Three Poems by Steve Klepetar

 

Gratitude: A Horror Film

 

Gratitude lives in the basement, lingers

between dimensions 

when white lights flash and organ music plays. 

 

Gratitude has a face of bone and teeth. 

When Gratitude smiles, paint curls on the walls, 

spiders drop from the ceiling, burning in their intricate webs. 

 

Gratitude is always hungry. 

It brings you plates of oranges and grapes,

offers wine with a label that reads “Mother Liked to Drink.” 

 

None of this ends well. 

A brave detective falls down with a knife in his brain, 

wise counsellor chokes on a plum pit and is buried in the clay. 

 

Sometimes Gratitude lies in the dust, 

its tongue pierced and coated with blood.

Sometimes it climbs a hidden staircase beneath the well. 

 

Gratitude can wait, and when, at last

the old house burns with wild and lively flames, 

the closing credits smoke like words written in the language of flies.

 

 

The Poem Escapes Its Golden Cage

 

And no, this is not a poem about writing poetry.

Its cage is made of gold only because that way 

soft bars bend, poem slips out 

and tiptoes quietly down the long hall.

Halfway to the door it pauses, thinks hard 

about its next move. 

Out the window, a huge, yellow moon 

rising over pine-topped hills. 

Bullfrogs croak in the wet reeds, deep 

sound so loud it’s a wonder anyone can sleep. 

Shadows stretch in the bedroom, 

kitchen tools bleak and foreign in the dark.

Down the street, dimmed ice cream 

parlour lights outline a giant chocolate cone. 

Front door opens like a gash.

Night air, sticky warm, tastes free as fireflies.

 

 

The Horsemen

 

I see that I will by lying 

in the lightning on an alp of death 

and out of my eyes horsemen will be riding

 

W. S. Merwin

 

Through cloud they will ride,

and rain, eyes burned to glowing coals. 

Until the war is over, they will ride, they will charge,

 

willing their horses up the hill.

Together they will die a thousand times. 

Until the war is over, they will shout the battle cry, 

 

lead the rising waters, flood the streets. 

All night they will hunt for the moon, 

for the hidden stars. 

 

All night they will crash 

through ragged brush. 

In the morning they will feast on stones, 

 

they will taste fire, gorge 

on swamp mud and sticks. Until the war ends, 

they will sing a thousand songs of hurricanes and lies. 

 

To the desert they will ride,

to broken cliffs on the back of the sea. 

Where they throw their lariats, islands disappear.

Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.