Cleveland

By AVRAM KLINE

 

thday tadashi was driving thcorolla,
four menonites showed up with signs

that said contemporary opinion re
our use of color is mixed, come try

thmeatloaf & in this anabab booth
ye may unto all preach thgospel & eat

this meatloaf among among among,
& tadashi sat in thbooth & admired

thbonneted waitress who said to him
huldrych never saw a beachball

as ye never saw my buggy, now as
snow ye come to me, court me

in my rummy rummy home & bundle
me in quilt as wick goes & mate with me

& bundle me, & tadashi came upon th
pulpit as pastor elm was carrying on re

standing naked before his captors, saying
i come from elms along the cuyahoga,

areola crinkling onthtongue, let us
irrigate, let us make supple this bullock

& all his flesh with his head & his legs
& his inwards & his dung, & burnhimon

the wood, & horace sitting beside
tadashi sitting beside young men beside

men declared amen yah women yah!
& elm went on re thmountain zebra thplains

zebra quagga quagga, zevra ye wild ass,
he warned, we’ll lose our coats in wildfire!

ye hear for skins rattle? & reba sitting among
young women among women stood & from

her throat came huldrych zwingli did ablute!
tadashi put thjug of rootbeer inthtrunk

 

 

Avram Kline lives in Brooklyn and teaches at a public high school in Manhattan. He co-curates Readings at Milk & Roses, a monthly poetry event in Greenpoint.

Click here to purchase Issue 03

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Cleveland

Related Posts

Contrail across blue sky

July 2025 Poetry Feature: New Poems by our Contributors

GEOFFREY BROCK
Sing, O furrow-browed youth, / of the contrails scoring the sky, / bright as lines of cocaine / until, as they age, the eye // loses them to the blue… / Sing of the thin-skinned plane / that made those ephemeral clouds, / and of all that each contains: // the countless faceless strangers

Fenway Park

Before They Traded Devers

AIDAN COOPER
I don’t know I’m not paying attention I’m crunching / peanut shells thinking Murakami began to write novels / because of baseball why don’t I / my dad’s grumpy / I’m vegetarian now & didn’t want a frank & yes it’s probably / a phase he’s probably right but it’s a good phase

Cover of All Is The Telling by Rosa Castellano

An Embodied Sense of Time: Raychelle Heath Interviews Rosa Castellano

ROSA CASTELLANO
I’m holding a blank page all the time for myself. That’s a truth that I choose to believe in: the blank page is a tool for our collective liberation. It can be how we keep going. I love that we can find each other on the page and heal each other, too. So, I invoke that again and again, for myself, because I need it.