SurVision Magazine / Bob Lucky

Nothing More, Much Less

It's dawned on me in a hazy, foggy morning sort of way, not
an epiphany so much as a migraine, that I'm not
a dried mushroom of any kind, not
an extinct bird stuffed and stuck in a drawer dreaming
      that science will resurrect me with the fairy dust of DNA, not
a unicorn, not
a pair of panties waiting in a vending machine for some Japanese salary
      -man to take home on a cheap date, not
a bamboo fishing pole or a baseball bat, not
a magnet pinning an obituary to my mother's refrigerator, not
a rock skimmed across the surface of a pond, sadly, or a boomerang that
      actually does come back, not
a naked mannequin blushing in a shop window, no arms to hide my
      breasts. I'm not
a steak knife.

The Six Stages of Death

Who knew that this was it, that that was it, that it was this? Who knew that?

The alphabet is the sound of everything we've yet to say again.

A haiku about nothing is like this.

There is a word for it, but only if you know it.

A shrug is hard to read, like cuneiform in crumbling clay, like a pictograph of a dying giraffe.

In the end there still is.

Bob Lucky is an American living and workings in Saudi Arabia. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous international journals, including Flash, Rattle, Modern Haiku, KYSO Flash, Haibun Today, and Contemporary Haibun Online (where he edits content). His chapbook of haibun, tanka prose, and prose poems, entitled Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), won an honourable mention in the Touchstone Book Awards. His chapbook titled Conversation Starters in the Language No One Speaks won the James Tate Poetry Prize 2018 and was subsequently published by SurVision Books.

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An international online magazine that publishes Surrealist poetry in English. Issue Four BOB LUCKY Nothing More, Much Less It's dawned on me in a hazy, foggy morning sort of way, not an epiphany so much as a migraine, that I'm not a dried mushroom of any kind, not an extinct bird stuffed and stuck in a drawer dreaming that science will resurrect me with the fairy dust of DNA, not a unicorn, not a pair of panties waiting in a vending machine for some Japanese salary -man to take home on a cheap date, not a bamboo fishing pole or a baseball bat, not a magnet pinning an obituary to my mother's refrigerator, not a rock skimmed across the surface of a pond, sadly, or a boomerang that actually does come back, not a naked mannequin blushing in a shop window, no arms to hide my breasts. I'm not a steak knife. The Six Stages of Death Who knew that this was it, that that was it, that it was this? Who knew that? The alphabet is the sound of everything we've yet to say again. A haiku about nothing is like this. There is a word for it, but only if you know it. A shrug is hard to read, like cuneiform in crumbling clay, like a pictograph of a dying giraffe. In the end there still is. Bob Lucky is an American living and workings in Saudi Arabia. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous international journals, including Flash, Rattle, Modern Haiku, KYSO Flash, Haibun Today, and Contemporary Haibun Online (where he edits content). His chapbook of haibun, tanka prose, and prose poems, entitled Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), won an honourable mention in the Touchstone Book Awards. His chapbook titled Conversation Starters in the Language No One Speaks won the James Tate Poetry Prize 2018 and was subsequently published by SurVision Books.
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