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Best Poems Written by Zach Kaplan

Below are the all-time best Zach Kaplan poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Lament of the Literature In English Gre Subject Test-Taker

As Sol arises, greets the morn
the soon test taker wails,
"I'm doomed! If I had only read
The Canterbury Tales!

Or more of Samuel Collerige,
or Wordsworth, Yeats or Shelley,
More Medieval or Old English,
some Eliot or Browning!

Or how to spot a romantic
or how a Victorian,
or who saw Tutors on their shift
in this timeline Aenean?

I know not Byron from Whitman,
or Herrick from John Donne,
or Frost or Pound or Tennyson,
cannot read Piers Plowman.

There's just too much literature,
(I can't believe I spoke
this thought, it's blasphemy I'm sure)
like the Raven I quoth.

And though most know the Raven, I
do too, and that's not bad.
Though I think the extent of my
knowledge's not ironclad.

Though I can say with certainty,
amidst my sad lament,
the technique I used priorly
is known as enjambment.

And I know too that rhyme royal
is seven verses long,
where octavia rima's whole
is eight - one more verse strong.

And I've read Paradise Lost and
many Shakespeare works,
and much more Poe than The Raven,
and know Dickinson's quirks.

And I know Marvell and Camus
Gogol, Dostoyesky;
perhaps my portents were untrue,
my knowledge not so petty.

Perhaps I'm ready for this test,
though not well-versed as some.
Like caesuras, I'll take a rest
and stop acting so glum.

From a review book, I'll apply
this truth which first appalled:
If you know all this well, then why
attend grad school at all?"

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Hakeem Olajuwon Said "pants"

I was standing in a store
getting veggies and cheese
when commotion, nay, uproar
made me drop my canned peas.

Picking the can off the floor,
trying to understand,
I searched for the uproar's core
as I fingered my can.

Then I saw it, just a head
but one that meant so much,
and froze up, alive but dead,
as I cradled my lunch.

The Olajuwon! Hakeem!
The Houston Rockets' ray
of light known as The Dream
was lumbering my way.

He came right down my aisle and
he stopped right next to me!
It's possible I smiled as
I saw he too had cheese.

Why wouldn't he continue
to the rest of the shop?
I held my breath, I turned blue,
why on earth did he stop?

Then a word passed his lips and
quickly entered my ears.
"Pants," he said, and away ran.
The Dream had disappeared.

I contemplated later
as I stood in my nook,
what did Dream mean, that baiter;
was I a fish he took?

Because I felt like a fish,
I could not breathe on land.
This would drive me insane-ish.
"I have to understand!"

Did The Dream refer to his
stylish pants that he wore?
Was he commenting on this
less stylish pair I bore?

It's embarrassing but true
that he might have said "pass."
I must've looked like a fool
in my unstylish pants.

I resigned myself with sighs,
very perplexed, it's true,
eating my veggie-cheese pie
and appearing confused.

Gays? Abortion? Bomb Iraq?
Some things we'll always ask
though we hear no answers back
and Hakeem "Dream" said "Pants."

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Mustard Seed (Part 1)

A boy in a
blue shirt
tucked in partly, partly out of
    his Chicago Bulls
    basketball shorts,
      eyes half open,
      snot seeping down to his
      agape mouth
      wet with drool
      slowly flowing
      to his chin
      drifts over to greet our group.
He one by  one
      first hugs everyone then
      grasps hands of one then
      grasps another’s then
      begins dazedly
      walking trying
      pulling them away
      to somewhere
                  unknown and              Men and women working 
      they smile
      either blithely or in
      embarrassed
      discomfort                               here pass through
      unsure
      and bemused;
the workers
here must                                      with rags and buckets
guide him                                       with crutches
like this and so is       
he parroting
mechanically this routine?
      – no.
I do not want this to be true. 
      – 
He is aware
of himself, there is
something there
in his                                             faces wet with sweat
foggy
glass expression
      between clumsy affection
      a desire to
      love us to
      pull us along
      with him,
and the inability to express it,
      to understand it.   faces tired
      (Who am I to claim that I do?)
      I want
      to believe
      in this,
      in his
      consciousness,
      that
      his face
      is stuck,
      is paralyzed
      like one under lethal injection
      like one
      experiencing pain but
      unable to
      show it,
            I want this to be true,
            not for this to
            be a routine
            patterned task
            simply occurring
            because
      it’s occurred
            before.

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Trick Or Treat

Dressed in costume
on streets appeared
I and my crew
so unafeared,

but when we came
upon a spook
we ran away,
confidence shook.

I'll never leave
my room again;
but don't bereave
Sequestered Friend.

I'm scared and not
hyperbolic:
this poem is
real symbolic!

Boo!

