SurVision Magazine
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An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Three
PETER BOYLE
Three Poems from the Sequence "Enfolded in the Wings of a Great Darkness"
* * *
walking out
to the very edge of Heaven,
the pile of used boots
mouldy already
in chill winter sun
and the breath rising
through worn-knuckled hands
sour and sweet
if only a few feet more,
some tear, some
way through
the tight-woven fabric
that seals off
every side
to stand there
in altered air
almost as we were
at any of life's
thousand tiny moments of bliss
* * *
from arch archway archetype to arc
a letter has fallen
from the arc of words
it is the breath-letter
the ha of
pure designation
of holy of hope
the aspiration
the gesture towards
* * *
he opens doors
he crosses the great water
he sits by vacant windows
he recites
the mantra of abiding
he hears his breath
turning on and off
in the space under the lintel
where the door stands open
he finds no angel of light
no messenger
no flowerpot left by strangers
at one in the morning
as a bell rings protruding from
the niche above the sink
at the end of a long cable
announcing the blessing of the fish
on a lake in the outer
Mongolian tundra
from all that lies far off
from presences
visible and invisible
from his mother's confusion
and his father's bluster
from wearied hands
from carefully arranged
altars of quiet submission
from wilfulness
from evasion
from all that prepares
to carry spring across the earth
in the clear silence of stars
and in the wind that goes before
behind him on all sides
from the simplest
flowers and trees
strand by strand
with a slight
tilt of the head
he accepts
he unfolds
he acknowledges
the summons of his death
Peter Boyle was born in Melbourne, Australia, and grew up in Sydney. He started writing poetry in his teens. He earned an honours degree in English from Sydney University, a Diploma of Education, and an MA in Spanish and Latin American Studies. He is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Ghostspeaking (2016), Towns in the Great Desert (2013) and Apocrypha (2009). In 2017 Ghostspeaking was awarded the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Poetry. As a translator of poetry from French and Spanish he has had six books published, including Selected Poems by Olga Orozco, Marosa di Giorgio and Jorge Palma, Tokonoma and Anima by José Kozer, and The Trees by Eugenio Montejo. His translation of José Kozer's Índole was published early this year by University of Alabama Press.
