Thomas
Lisk
1.
Glutted,
in Thanksgiving oblivion I dreamt a tiger.
And
while I slept, the paper ran a cut
about
a three-year-old mauled by the family cat,
three-hundred-fifty
pounds, a six-foot Bengal yearling.
The
equivalent boy weighed maybe forty. Tyler.
The
paper was the N. and O. The news
and
the observer, separate points of view.
The
story failed to name the tiger.
No
cartoon, my bright dream tiger
was
not a squirrel turning a creaky wheel
but
a real feline, traveling dark and bright
through
a maze of straight cages, tree-high
and
connected by black tunnels of mesh steel.
A
pacing tiger, trapped but moving as if free.
2.
When
deputies responded to the call,
Tyler's
dad had shot the cat, now still
"rolling
from side to side." They too fired.
Bang. And bang again. The paper said
that
conservationists had warned the father
just
a week before: A tiger
may
be beautiful but, man, you'd best beware.
A
feral cat demands attentive care.
Cat
carcass and mauled boy trucked apart,
the
father answered what the sheriff asked.
Then,
trapped, he stayed, and "huddled in his car,"
caged
by ravenous faces in the glass.
Once
his tiger prowled in happy dreams.
Now,
freed, this father never will be free.
3.
Though
he ought to know his place is in the home,
if
left alone, our placid tabby Chase would roam.
Once
he hooked my arm to bloody grooves
when
I tried to free him from the spiral steel
stake
we leash him to to keep him from the street.
I
went out to draw him in; he wanted to be loose.
Imagine
me a tiger. Imagine me.
Something
larger fit these portents--facts,
I
hope--as if cages suddenly connect,
slipped
free in the dark parts of--what?
Books
and minds and something else connect,
Tyler
and tyger tumbling in eternity,
word
and wonder. But already details race apart,
thick
paws and curving milk-glass teeth.
4.
In
a book I chose by chance, a woman claims,
"We
are babies who think we are tigers,"
and
I wonder if my much-imagined kids
might
say I find in books a way to hide
the
family’s baby tigers, or evade them,
seeking
novel tigers. Unlikely they
would
note how quickly I forget some dreams,
or
how ruthlessly I cling to others.
When
all the books around me seem
an
endless maze of cages, I turn and turn again.
But
once I saw the future in a dream,
that
half-trapped pacing tiger stays,
and
freedom’s angry moment, night resolving into day.
And
the other family’s grief was in the morning news.
Caw Caw Cause
Thomas Lisk
A crow caws like God,
sharp and clear and
out of reach above the roof,
perhaps above the
trees.
I started to say I
didn’t understand.
Sharp and clear and
out of reach above my head,
The caws convey a
message full of memory and reassurance.
I started to say I
couldn’t understand --
in fact they reached
me, standing under the words.
The caws are in
themselves a memory and reassurance.
I called them words
but they are simpler than sentences.
In fact they reached
me, standing under the sounds.
They reached me
fully, whatever I may think they said.
I called them words,
those simple sounds.
Translucent lines
with silver hooks snag a black sail.
My body took a
message, whatever I may think.
The voice is
inexhaustible: the infinity of cause.
Translucent lines
with silver hooks snag the sailing soul.
Perhaps above the
trees
the voice is
inexhaustible: the infinity of caws.
A lone crow caws like
God.
A
Catalog of Ponies of the Pyrenees
Thomas
Lisk
1.
Help! The seawall has caved.
2.
One of the oceans threatens to engulf us.
3.
The crowbar you sent was no use at all.
4. I would send it back but postage prohibits.
2.
One of the oceans threatens to engulf us.
2. Sand can only do so much against water.
4.
I would send it back but postage prohibits.
4. Send what back where?
1.
Sand can only do so much.
1.
Sand can't do anything; it's a victim.
3.
Send what?
3.
Imagine mailing a prybar packed in sand.
1.
Sand is a victim.
2.
I chased death all over the parking lot.
3.
Imagine sending a sand-packed iron bar.
4.
A well-placed blow crushed a grain to dust.
2.
I chased death all over.
4. A blow from the bar broke the sand.
4.
The soul would be a well-placed grain.
2. Aren't we all chasing death all the time?
4. The soul is the size of a transparent
granule.
3. It has been customary to think of it as a
thumb-sized flame.
2.
Aren't we all hotly pursuing our ends?
1.
A thumb would be a mighty large grain.
4. The soul is the size of a transparent
granule.
2. Aren't we all hotly pursuing our ends?
2. Isn't each of us
4. the size of a granule?
3.
The Upanishads mention a fat candle flame.
3.
Whose custom depends on geography and language.
1. If it were flame-sized we could see it.
1. A flame under a collapsing seawall hasn't
the ghost of a chance.
4. I wrapped it but the old postage took up too
much space.
4. I had to use the paper over again, stamps
and all.
2. Watching wind-driven water I can't identify
the ocean.
2. If I didn't know better we could be on any
coast.
4. After the floods subside, the crowbar will
be useful.
3. Whose custom depends?
2. The threat is still imminent.
1. The seawall is down. Help!
Wet Oyster Patty
Thomas Lisk
You
never gave me a single idea. I'd try to
think and one look at you would rasp the edges of my thoughts until they stood
up like quills on black fire. Talk about
stress! This was the ruby of drupelet
facets under a citrus skin and semi-gummy bones. Blurry, I meant to say, like 32.20 vision, which I believe is
almost too light, and all the revolver's shells nearly equidistant from the
gunslinger - or rather the target - if not from the barrel, the pistol barrel,
not the pickle barrel where the polka band in lederhosen chewed reeds and
wheezed lieder.
Because
I could believe, I took what you gave and tried not to think. Which was easy. You made me not want to, for
buffalo in rut snorted, clearing the organ pipes to fuse organized tunes as
large and gently arching as the staked plains before the stakes were put in to
contain the hoofed steaks who replaced the shaggy humped meat I referred to
earlier.
The
important thing is to belong. Bison,
moose, elks. And you have to pay your
dues. These associations aren't free any more.
Just men, snorting and farting in gold-embroidered green felt fezzes
like permanent party hats. You could
accuse me of facile turpitude for peeking as you boggled, gobbled up miles of
lung space with your light blue spice-scented inspirations. And the accusation would be entirely just.
It's just that what appeared to be an idea kept disappearing around the corner
into the wait room, and when I got there panting, you were doing sit-ups (or
tummy crunches), so if I could have stood it the contours of the entire nature
morte (or “still life”) would have been revealed to me from all sides
simultaneously.
But
something wasn't quite right. I couldn't
tell if the plump mocha muleteer with you was Hermes or Aphrodite, your
daughter or your boyfriend, and I had to rely on your body to give me the whole
message, which I could have understood better if only I could have thought.