January 2023

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Another Beat

by Michael A. Kleis

Compelling, colored leaves, sun tanned crisp crunching under toes in barefoot souls.

Red, fallen hairs shedding, shaded sills to silhouettes of sound

Allocated apple seeds.

Zooted suits, broken stomach lining, they had to take the edge off somehow.

Arrow-headed all encompassing freaks,

glazing the streets in ambiguity

Brightly colored and wet with intentions

Modern malevolence could suffice.

Gum bubbles blowing in their ear-phones, a blatant disregard for common talk.

Drying their pockets

Saving cents for better scent

Any way

Cover shots and extras

I can see them reading all about it.

In drove an astro van, fresh off the highway

Rustic riddled in pot smoking rock music

Psychedelia postured suite

Fuzzy blankets and long hair.

Neatly worn rags, patchouli layered gusts

floats by with her sway

Hip to touch melodic tones

As bright as her sun glimmered skin

Waits to kiss the light before it.

We are all wanting

Waning

To be touched.

About Michael Kleis:
These poems were written by Minnesota native Michael Kleis and are a part of his unpublished collection of poems Getting to Know which was written through the span of around ten years ranging from his college experience to post college heartbreak and lessons learned in between that time and now. Michael attended the University of Minnesota Duluth from the spring of 2012 to the summer of 2015. While attending UMD, Michael majored in English Literature and Poetry while also studying Health Education as his minor. He then studied for a spring term in Italy and returned to his hometown of Plymouth, Minnesota where he moved to Saint Paul and began his journey of writing, formatting and editing the collection of poems in Getting to know. Michael is a musician as well as a poet and performs around the state and various states in the U.S. while pursuing his passion and dreams to become a published poet. Influenced mainly by the beats, specifically Allen Ginsberg, Michael is also a fan of the writer and critic Ezra Pound, and extensively studied W.B. Yeats for a semester at UMD.