Five Poems
by Steve Klepetar


Today I wrote five poems.
The first was about a boy
who rode a giraffe to school,
a nursery rhyme really, playing
on height and stripes and the
silence of tall beasts.

The second was a stone skipped
along the surface of a pond
I swam in once in upstate New
York as a boy with thin arms,
band aids covering boils.
The bottom was mucky, weeds
tickled my legs. Under water,
sunlight turned the stirred up
mud to gently floating beams.

The third was paradise, a place
of luscious salads and cold beer.
And afterwards The Hall of Fame.

Then a Sumerian ode praising
Enki, lord of the deep.
His voice thundered across
the wall of reeds.
Forty days it rained, and desert
bloomed with delicate magenta
buds, then flood waters rolled
across the grainy face
of sand. Only delicious
smoke of sacrifice convinced
the dread storm lord to start
again with creation's naughty noise.

Finally a lullaby, cradle floating
downstream, flanked by pelicans
and snakes, green and beautiful
in their winding, glistening skins.






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