Entering the Tomb by Steve Klepetar

You’ll find no mummies here, wrapped

in linen with their fine organs preserved

in canopic jars, no ghosts or empty coffins –

just the stone floor, dusty and cold

and images carved into rough walls:

a woman rides a red beast, 

its nostrils breathing coal-smudged flame; 

two children hold hands on a platform 

made of sheaves; two bulls pull a cart

trailed by a bear and a hairless priest 

whose crumpled face resembles an owl 

fed on mysteries by the side of a lake 

bearing boats through serpentine caverns of night.







Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared worldwide, in such journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Chiron, Deep Water, Expound, Phenomenal Literature, Red River Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others.  Several of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize (including one in 2016). Recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto and The Li Bo Poems, both from Flutter Press. His collections Family Reunion (Big Table Publishing) and A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) are forthcoming in 2017.