Zachary Kluckman, the National Poetry Awards 2014 Slam Artist of the Year, is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Medal Poetry Teacher and a founding organizer of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change program. Kluckman, who tours the nation as a spoken word artist, was recently one of three American poets invited to the Kistrech International Poetry Festival in Kenya. A 2021 Thomas Lux scholar, Kluckman is the Founder and Slam Manager of MindWell Poetry and has authored three poetry collections, The Animals in Our Flesh, (Red Mountain Press) and Some of It is Muscle, (Swimming with Elephants Publications) as well as the forthcoming Rearview Funhouse. You can find him on Facebook under Zachary Kluckman and on Instagram as @physicalpoet.
when you're done with your tantrum
you might go outside and water the leaves. you have no plants but the leaves
from the neighbor’s yard are dry and dull. you might water over the fence. watch
the small spiders run. imagine what they see with all those eyes. how many faces
you wear in front of them. imagine how the neighbor feels about you pouring your
frustration on her petunias. you might think about gratitude. if you have none,
you might start counting this moment, when no one is tearing your ear from your head.
when no one has given teeth to their own frustration, leaving silence to flirt with your lobes.
its miniscule breath like a single bee’s prayer. yes, silence breathes. what other proof
does it have of its own existence. yes, even the bee can pray. wouldn’t you, if you
could fly when everything in your nature says no?
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