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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ON THE OLD HIGHWAY, by JAMES SCRUTON
First Line: Gone now are the funky museums
First Line: Gone now are the funky museums
Gone now are the funky museums,
the reptile gardens
and the (not all that) Amazing
Rock Formations: shapes of states,
silhouettes of the famous.
I miss the fake two-headed lizards,
the frog with see-through skin,
that cavern said to be
an outlaw's hideout way back when,
every billboard genuine
with adjectives and blistered paint --
like the one for Mystery Cabin,
where we could witness laws
of gravity defied. We didn't know
how it was done, or knew
and didn't care. We wanted to believe
a ball could roll uphill, an egg
stand at attention on its narrow end,
the glass jar at the entrance
kept from levitating
by just a handful of coins.
Copyright (c) 2001 by The Modern Poetry Association.
This poem appears in the September 2001 issue of Poetry Magazine.
http://www.poetrymagazine.org
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