FOUR POEMS: STEVEN KLEPETAR

Passing Down the Rainy Streets Passing down the rainy streets, empty computers hum or what I mean to say is that "I" (some collection of neurons in a bag of blood and bones) pass down along the street, which is to say "amble" or rather "wander" or maybe "trudge" fits better with this ache in my legs as they slap through these puddles, wetting my shins. And of course I take it one street at a time but I keep going and going (this figure you are reading about, the one you may have confused with "empty computers," which cannot (yet) trudge, much less along or down (oh, there is no down on these flat Midwestern boulevards) rainy streets, which would be bad for their wiring or microchips or something) so while at any one point I am on one little part of one street ... you get the idea. And those computers don't really hum, they kind of whirr in that charmless electronic way which is still comforting if you need to finish a paper at two in the morning or need a place to check your email. Or watch Stephen Colbert on UTube sing with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Or check the polls or the stock market (yeah right) or your bank account to avert catastrophe. But where would these computers be in relation to the "I" you're so curious about and those wet streets? Where is this guy walking anyway that he can hear computer sounds over the driving rain? Or is it a pissing rain, all vertical, a drenching pour like the agony of relief or a rain that strokes your cheek, an insouciant lover who, oh baby, knows what you like?
A Meal of Stars Until some golden ladder bends and every angel dances wing-wild in soaking moonlight, I will drink my fill and make a meal of stars. I lay a bruised hand softly on the gravelly ground. Laughter yanks at my ear, sweet breath plays along my neck, resonates in silent curtains of drooping leaves. All night twisted roots of oaks delve into surging veins of earth. Be there with me in scent and touch, and I will find a sacred pool, whisper questions to this indifferent wind.	My Father Finds His Hat in the Sand His grey fedora, sea soaked, crown crushed by waves or stomping feet, lost those many years ago and he plucks it with a huge hand, rams his fist up through the bottom, sets it lightly on his wild, white hair. Above the hungry sea, wind howls and we are beaten up toward shore, past clam shacks, through a hot scent of grilling meat and fries. His lips tremble slightly as we bow through swirling sand. His tongue swells. Hardly breathing we have come home through the back door, sliding up this staircase of useless tears. We flit as shadows now, flickering in bare bulb light, a trembling in the cobwebs felt along the neck, a pair of whispers heard at twilight, echo of a hollow smell caught only by the dogs.	It's Never Easy to imagine lips of night exposed to the fury of stars or to overcome the blind green humming of sleeping trees. Scotch pines glitter in this frigid sun and frozen fields gleam. Deep In blue-black nights, dark shapes scour the moon scraping a language of sighs. It's never easy to read with head tilted up, strained neck and blurry eyes struggling with refracted light. We translate what we can with fingertips and nerves, each exposed and waiting for grace, each anxious for play of cold on skin. It's never easy to bake a meaning into bread or pull that yeasty taste out into waiting tongues. They bite with hungry teeth, tearing at elusive flesh of truth. It's never easy to wait for summer's game. A fragment of a word - dead or just asleep. Let us hope for leaves of spring, let us turn mourning outward into dawn.