness
of an uncollected
memory
with interest
now stored in my poems
and housed away
at the bottom draw
of an auctioned desk
with no one to give
an account.


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.

ON A CITY BENCH

by B.Z. Niditch

Rinsing dollops
of rain shadows
on a city bench
before the new year
through a foreign
body of thoughtful
reflection,
with his dark glasses
and unshaved manner
in veteran overalls
from another era
since the cold war
of another season
took a few years
off him,
wearied from exile
homeless,
yet still marching
for peace
now with a walker
on rubble
of pavements
pacing near
the back waters
on your city bench
exhausted
in stretched
out fatigues.


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.

EXILED LIGHT

by B.Z. Niditch

Asylum-seekers back to where they started: A boat carrying asylum-seekers, believed to be from Sri Lanka, is intercepted off Christmas Island in June this year. Picture: Daniel Wilkins. Source: The Australian

Exiled light
held out
another dawn
a lamp
to another horizon
more certain
and human
than I believe
exists
returning
into a black sun
of memories,
lit up in love
with peace
for the visionary,
your tossed boat
between rough shores
of two continents
trembling for shelter,
to land in
a resting place


B.Z. Niditch, poet, playwright, fiction writer, and aphorist, is published widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is also the founder and artistic director of The Original Theatre, in Boston, which has presented original, experimental plays on contemporary social and political themes since 1990.