SurVision Magazine
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An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Three
ANTON YAKOVLEV
Upper Saddle River
For Rachel and Crissy
The foxes never had accessories.
They came like rain and just as soon were gone,
yet they engrossed the mind, eclipsed the trees.
The foxes never had accessories.
Today, there's nothing in that field but breeze.
Unnoticed northern lights sign off at dawn.
The foxes never had accessories.
They came like rain and just as soon were gone.
Demon Daycare
For Bridget
Mildly mangled, they scoop
condemned milk from their pancake plates
and polka with dearly departed rattles
before sweating out an afternoon nap.
The substitute nanny
spits sulfur, disciplines
them with a ripped-out
Shakespeare signature.
Their formerly reddish eyes
bounce all over the playroom,
each pupil a moth.
From one pupil
a ballerina emerges
to embark on a romance whose vectors
point ever outward,
until the daycare center closes its doors.
They march home then, stoic mugs reflecting
in a Christian Science reflecting pool.
The ballerina grows weary.
The world can't stop saying no.
She scatters breadcrumbs,
but the rooftop birds
are gargoyles.
She rebuttons her vest.
She petitions the weather for a chariot,
but touchy Persephone has made a sign of the horns,
and every storefront mannequin
shuts her eyes.
Homecoming
You enter somber into the old mountain,
enter with donkeys, with doting neighbors, with chiropractors.
You march through the bars, a caricature
of wisdom, a ringing bell.
You craft a dirge, call down the pale rain,
wash yourself in watery echo,
take center stage and collapse.
Each night you become your own audience.
You're confident you'll always find ways to thrive,
though only as much as a crow in a coliseum.
Austerity acorns collect under the sad trees
until you drink yourself into optimism.
The East River Ferry is rechristened as De Profundis.
Brittle-boned pigs play football over your lifetime.
In truth, this is all a store front
with plastic fruit microwaved to look more alive.
It's joust day, folks. You joust against your own faces.
The fans place bets, but mostly bet on the waterfall
that chimes behind you. Meanwhile, from up above,
some deity sees the whole scene as a kind of gourmet casserole.
You miss the people you miss, then hop on their trolley.
Do you remember your first attempts at a tango?
You pepper spray your best friend to bluntly welcome your autumn,
then watch forgiveness unfold its indirect wings.
Your eyes tell the story.
The foxes never had accessories.
They came like rain and just as soon were gone,
yet they engrossed the mind, eclipsed the trees.
The foxes never had accessories.
Today, there's nothing in that field but breeze.
Unnoticed northern lights sign off at dawn.
The foxes never had accessories.
They came like rain and just as soon were gone.
Demon Daycare
For Bridget
Mildly mangled, they scoop
condemned milk from their pancake plates
and polka with dearly departed rattles
before sweating out an afternoon nap.
The substitute nanny
spits sulfur, disciplines
them with a ripped-out
Shakespeare signature.
Their formerly reddish eyes
bounce all over the playroom,
each pupil a moth.
From one pupil
a ballerina emerges
to embark on a romance whose vectors
point ever outward,
until the daycare center closes its doors.
They march home then, stoic mugs reflecting
in a Christian Science reflecting pool.
The ballerina grows weary.
The world can't stop saying no.
She scatters breadcrumbs,
but the rooftop birds
are gargoyles.
She rebuttons her vest.
She petitions the weather for a chariot,
but touchy Persephone has made a sign of the horns,
and every storefront mannequin
shuts her eyes.
Homecoming
You enter somber into the old mountain,
enter with donkeys, with doting neighbors, with chiropractors.
You march through the bars, a caricature
of wisdom, a ringing bell.
You craft a dirge, call down the pale rain,
wash yourself in watery echo,
take center stage and collapse.
Each night you become your own audience.
You're confident you'll always find ways to thrive,
though only as much as a crow in a coliseum.
Austerity acorns collect under the sad trees
until you drink yourself into optimism.
The East River Ferry is rechristened as De Profundis.
Brittle-boned pigs play football over your lifetime.
In truth, this is all a store front
with plastic fruit microwaved to look more alive.
It's joust day, folks. You joust against your own faces.
The fans place bets, but mostly bet on the waterfall
that chimes behind you. Meanwhile, from up above,
some deity sees the whole scene as a kind of gourmet casserole.
You miss the people you miss, then hop on their trolley.
Do you remember your first attempts at a tango?
You pepper spray your best friend to bluntly welcome your autumn,
then watch forgiveness unfold its indirect wings.
Your eyes tell the story.
Anton Yakovlev is from New Jersey. His latest collection is Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Amarillo Bay, Prelude, Measure, and elsewhere. The Last Poet of the Village, a book of translations of poetry by Sergei Esenin, is forthcoming from Sensitive Skin Books.
