SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Twelve
FREDERICK POLLACK
Chat
A Day and Year hang out.
They present a comic archetype:
one fat and vague, the other short and angular.
The Day is full of insights, plans,
dark intimations of the plans of others,
about which it is very vocal,
hoping (though it might not admit it)
for guidance, which it would call input.
The Year is thinking about other things,
among them other Years, with,
always in the margins, what it calls
the countdown, less an idea
than a sigh. So it is insufficiently
attentive, and the Day runs down,
disconsolately gazing at its hands.
Side Glance
The dream involves family cohesion,
setting examples
for youth, rivalry
and status, fun despite scarcity;
and when he awakes he discovers
not that he's a wolf but
he knows what a wolf would,
judging him from a treeline.
For others it's crows, who leave tips
about improvisation and
consensus. Whales have a lot to say
in their lyrical way
about lines of communication. Those
who awaken from them feel
ineffable loss
and constraint in their beds.
Not everyone dreams animals.
The beauty stirs with no sense
of her looks, is left with
her other interests... The bigot finds that
the objects of his hate
with their endless vitality and cunning
remain, but that he, somehow,
is gone.
Only the wise don't
particularly dream; wake
unchanged. As panic spreads,
they hurry to talk with each other.
The ubiquitous glazed preoccupied
expression makes them hope
to hear at last more clearly
some muffled voice beyond the edge of things.
Seat
It almost feels unfair:
the beauty of the spot
being criticized away.
By me. What peasants did the vast
and lovely grounds displace? Or do
their descendants still tug
their forelocks? The hologram, robot
or goddess deflects
these questions. Inside
the House, the art was well
and personally chosen, books
look read, the past is only
mildly cited, signs
of gentle thoughtful living spread
over chaises... Incalculable
wealth, I growl, not having to invite
paying crowds or make
a spectacle of itself.
Immune to any human remark,
she shrugs her marble shoulders:
"Someone like you lives here."
Frederick Pollack lives in Washington D. C. He is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and three collections, A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, forthcoming 2023).
