Three Poems by Steve Klepetar

 

Sweatshirt

 

Everything is always somewhere else: 

there where it begins.

 

Roberto Juarroz

 

I’m following at my desk,

struggling at this darkening hour

to stay awake. 

A clever computer program 

tracks each movement as the day 

winds back into the infinite past.

 

It’s so cold here in the basement, 

but my turquoise sweatshirt

makes me glad. 

Frost has formed on the windows, 

and in the grass, streaks of white 

glimmer beneath the moon.

 

It begins out over the sea.

Maybe in the northern ocean, 

where Canada glides away 

toward the ice, 

maybe in a dream of seabirds 

and the sound of wind.

.

 

 

Black Wings

 

Across the road, a flurry of black wings. 

A cracked tree bends, rubbing branches 

against asphalt. It’s nearly dark. 

Only a few cars slide by, headlights 

glowing through rain. 

 

Here I am, walking as owls gather by the barn. 

Here I am, tongue-tied and sad, 

worrying about nuclear war. 

Radio moans an old song, someone 

in a honky tonk

 

feeling the weight of dreams,

a long drive to see a sleepy son. 

I would call home, if only I knew 

the country code, or recalled the address

where a smooth board waits anxiously for the nail.

 

Long Days

 

How much death works,

No one knows what a long

Day he puts in.

 

Charles Simic

 

My father put in long days, out by six, a long walk 

to the subway, and all day in the office listening 

to people complain. He got off every Jewish holiday, 

but hated to stay home, had work to finish, 

though some of it he could do sitting at his desk 

in their bedroom, which looked like a little study

with twin beds made up as couches in the day.

Sometimes he did extra work, translations 

from German or, less frequently, Czech. 

People called on the phone, and if I answered, 

they stammered, asked for Doctor Klepetar.

None of them spoke English very well. 

They sounded frightened, or a little ashamed 

until he came to the phone and gently closed the door. 

My mother too worked long hours, interrupted 

by a midday break, and then until eight, and half a Saturday. 

 

But Death, who knows? That one never gets a break, 

people going at night, on holidays, sometimes 

whole buildings burn or collapse, sometimes floods,

famine, war or plagues. It’s hard to believe 

one figure could handle it all. 

There must be a whole industry of death, 

railroads and trucks and giant ships to carry all the dead,

machines stretching to the horizon to process everyone. 

My parents gave them a good run, but in the end 

even those hearty souls got battered down, 

though really it felt more like slowly slipping away. 

At the hospice they told me to talk to my mother, 

ask her questions, but when I did she answered in German, 

telling me things I already knew. 

When she passed, I wasn’t there, driving on my way 

to a meeting, too late to see her tiny chest stop moving up and down.

Steve Klepetar lives in the Shire (Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, that is). His work has appeared widely and has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Family Reunion and The Li Bo Poems.

Steve Klepetar is waiting out the winter and the pandemic in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.