Two
poems from Peter Bethanis's Make the World Marvelous
followed
by a note on the author
The
Future of Somewhere, Indiana
A
mower at dusk.
An orange sun through black branches.
I sleep away the wrong hours
or watch a ballgame.
I
don't want to join the army.
Or work in a factory
or raise screaming children
or wink at the local cop,
or go to church.
I
stroke the neighbor's cat
left out in every rain.
She curls around the vase of my leg.
Lately she lives with me.
I have named her Lonesome.
The
Lion Tamer's Guide
So
you say you want to be
a lion tamer. The first thing
you need to do is set up shop
in some secret tucked-away spot,
where you won't be disturbed.
It's up to you to discover
your technique, and I'd suggest
a stuffed lion or a bushel basket to start.
After weeks or years,
when you feel your neck
becoming another hand,
your head growing steady as a mannequin's,
your breaths perfectly even,
concentrate on trying not to blink.
Don't
expect steady work or much money.
The beauty is in the act itself,
the spotlight a weird moon around you,
the audience's nine-to-five faces gawking.
You want to make it
look easy for them
as you lower closer and closer
to the heavy plumes
of sour lion's breath,
the slant of his eyes
that focus only on hunger,
the mane tilted in a wreath of flames,
the jaws unhinging to your touch.
This
is what you've waited for:
the rented suit, the straightened tie,
the apprehension of doing
what it is you do.
It
is time to swallow hard
and place your life, your ambition, your art
into the dark tunnel of breath,
to shut out the world of the everyday,
the audience forgotten,
the tongue a soft ledge for your chin.
©
Peter
Bethanis was born in 1964 and grew up in rural Maine. He took
a BA in English from the University of Maine at Farmington and
an MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His
poems and essays have appeared in over fifty literary journals,
including Poetry, Lullwater Review, and Tar
River Poetry. He won the Eve of St. Agnes Poetry Prize in
1995, and has been a finalist in the National Poetry Series.
He currently resides in Indianapolis and is on the writing faculty
at Ball State University.
.
"The
Lion Tamer's Guide" first appeared in Cape Rock Review.
