Four Sublime Poems by Alan S. Kleiman

 

REVIVAL

 

Still I will water you

and find your weed-like self

wild and stubborn

easily beautiful

bursting with love and life

humor and irony

 

and smiles

and pleasures

a blossoming rose.

You are loved.

 

After today’s night

there will be fresh-squeezed orange juice

in a shapely crystal glass.

Even your tongue will arise and smile.

 

BREAKFAST

 

I am going to eat the love you sent

for breakfast,

with milk in an old bowl

using my favorite spoon.

Today I will eat it sitting down,

coffee too.

If someone asks how was breakfast

I will say lovely,

or love they

or love tip to toe

or loved up and down.

Yes. Loved up and down.

That’s what I will say.

 

BLUE

 

It’s not like

the slow dance after drinks

wasn’t smooth,

or the pirouettes touching skin

weren’t smart,

But the fudge in his jaw,

praline pecan sweet and tart

startled enough

to let wonderings of love

creep into the song

where there was room between the flanks

to let a title slide.

The trumpet hooted long slow trills,

riffs to make hand clappers glad

foot tappers too.

But not me

Not you

Not blue.

 

-    Published 10/14/2014 Crab Orchard Review

 

JUST THINKING

 

I’d like to write a poem

even though I’ve been absent here

for so long.

 

As long as I’ve been absent,

that’s how long it’s been since

I’ve written a poem.

 

I’m not sure I remember how to write one,

or what it would look like

when I was done.

 

I’d probably look at the words

and say, is that a poem?

 

And then, where could I find the answer?

 

And then I would’ve posted something

as if it were a poem,

pretending it was a poem,

even wishing it were a poem,

and everyone would be laughing

and saying, that’s no poem,

it’s just chewing gum.

 

And then I wouldn’t feel like

the cat’s meow

or even someone who caught a fish.

 

But the bottom of my shoes

wouldn’t be virginal anymore.

 

 

Alan S. Kleiman is the author of GRAND SLAM, a Collection of Poems published by Crisis Chronicles Press. His poetry appears in numerous magazines and journals including Pif, Pirenes Fountain, First Literary Review East, Pyrta, Blue Fifth Review, Festival Writer, Scene4, The Criterion, and Right Hand Pointing. His poems are in anthologies published by Tupelo Press, Levure littéraire, Fine Line Press, Kansas Authors and Red Ocher Press and have been translated into Spanish, Russian, Polish, Norwegian, Danish and Ukrainian. He appeared at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as a featured poet in the performing arts series. Alan lives in New York City and the Connecticut shoreline.

http://alankleimanpoet.blogspot.com