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  • Canetti's Ground, and: Blackout, and: Much of the Night, and: Goodbye, Twentieth
  • B. Z. Niditch (bio)

Canetti's Ground

Every horizonresembles wormwoodHiroshima at daybreakGuernica in late afternoonearthy thunderhuddles the childin a hail of Caesars,and you, Elias,cannot even dust offyour overcoat,instead you take ontwenty lashesfor each centurion,you watch camp guardspass out favorslike party cardsand the best-suited torturerhides away from crowdsand lets the angel of lightinvisibly circlethe blood carpetof snow. [End Page 61]

Blackout

When you runfor the trainthe lights go outon a world without memorybut the earth at summer,elm, sky, hyacinth,wants to acknowledge useven for a moment,anyone who will outlivethe random darknessof counting stoneson every path,to rememberthe last strawberry eatenin a Bergman sceneor a planted bulboutside your window.

Much of the Night for Dahlia Rabikovitz (1936–2005)

To Gehenna with deathevery thorn lives with youin an endless floodyour blueprints washthe sand and arid earthin the harried holy citywith a few stones nearby. [End Page 62] Everywhere blood speaksthrough much of the nightopen for the sea, poor sisterastonishing the eucalyptusthe sun nourishes the rocksfeeding on five thousand pageshalf-old history, new geographydoves from perchesline ancient fortressesof the desert carcassspeaking to your heartevicted by the earth.

Much of the Night

No refreshmentin the collected hush,the dictator grindson a bad toothpick.

You are in the pawnbroker'sdarkness having to sellyour caravan of angels.

You stumble furtivelyto buy a passportyou will even bribe the starsfor a meteor of surprise. [End Page 63]

B. Z. Niditch

B. Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and teacher. His work has been published in the Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Antioch Review,and Prairie Schooner, among others.

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