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Blankness Reflected (Part 1)

shivering teeth the ceiling’s descent,
the drunken spongy borders of
dim imagined soggy pulsing
images in foggy spots,
exhalation and the sound of exhalation,
sense as the center of dampening paper
surrounded by our soft cocooning breath.
the shrieks are streaked across the walls by
muffled crux-splatter and shuffled scuttle after
skin-wrinkling stink, under-curl shrinkwrap of
comatose redeye
paint-by-memories,
remembered
visions of 
ambling backslides,
jigsawed backside horizon
intimating blackened soul,
so
the sky is falling
in so dark split shatter rift cracks
faded bleak paint streaks
bleeding watercolor from above,
cloud fog tops of toothy skyscrapers,
drip drop splatter plops on
closed eyes,
vacuum void pupils, and
fingernails that scratch attached to hands attached to sprawling nothing
named.
echoing
generating rank fragrant impact
sacks of poetry,
memory,
life
stacked by the door
filling cracked space gaps with
slick and sickening scattered sacks,
shattered patched mock-smokeless thoughts
collecting next to kitchen sinks,
grime and mold and
ants converging colonists,
the smell the heat it generates congeal to
melt the hipster
break the beatnik
and
politico and
preacher melt
the child father mother melt
the you the me
into
elemental blank drywall
cement smooth surface,
reflection of an etch-a-sketch,
cannibal intellect,
our scratching sounds
obscured through suture-milky selves,
imagined innocuous incestuous imagination,
the poem the poet are clown house mirrors
reflecting endless reflection reflecting endless
so endless
so stab the bleeding hearts of the
bleeding-heart poets,
**** abrasively the ******* of the
sensuous speaking spectacle
preformed performance
melt all it is
it’s all
it is and
all is

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Old Man

Old man sitting in his room
adorned with worn-out slippers,
too embarrased to remove
them without toenail clippers.
He let his toenails grow too long,
he knows he's acted badly.
"What a year this past year was!"
he exclaims somewhat sadly.
He saw parties come and go,
the good times and the bitters.
How was he supposed to know
to stop and buy some clippers?
Now his nails are overgrown,
his soul and slippers worn.
For all the good times that he's known
now all he'll know is scorn.
"Prepare for the future, friends!"
he shouts at who he can,
though so few stop to listen
to an old, loud-shouting man.
Tears roll down his cheek and land
on his long, ragged nails;
their length is longer than his hand
but shorter than his wails.
So, dear reader, taking flight
on life's big winged sheet,
as daytime darkens, turns to night,
don't disregard your feet.

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Work!

"Yaaaaawn," I yawn,
the morning's pawn,
I then put on
pajama pants.

Stumblingly walking,
mumble-talking
unable to do
my dance.

I drink caffeine
something obscene,
and can think keenly
once again.

Then down the lane
to work, my bane,
energy draining
spirit waning
my body's slave
until my break
which hardly slakes
my pains and aches
and then and then and then and then and then,

"Yaaaaawn," I yawn,
the evening's pawn,
I then put on
pajama pants.

Stumblingly walking,
mumble-talking
unable to do
my dance.

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Slept

Crept in, then disappeared without turning,
whispered directly, heard it slant.
Could it end with a mere discarded hair,
I pulled back like a cure.
Ghostly shameful perfume for
my sick self-pity, the desperate medium.
Hollowing nicks scream an invitation to possession.
Outside the electric lamp splatters sallow paint on rainy pavement,
which is utterly meaningless.
Temperature: 66°F

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

Blankness Reflected (Part 2)

beautiful inspired contrived artifice it’s
sensation subconscious sucked
past excoriation reality
thick gelatin soup top curdled hot skin
strips slipping scalded skin,
shadow of Moloch still in the room
and on the brink of sidewalks,
talk to talk to talk to talk
and the interlocking meantime teeth of the sky of
toothy metropolis,
teeth of toothy babies,
violent spectacle gimmick image we
the pregnant
toothy presidents,
our presence
can you say that that suffices with
omnipresent hesitant snake-tongues strangling,
distraction speakers amplifying distracted half-born thoughts
aborted-absorbed by strangling subconscious void mind inclination
closed eyes
vacuum void pupils.
fingernails scratch attached to hands attached to sprawling nothing
named,
echoing,
generating rank fragrant impact,
spilling inky void into
perceptive orifices
only to arrive
spilling spinning shivering
shaking quivering screaming
define me,
blind spot fragments filled
by toothy want
to sharpen echoes
to digitize images 
for the world of we of want of we,
teeth in plaster, skies in eyes and
symbols and images and
symbols in images
and worlds in words and words in words
away from worlds in worlds
and words and words and words
and
blankness
and blankness and blankness
and blankness and blankness
and blankness
reflected.

Details | Zach Kaplan Poem

I'M On My Second Cake

I'm on my second cake
so make no mistake.
Don't take
my cake.

You thought I wanted one.
You were so wrong, hon.
Just one's
no fun.

I really wanted two,
surprising but true.
I knew
that you

would not be too happy
and not allow me
to be
so free

as to eat what I want.
But I won't just grunt.
I want.
Confront.

I realize your niceness,
used to entice,
this price,
this slice:

the slice outweighs the cost.
It looks like you've lost.
You've bossed.
I've sauced*

this delicious dessert
no matter the hurt.
Assert
I'm curt.

I've never felt so free!
You don't control me!
Here, see?
Piece three.

:-O





*with icing