Peter Klappert

Rating: 4.67
Rating: 4.67

Peter Klappert Poems

What a day to dismantle a roller-coaster.
Well, they are taking it down--
the tracks are all over the ground
and the ties drawn up. The ticket office
...

Thirty feet from my windows,
an old kennel-wire fence
thickly grown over with honeysuckle,
poison ivy, and wild roses
...

Peter Klappert Biography

Peter Klappert (born 1942 Rockville Centre, New York) is an American poet. He grew up in West Hempstead, New York, and Rowayton, Connecticut. He graduated from Cornell University and the University of Iowa, with an M.A. and an M.F.A. His work has appeared in AGNI, Antaeus, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Ploughshares, AWP Chronicle, Lambda Book Report, The Gettysburg Review, and The Southern Review. He was Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard University, and Writer-in-Residence at College of William and Mary. He taught at Rollins College and New College of Florida. He currently teaches at George Mason University.)

The Best Poem Of Peter Klappert

Thanksgiving

What a day to dismantle a roller-coaster.
Well, they are taking it down--
the tracks are all over the ground
and the ties drawn up. The ticket office
is shut, the calliope covered with tarps.

These workmen move their rides
from town to town, with the weather,
and a day gained dismantling
is a day to them. They are grateful
for the day gained, and for the silence
in a park where only ducks and I remain.

As if against the numb fall sky,
sounds of hammers and crowbars
and the changing voice of one man's oldest son
rebound from pond to light pole and away.
Tomorrow they'll be on their way
to Arkansas, or a place they haven't
been before; today they're making time.

Today they're making time. The doors
of the van are open, the van is dark.
The cars stand there in a line, as if
they are not well or have something
to tell the man who stands on the tail-gate.
This corner of the park is nearly flat.

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