The Trylon


by Tony Towle


Death on the Great Plains was delivered
in stunning hues—arrows, carbines, lances, sabers
creating patches of crimson, visible or implied,
and those so designated would bite the dust.

Urban death was somber and chilling—
a gray encounter in an alley or stairwell,
or an ominous silhouette
emerging from the depths of a bedroom closet
very like one’s own;

for it was apparent that anyone could be prey
for bullets, knives, or strangulation
and the possibilities would resonate
long after the big metal doors
were thrown open at the back of the theater
and we came out from the shadow of black and white
and a plot wrapped up a few moments before
to the ordinary colors of a Saturday in 1940s Queens,
where the resolution seemed a good deal less than clear.

http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14906 ; thanks to Ludmila Martanovschi