July 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).
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T H R E E E K P H R A S T I C P O E M S |
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Green Steel
Alice Neel Portrait of Priscilla Johnson, 1966 
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She is made of steel, her knees sharp as ax handles, her face an industrial diamond cutting sheets of cold iron. Her stainless fingers five thin blades bending, poised to spring, leap, spin solid mass to liquid you could pour into molds and bake until forms transmute, glisten like green, mineral eyes. Her green dress shimmers and flows, strange magma from deep, volcanic slash. Doctor Blue Vincent van Gogh Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890 |
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"Today I saw Dr. Gachet again. He seems very sensible, but he is
as discouraged about his job as a doctor as I am about my painting." -Van Gogh What ails you, Doctor Blue? Has the mirror frightened you again? Have you been occupied, tracing hollow eyes, noting the hedges your eyebrows have become? Your patient, one who interests you, paints a study in blue with highlights of green and gold. You slump, angled outrageously, green cheek against your pale flesh fist. A blue funk. A navy coat with green medallion buttons swirls at the blue-black center, a whirlpool spinning mint-green curving flecks of light. Your hair stabs out beneath a white cap, jagged as flame. Your eyes are large, blue and sad, your mustache droops. You resemble him, orange, gaunt and blue. The madman writes that your house is full, like an antique dealer's, with curiosities of colored glass. Pink bottles, figurines of children, satyrs, pigs and stars, wood carvings of men in broad-brimmed hats and canes. Your face is the saddest face in the world, green ghost of the hyacinth dying, wilting in ridged green glass. |
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Danae
Gustav Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1907 
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She could be Danae.. Around her rages a storm of gold. Coins tumble from turbulent skies. Small golden plates dangle around the gown a goddess wove with golden threads and peacock eyes. Her body is ivory and glass, caught in a typhoon of swirling gold, metallic and chill against her skin. Wind and clinking gold, her eyes burnt from dust and fiery glow. Where gods move, their lust transforms base walls to gold, even the rain with its scent of metal and grass. Her helpless hands interlock, and in her womb, first stirrings of a child who will sail mysterious winds on sandals of gold, clutching a blood-drenched sword. |
©2015 Steve Klepetar