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1.
The pure products of Omaha go.
They shall meet again somewhere inside the baffled
pages.
They go on-stage to play with lions.
Moreover the voiceover: “There are memories every
night, the secret is pushing the animal into the
correct cage without you or the animal ever
recognizing the cage. Without you or the animal
ever moving. And without my help, for I will be in
the muddy pond-water, wondering about my whereabouts.”
& there is fog in the middle of my interview as I ask
my potential employer about hallelujah & swallowing
snakes & he says, “Cages everywhere. The secret is
not being an animal.”
If I say disco is back is it the same as saying the
rats are only animals if I want them to be?
The shoppers pause as a pair of owls abandons their
bodies.
Someone laughs in his or her tradition.
Now pity.
Measured inside & out.
A soldier pities the girl he lays himself down as.
If a bullet knows the velocity of such anger, then it
has an extraordinary opportunity : I went from New
York to Omaha & didn’t kill a thing.
2.
I used to carry a memory around.
Now I carry a winner.
Every new dance is a new test & each time I pass
easily for I refuse to answer any questions.
My soldier eats with a fork, stands on a path, feels
the company of shades, relies upon a mystery not of
his own creation but he still cuts the cakes I bring,
still warms my shovel.
Also out of the mist comes more mist: “many journeys
lie ahead for me, parallel to yours, yet I will remain
as before, without alteration, weeping over my
shadow.”
3.
A powerful wind lifts a dog into a bullet’s
path.
The dog does not put on the bullet’s power.
So much for superficial form.
Poem © Tony
Tost 2004-2005. All rights reserved.
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