September 2015
I'm an old dog, a recently retired college professor who was born in Shanghai, China in 1949. My parents were Holocaust survivors and
refugees. I grew up in New York City and spent my teaching career in the Midwest - Wisconsin, and for the past 33 years, Minnesota. I've been fortunate to have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, including three in 2014. My recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press).
refugees. I grew up in New York City and spent my teaching career in the Midwest - Wisconsin, and for the past 33 years, Minnesota. I've been fortunate to have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, including three in 2014. My recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press).
D R E A M P O E M S
The Same Dream
I have moved as far as I can
now my blood merges
into your dreaming
-Audre Lorde
It seems you have lost your way
in this labyrinth of halls. Sunlight
tickles bay leaves beyond the glass
door and you think of Christmas
trees glowing with wax candles,
oranges and chocolate and nuts.
Last night you dreamed of a road
to the moon, a shining highway
sweeping upwards between dark
clouds. There was an old man resting
in a chair and his daughter waiting
with a washcloth to cool his brow.
I dreamed the same dream, heard
the music too, a thousand voices
in a canticle of air. First we were
alone, and then five girls came out
to play and there were hens and goats
and a small green pond. I carried
the smallest girl on my shoulders
and you said “this is a long walk
for a little girl with little legs”
but she shouted “I’m not a little
girl with little legs. I’m a big girl
with big legs” and there was a fire
with a red center and your sister
falling, falling into that thrilling
void, that bulls-eye black as smoke,
assembled from the dust of memory
ground fine between your aged hands.
Dreamwatch
All night his bed sailed the choppy seas
of sleep. Hungrier than usual, she watched
him dream, his sparrows hopping into golden
birds, his white hares racing in moon glow,
all his ponds and frozen streams rushing
to some ocean underneath, where whales
leap from their great skins. The morning she
spends with jam jars and snow, a pan of water
simmering on the stove. Cat drags a bloody
mouse across the floor, leaving rusty smears
that interest her, bring her pale eyes to bony
wrists. She needs to shovel now the plow’s
come through. Maybe she’ll get the wagon,
pull in a load of wood. Her fingers tingle
and burn, lusting in morning’s dead, gray light.
The Housekeeper’s Dream
She screams into the wind.
Maybe it’s a ghost, or the ghost
of her rage, red hands raw
from dishwater and coal. Upstairs
the men are drinking tea. She likes
hers with milk and rum, a piece
of shortbread on the side. Pumpkins
and spice, treats of the season
spread out on a table to enjoy.
Her tongue wiggles and squirms.
Everywhere dust falls, but in the
moonlight it seems to shine
like a fairy path leading to a deep
forest pool. She becomes a bear
with a wet, black nose, a cruel thorn
driven through her paw. When
the girl comes, with her face like
a glowing star, what strange wisdom
will she bring? What song of mulberries
and dawn to tear her blanket of rough
fur and bring this shrieking pain to heel?
©2015 Steve Klepetar
