Category: Ish Klein

by Ish Klein

 

In search of other half of a twin situation,

you will have been born May 30, 1970,

around lunchtime. This will have been in New York.

 

You will have been reluctant to leave the womb;

yours was an induced labor.

You may be looking for me. I hope you haven’t given up.

 

I am of a feminine form but my main goal is honesty.

I try to be nice to people and often am because life is hard.

If you are my twin you will know.

 

Physically, I am an ectomorph. My nose was broken and so hooks.

My last little finger (left) is crooked. I am 5 feet 7 inches tall,

hair sometimes light, sometimes mousy, skin fair.

 

My eyes are blue but change in salt water,

where they are green.

I love being near the ocean. If you are my twin, you will know.

 

People call me Ish or Ishmael but that is not what they called me.

I will be an excellent twin.

When we come into contact, I think that your heart

 

will feel good: safe, strong and steady

instead of running away.

I intend to stay with you if we like each other.

 

You can easily find me on the world wide web;

a middle earth contraption that scans brains and shares

information, so be careful!

 

My full name now is Ishmael Klein.

I am a channel

and it’s challenging. Maybe you already know.

 

I love animals and jokes

if they are surprising. I can be useful.

I have a good imagination. Hope to meet you soon.

 

Seriously

and

Respectfully,

from Moving DayFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2011 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

Ninety minutes since dark, I do not expect the surrounding ice
to quit its hold nor do I expect you wearied at my door:
shoulders narrow ’neath your dark green cloak.
 
You wouldn’t be dashed by stones at my door
who take unkindly strangers; flinging them knee to split knee.
Dashed all strangers take me less than notable, even addled
as if they could win a contest to prove their contention.
 
I have wandered, am neither here nor there;
you are where I left: sous terre,
roiling voices beneath your brow
and beaux who wrote with forced arm; not strong.
 
This is to say meet me where I met you first.
Where you stirred as I lowered myself over cliff’s edge.
A burgundy train I wore; you held me up by this.
Your great strength, a thing beside, a saviorial beast, loving.
 
I am the kind who need only be reminded of kindness
and with my All will pursue that quality in the new life.
The remembering one.You seemed to see this.
You lost your horse carelessly that day.

from Union!Find more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2009 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

Is she a father splinter:

one who comes to every class

as a face on a poster

or more so a carrier

who sidles like sidlers do?

 

If someone called me that name

I’d invert with some outrage.

I am not your mother-boy.

What is this, then? Being Made.

What is this, then? Compulsions.

 

Everywhere are everywhere

things. Images of eyes are

eyes and we just don’t settle.

We go after her cold house.

Why do we hate old women?

 

You open an old woman

and there are at least ten kids

and one hundred old men-types

holding tens of tens of kids

while their bodies slowly grow.

 

I don’t care like them kids there.

Song be: This Is New Today

this new old man, a new boy,

a new boy/girl and woman.

You, you, you. You new, you new.

from Consolation and MirthFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2015 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

Not enough left to make sure a swan stays

a swan until the end of the last act.

 

New strings need new arrangements, better bows,

a whole eveningyou weren’t dreaming.

 

A progression of swan to court lady

requires a peasant girl in between.

 

Calculator, to me these things you show:

 

a calculator act requires a show

 

not a new lady dreaming between stays.

from Consolation and MirthFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2015 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

I believe the birds are back.
Swell sparrows of hop and nestle
away one day and so the world went to hell.
 
These things only register when missing
my friends, I am a hermit.
I do not talk to anyone at all,
 
except now I guess it must be necessary
to say the sun hitting faces
 
of buildings against the alluring sky one wishes
to enter.Then breeze to treed lanes
undulant green as ocean.
 
This sight wants to snuff my utterances
by being the utmost
for my brain today. It says, “Only I say.”
 
One walks watching it
one stumbles; it is like wearing a heavy headdress
and people around aren’t into it
 
so they steer away. Unlike birds
the color of dirt who wish to be nearby
phenomenon.

from Union!Find more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2009 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

An excellent minute of Ice in a hot room

this is a darkroom

baby spotlight on steam.

 

Yes and who will I go with?

The one I learned love from

some one against darkness.

I hear your voice beyond the screen.

from Moving DayFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2011 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

There’s a swell.

Brim, drip straw see and sip.

Ring right of feather glade.

Grow low and left or now pre quell a mane.

 

So move somehow,

yes, yes now.

Little ridicule

like the ruler or the doer now.

 

Sediment tender.

