HEARTWORKS

Poems on the Fly 2010

HeartWorks
Seattle-Saginaw: The Reach of Theodore Roethke
Defiance Street
CIRQUE @ AWP
CIRQUE - Book Fair Signing - AWP
Blue Moon for Poets Reading
Poetry Parley
Poets in Winter - The Series
Alaska Poets in Winter ~ 2013
Alaska Poets in Winter ~ 2013 - Morgan
Alaska Poets in Winter ~ 2013 - Emily Wall
Live & Moving, 2012
Amazing M-P
Spenard Jazz Festival
Kleven as poet
Creative Process
Fremont Show
Dance!
"Like This" -- in production
HeartWorks Press
HeartWorks Press Catalog
Gallery
Vita
Mike's Vita
Aniak dances
Poems on the Fly 2010
Poem at Christmas - 2009
"To the Moon" - Roethke
Roethke Score
Roethke - Running commentary
Roethke Poetry
Roethke film - Raw footage
"To the Moon! Credits
Poster - The Making of Roethke tribute
T-Shirts and more for Roethke
Production Stills
"Plotting" Midnight Sun Cafe
Naked Seattle - Fremont Solstice
BHS Class of '63

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Flash Poetry

From left: Voni, Elizabeth Thompson, Sandra Kleven, Michelle Stephens

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Flash Poems by Elizabeth Thompson 

Flash Poems by Sandra Kleven 

1
Grey-brown trunks
drip emerald needles
from sagging boughs,
speaking to the world
in the language of spruce.
 
 
2
Alaska speaks through
moose and snowflakes,
speaking softly
with the graciousness
of creation,
reinventing beauty
again and again.
 
 
3
Do you touch
With the grace
Of a pure heart?
Do you touch
With the empathy
Of Gandhi?
Do you touch and grow?
Do you touch and give?
Do you touch
With the grace
Of a pure heart?
4
Spirit above, spirit below,
Spirit sweet within your soul—
Spirit sweeping crimson Denali—
Spirit whole, never savage—
 
Damn all who would ravage
The courage of the spirit above
Or encourage any spirit below joy
And all her comrades!
 
5
Seeking honey for a sour soul,
She searches for a hive
Where a Queen’s quest
Is a full flower lounging
In the light of love—
Seeking honey for a sour soul,
She searches for a hive
Where no member stings,
And angles always articulate
A clear route home.
 
6
Light bulb lucidity
exposed exponential robbery
of soul, stealing ambiance
from the throat of trust,
then burst into blackness
as the thief expired.
 
ŠElizabeth L Thompson
June 12 & 13
Spenard Jazz Fest $ Poems

Kleven's poems from 2009

Not as bad as a lot of things.

Not as bad, I suppose, 
as a serious burn in the kitchen, 
or a chimney fire. 

Not as bad as falling on ice, 
or falling off the stage. 
Not as bad as being slapped in the face 
with bad news. 

But it was bad news – 
a sickening car catastrophe. Not that bad.  
Not a wreck, no fatalities, not stolen, not that bad. 
Towed.  Taken.  Gone. Absent. 
And we needed it, right now. 
Like a punch in the gut. 
About that bad.  That bad.   


                                              ~~~~~~

ON DEMAND: THE COLLECTION

(Who overuses the words bright, dark and darling?  I don't know.  )

 THREE POEMS ABOUT BABIES

Child of Destiny
Little girl, your face, your grace,your complex attributes
are yet to amaze us. 
And still we know you are star sent
and remarkable.
Unknown and yet.
Somehow, we know you.
Darlin,’ we know you. 

For Aurora at Nine Months

So much from such pretty eyes
looking out through eons, eras,
peeking through melodies
to this fresh moment. 

Aurora sun adventurer, 
landed here on my knee, in my heart. 
Unafraid, beguiled, beguiling. 
Alaska girl.  Alaska dream.  
A darling. 

 

            Little spirit traveler

What seas are you crossing on your way to us? 
Do you wander spiral galaxies as we await the day. 
Can you feel our eager hearts, 
the touch of loving hands? 

Leave the celestial music now, 
And come, little boy, home to us.  

PEOPLE AT THE EVENT\

            Eli

Is there a color, could I guess
Or one note, one chord for you? 
Would I start in deep, dark tones of purple minor chords? 
Or bright, cheery notes 
to signify one more time? 
Always one more time.  
      With feeling. 

 

Carl and the Clarinet

 Such history to be found in that 
hot black stick of yours. 
Back to Benny Goodman 
and the big bands. 
And tonight you bring the 
bright cacophony to a new day
and breathe tomorrow’s
unchained melodies. 

 

For Pete and Vickie 

Wind moans through hollow trees 
and the night, still light, defies time. 
Then morning bird-song
so reckless with hope, 
with improvisational abandon. 

And here you are with me, 
enduring, unsettling, 
exciting, mine. 

For Denise

Make no mistake about it,
she has known trouble
but when you see her at dawn,\
leaving prints in sand to gather,\
flotsam, shells and bright coral,
you will notice only her hands,
generous and cool. 

And when she touches you,
the world changes.  

 

THE UNIVERSAL 

Pleasure of Life

How to distill the pleasure of life,
And wear it like a perfume? 
A little from loving, some from the rose,
A little from nectar, a little from you.
The feel of a hot tub, the smell of baked bread. 
Or when I’ve finished mending 
with needle and thread.
When the cop drives right passed me,
or the radio plays a song once my favorite

How once blind, now I see. 
The pleasure of knowing, my life is my own
Knowing you love me and 
how we have grown. 

Consider the Whirlwind

And then look at me,
one child of the universe 
alive with electric possibility. 
Consider the infinite you’ll see it in me:a dancing diva bathed in pure light. Not quite the usual, no problem. 
Tame the hurricane 
then relax into the force. 

On Breathing

They say the Milky Way is not expanding. 
It pulses they say, as if they knew. 
What if it were breathing? 
Long yoga breaths, 
to mark millennia, time out of time. 

And when I open my window 
and gaze at the night sky,
I breathe and the sky breathes too.

 Look at this. 

It is a tapestry of darks and brights. 
It moves, swirling, glowing, sounding –a beauty that catches in your throat. 
Look closer and you’ll see it all –
every step, every miss-step, every fall. 

And when a new day beaks and
the rosy light of dawn spills over it – every catastrophe, every tear 
Shapes the bright and makes it dance.  

HeartWorks

3978 Defiance Street

Anchorage, Alaska 99504

Link to CIRQUE @ AWP