SurVision Magazine / John Thomas Allen

The Cufflinks of Dream

The poet's job is to go on holding on to something like faith,
through the darkness of total lack of faith... the eclipse of God.

—David Gascoyne

Incantatory insouciance, suffocating speeches, futile tracts.

Revolt as University parlor game,
the flirtation with fascism where our eyes
are exchanged for another's,
illuminations gone.

The marvelous stands on life support,
technocrat supercorporate archivists
locking away our imaginal zones, conscience
deemed mad by diviners of only the dollar
joy's anarchic estuary nearly stilled by bitter hearts,
blood diamond merchants, the military moratoriums,
peacetime patriotism:
that silent pact for a corpse's amnesia.

In this sterile hothouse where eros is monitored at every level,
let us share our alien covenant: to water Novalis' blue flower
to fashion strange aeons from astral hydrangea,
dancing to the chant of moon ministries in spectral ballrooms,
to leave everything, to fashion the alchemy of the word
in phrases hushed on triptych sound mirrors
over and above
our policed and policing world's death drive.

The Distance of a Rose

In the moon was a girl who played
the starfish notes of an astral organ,
a filigree sewn on the jackets of
assassins sent to protect her later.

I left it with you
the clown's blush that swelters
on your city window, the cribbed
notes from your quiet genocide,
carried away in the spotted noon
by a lark, maybe, or some lexical
hummingbird. The glower I wear
now is an appraisal of this chipped
birdhouse—this world without you.

The cupboards, the spoons, the rain;
all alone, the little girl enjoying the yard:
on these days your small eyes
grew as orbs powered by rocket fuel,
and I know this well. In each was a heart
through which my heart has seized, at least,
if not stopped. Chaos begins syllabic—
a splash, an echo, then the full run
till you can't hear yourself
above a sundial's uproar.

The deposits your innocence makes;
your olive eyes, space's love deposits,
will leak by and by. The carnies, belly
dancers, the capital grind will eat
from within, where the innocent dead
have been placed like room keys.

The looping mandalas will twine
above Manhattan, the radar of your
corruption will grow with the diamond
harvest, or some form
of limbic prison
where you straddle the heavens
but never touch the angels.

Medusa In Abstract

These laughing gas hoses and permed fields of razored yellow, the sun whistling in cold and the thousand painters it takes to stain a pure piece of guillotine glass driven in the whistling, coiled silver of her coal eyes. The cracks on her face will canvas an oil abstract and when removed reveal at the compartments of a rubix cube, the compartments glass, colorless and not plastic, the eyes crossing in atom spills, rooms of candelabras burning in a hushed vertigo, the curtains spinning ministries of nature's paneled WELCOME signs, occult sigils, the mice in drizzling gazebos, a sideshow in the spectacle of each indigo ring. A hush is heard in constancy over the eye, which is a firefly breaking in perpetuity like a mood ring, or the smeared egg yolk abstract in a midnight carnival's interior castle, that hush in torn tiremarks, the nude and skinned eyes crossing in perpetuity, the dilated rooms of fantasia, the seaweed strangler, the heads turning in barrels filled with founts.

John Thomas Allen is from New York. He edited the anthology of Surrealist poetry entitled Nouveau's Midnight Sun: Transcriptions from Golgonooza and Beyond (Ravenna Press, 2014). His latest book entitled Lumière was published by NightBallet Press in 2014. His poems have appeared in Veil: a Journal of Dark Musings, Arsenic Lobster Magazine, Surreal Poetics, The Cimarron Review, etc., and he has a story in the recently released anthology titled Narrow Doors in Wide Green Fields. In 2019, he won James Tate Prize for his chapbook entitled Rolling in the Third Eye forthcoming from SurVision Books in 2020.

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An international online magazine that publishes Surrealist poetry in English. Issue Six JOHN THOMAS ALLEN The Cufflinks of Dream The poet's job is to go on holding on to something like faith, through the darkness of total lack of faith... the eclipse of God. —David Gascoyne Incantatory insouciance, suffocating speeches, futile tracts. Revolt as University parlor game, the flirtation with fascism where our eyes are exchanged for another's, illuminations gone. The marvelous stands on life support, technocrat supercorporate archivists locking away our imaginal zones, conscience deemed mad by diviners of only the dollar joy's anarchic estuary nearly stilled by bitter hearts, blood diamond merchants, the military moratoriums, peacetime patriotism: that silent pact for a corpse's amnesia. In this sterile hothouse where eros is monitored at every level, let us share our alien covenant: to water Novalis' blue flower to fashion strange aeons from astral hydrangea, dancing to the chant of moon ministries in spectral ballrooms, to leave everything, to fashion the alchemy of the word in phrases hushed on triptych sound mirrors over and above our policed and policing world's death drive. The Distance of a Rose In the moon was a girl who played the starfish notes of an astral organ, a filigree sewn on the jackets of assassins sent to protect her later. I left it with you the clown's blush that swelters on your city window, the cribbed notes from your quiet genocide, carried away in the spotted noon by a lark, maybe, or some lexical hummingbird. The glower I wear now is an appraisal of this chipped birdhouse—this world without you. The cupboards, the spoons, the rain; all alone, the little girl enjoying the yard: on these days your small eyes grew as orbs powered by rocket fuel, and I know this well. In each was a heart through which my heart has seized, at least, if not stopped. Chaos begins syllabic— a splash, an echo, then the full run till you can't hear yourself above a sundial's uproar. The deposits your innocence makes; your olive eyes, space's love deposits, will leak by and by. The carnies, belly dancers, the capital grind will eat from within, where the innocent dead have been placed like room keys. The looping mandalas will twine above Manhattan, the radar of your corruption will grow with the diamond harvest, or some form of limbic prison where you straddle the heavens but never touch the angels. Medusa In Abstract These laughing gas hoses and permed fields of razored yellow, the sun whistling in cold and the thousand painters it takes to stain a pure piece of guillotine glass driven in the whistling, coiled silver of her coal eyes. The cracks on her face will canvas an oil abstract and when removed reveal at the compartments of a rubix cube, the compartments glass, colorless and not plastic, the eyes crossing in atom spills, rooms of candelabras burning in a hushed vertigo, the curtains spinning ministries of nature's paneled WELCOME signs, occult sigils, the mice in drizzling gazebos, a sideshow in the spectacle of each indigo ring. A hush is heard in constancy over the eye, which is a firefly breaking in perpetuity like a mood ring, or the smeared egg yolk abstract in a midnight carnival's interior castle, that hush in torn tiremarks, the nude and skinned eyes crossing in perpetuity, the dilated rooms of fantasia, the seaweed strangler, the heads turning in barrels filled with founts. John Thomas Allen is from New York. He edited the anthology of Surrealist poetry entitled Nouveau's Midnight Sun: Transcriptions from Golgonooza and Beyond (Ravenna Press, 2014). His latest book entitled Lumière was published by NightBallet Press in 2014. His poems have appeared in Veil: a Journal of Dark Musings, Arsenic Lobster Magazine, Surreal Poetics, The Cimarron Review, etc., and he has a story in the recently released anthology titled Narrow Doors in Wide Green Fields. In 2019, he won James Tate Prize for his chapbook entitled Rolling in the Third Eye forthcoming from SurVision Books in 2020.
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