Alan S. Kleiman
(USA)
WRITING, CARVING
Before my first attempt at writing
I used to carve trees,
Make the shapes needed
To feel smooth in the hand
And make the images necessary to
Appeal to the eye
To remind one of
Something identifiable
I’d make a turtle
Or a bullfrog
A horse or a goat
Or a smooth shape,
My favorite,
Just a shape you could hold in your hand
When your hand was in your pocket
And people thought you were
Paying attention
But you paid attention instead
To the smooth shape
In your pocket
Admiring its feel and shape
How happy it was to hold
How satisfying you could feel inside
No matter what the words said
Floating there in the open sky
As I got older
I had to write words
Content mattered
And I was stifled
My smooth carving ability
Didn’t shift to words
They bumped in my mouth
And made me nervous
Afraid
Imperfect
And they came with a label
That ran across my forehead
Bold and high contrast
Saying
No way Jose
Don’t call us we’ll call you
I could put on a hat
With a big brim
That shaded the forehead
Or pull the cap so low
The label barely showed
But it never went away
Never dissolved into spring air
Always made life hard, hurtful
With pains like headaches
Or broken bones
Pains like death
Or a toothache
In the left rear molar.
Let me make something smooth
For your hand
Something smooth and glorious
Something to make your palm smile
Something so smooth
The words in the sky
Will seem
Nothing but clouds.
SEMICOLON
I never met a semicolon I didn’t like
Why once I had come
to the end of a sentence
Screaming period
But no
I snickered and
Ha
Semi-coloned it
Right there
Running on and on
About girls and cars
About afternoon treats
Where sunsets began to poke
at the window
Yelling
It’s time now
Better leave
But still I semi’d it along
Not ready to end
Not ready to say
This is all I have left
Goodbye
MESSAGES
You don’t have to finish messages
Remember
I read you mind
Your brain is on my table
Open before me
I see each synapse
That is where I touch
The little pieces that make
You flutter
And wonder
What was that breeze
____________________________________________
BIO
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 Verse Wisconsin, Right Hand Pointing, Camel Saloon, Stone Path and international journals AfricanHadithi, Scene4 and others. His poems are in anthologies published by Fine Line Press 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 works as an attorney when not writing poems.
http://alankleimanpoet.blogspot.com