Fall 2014, Volume 17

Poetry by Steve Klepetar

After the Flood

I have been lost in the world before.
Chimneys rise out into night, fingers
from a glove’s stump glowing with work
that never ends – sparks and noise to tear
silence from sullen air.  When we speak
of something ending, we mean tears
and a clawing at the earth, we signify
cracked branches and a sea rising. 

And rivers that terrify. We carry shards
of broken sky, we cart off dirt and smashed
glass, we pile rotting wood to placate
the latest fury and torn up roots of trees.

We have entered the woods again to view
our nightmares wriggling where we left them,
green and tangled in this place we once called home

 

 

 

BIO: Steve Klepetar’s work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Recent collections include Speaking to the Field Mice (Sweatshoppe Publications), My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (forthcoming from Kind of a Hurricane Press).