Hide, assault. Not mind to sting.

What left and theft and ring and right

pelt tin thing.

 

Then tell drum drone

plus up dumb bell.

Thee well heist. Come on, come out

little bubble born to break

 

or in a bigger some

there: course for eight: two attached.

Come on, come over. So it wants,

so it should take.

from Moving DayFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2011 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

I am a dog wrestling with a big bloody heart
whose valves flub to the very suck of hell.
Light-footed night and by night welcomed.
Scuffing trees, I am sudden.
 
Paws upon windowsills, bark rattling citizens inside their turn,
sleeping, sweat-naped, unsuspecting.
If they catch a flash of froth-terrible jaws
in moonlight, they will have taken the present I left.
 
Taught on night’s perch, another moon brights away.
Here’s to run where no streets usurp rash brambles.
Here’s to find my outer heartland
where small stars hang before the punch is thrown.

from Union!Find more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2009 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

To speak of Distillation this instant

would be stupid and cause madness and loss of limb

to who may be fixing what needs six years to find rest.

 

Vine-tressed, the vessels are to store what of which ore taken

from ground or grave wherein lay a heavily gold-toothed guru

who told you in his will you will take out from him said gold

 

which becomes a new monkey to put up with.

It says not much but how to and when

you will be able to know.

 

First, strike spaces in casements not meant to screen

as all mannered pest fly through. You are

needful of these gaps which allow moonbeams of each degree

 

to touch you who is so unused; you must in sleep take visitings,

be pulled as towards their rut-rocked surface source.

You may go closer to the window. There is no glass in the frame.

 

It will be who wakes with a taste of special metal each morn.

Who was alive only when looking for the source.

Who was dying and, hard black-biled inside, had to hit back.

 

Neither slow to takeover nor quick breeding inside

this knowledge of instants uneasy as amputees

are to take away from their new ex-limbs.

 

And softly spoken as red worn by a sleeping babe;

dreams to him are livid though he is not allowed to say

what holds him to his ritual. He stains new if old clothes taken away.

 

And inches inside which tick each upended history to tell

who to hold this hand you have out to

catch motion off one moment you think meant for you.

from Moving DayFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2011 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Ish Klein

 

I do not pay someone

to listen to my problems

because I’m in a progressive

state where therapists are everywhere

and free to the needy.

I’m in the library across

from an office of therapy.

I am watching the hand

in the office window. Clearly,

the hand is the client.

Shit, as soon as I

mentioned it, he retracted it.

Maybe not, yeah, it’s back.

 

There’s a ring on him.

He pretends to be whisking

an egg. Now bouncing atop

the blond armrest. He opens,

lifts as if listening to

music; or he is palsied.

Period. It’s away now. Period.

No! It’s back doing capisce;

understand in Italian. Lily bud.

It is a pale hand. He’s

pointing now. Fist hitting his

armrest. He’s opened fingers, it’s

away from the window. No,

 

it’s back. It’s up near

his chest then hits armrest.

Maybe this is a woman?

Now it’s whisking in tighter

circles, presumably, a smaller egg.

Less work, less concern. Why

did I assume masculine previously?

It was a thick ring.

But women do that too:

wear thick rings. It’s 50/50.

The hand was not hairy.

Our hands are bigger now.

It’s gone. Now it’s back

 

up: bouncing. Nervous but insistent

Who knows what this hand

does away from the window?

In the sticky ear, poking

its owners nose. Pointing. It’s

pointing. Rude or raw confidence.

Now it’s two hands pointing.

Hello! It’s like a chevron.

Bouncing, now the sign for

money: fingers wearing each other

out. It’s away from its

window. I’ll give it five

minutes. I don’t have forever.

 

It’s back at a new

angle. I see the polar

fleece sleeve of the owner.

which blends with the reflection.

Yes, it’s back; arched like

a sea creature. Now out

of the window, now bobbing

over the armrest energetically.

He or she is dealing

with agitation. He or she

is not touching down now.

The hand unfurls; less weapon,

more emphasis. It diffusely points.

 

It points over there, beyond

the still life on the wall.

Now the “eh” sign, comme

si, comme ça. Slowing down.

Maybe he or she got

sedation. A headless body towards

me. Hello, Therapist! Nice shirt.

He lumbers with a pad.

The hand leaves the room.

Out for more problems, probably.

No, I reframe that story.

Now, she is reaching out.

Now, they come towards her.

from Consolation and MirthFind more by Ish Klein at the library

Copyright © 2015 Ish Klein
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.