Gods, Humans and Beasts On a gray day, reaching down to lift a classic from the lowest shelf, I found my rabbit had chewed yet another book, The Bacchae, with a jail-housed Elvis on the cover, my Euripides ripped. At first mad, I surmised an omen - How the young let weeds grow wild and the old regret how often they mowed. But no matter the generations, we’re little creeks that flow down the mountains though we think ourselves the dazzle of stars flung across otherwise meaningless skies. No matter the age or time of our kind, we thump upon the ground, on four or two or three, crawl, dance, and limp, too proud and more than a little sad, sex toys of the gods we construe and blame for being who we are and what we do. The rabbit sits in her cage nibbling the grass I’ve brought to her, fresh and green the way she’s trained me though any book would serve her turn. She might as well be my god the way a Cherokee myth has a rabbit at the center of the world.
Anthony DiMatteo’s third poetry collection Secret Offices is just out. Why secret? One can’t take credit for an office dedicated to the pursuit of beauty and fairness as a poet must be. No one knows what one is doing in such a search, a prerequisite for it. Recent poems have appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Cimarron Review, The MacGuffin, North Dakota Quarterly and The Galway Review. A full professor of English, he has defended the mysteries of literature and art at the New York Institute of Technology for over 30 years. He lives on the Outer Banks with his wife Kathleen O’Sullivan, pianist, designer and fellow empty nester. Please feel free to leave a trace at his e-tent: https://anthonydimatteo.wordpress.com
Amethyst Review 