Light Ranger

By L.S. KLATT

I would kill for the feeling of television. 
I felt it once. I felt it holster light. 

I felt it clutch me in the dark and treble 
my house. All the houses. I felt the firefight

on television, the car chase, the crime
and punishment. I got caught up 

in prisms, then smashed them, high on
perfume, dirty picture. Television was

blasphemy to me; it was Satan, god-
like. I wanted something heart-shaped 

I hadn’t had the pleasure of. My good eye glinted
languidly in a heaven without people.

 

[Purchase Issue 21 here.]

 

L.S. Klatt’s poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Harvard Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Daily, The Believer, The Best American Poetry, Image, The Southern Review, New American Writing, Copper Nickel, and Crazyhorse. He is the author of four collections, most recently a volume of prose poems entitled The Wilderness After Which. His essay “Blue Buzz, Blue Guitar: Wallace Stevens and the Poetics of Noisemaking” was published by The Georgia Review in 2019.

 

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!

Light Ranger

Related Posts

Map

By MARIN SORESCU trans. DANIEL CARDEN NEMO
If I see the ocean / I think that’s where / my soul should be, / otherwise the sheet of its marble / would make no waves.

A sculpture bunny leaning against a book

Three Poems by Mary Angelino

MARY ANGELINO
The woman comes back each week / to look at me, to look / at regret—that motor stuck in the living / room wall, ropes tied / to each object, spooling everything in. She / comes back to watch / what leaving does. Today, her portrait / splinters—last month, it was only / askew

Aleksandar Hemon and Stefan Bindley-Taylor's headshot

January Poetry Feature #2: Words and Music(ians)

STEFAN BINDLEY-TAYLOR
I am sure I will never get a name for the thing, the memory of which still sits at a peculiar tilt in my chest, in a way that feels different than when I think of my birthday, or my father coming home. It is the feeling that reminds you that there is unconditional love in the world, and it is all yours if you want.