SurVision Magazine / Eric Pierzchala

What the Ancients Saw in Layers 3-D at the Philadelphia Zoo

A fly lands upon the young, lazy-curled girl. I wonder
how many more flies will land upon her in her long laborious
lifetime? She shoos the fly away with a wave of an instinctual—
mindless hand (the nasty creature). I ask with silent eyes to each
and every passerby "where can I buy some cheesecloth?"

A young boy stands, leans over a split-rail fence that holds
a large sign posted upon it telling him, loud—in all CAPS—
to do neither thing he's doing: standing on, or leaning over
the fence. But this boy, he wishes to see the African lion's matted mane
up close. He is too young to read worldly restrictions—(what bliss!) There is
no father, no mother, (brother, sister, friend) to throw him over—push him in.

These many men in Mennonite wear eat-devour vainglorious gobs of pink
cotton candy in their black suspenders, grey trousers, shirts of French blue,
the eldest of them with big beards; their broad-brimmed black hats un-
blown by the cool summer breezes. Blessed are they (I think)—perhaps
in their life of self-denial or is it by way feverish prayer? No one can deny
any set of eyes who passes them by the desire to look, smile.

Eric Pierzchala lives in Anderson, Indiana, where he is a Humanities teacher. He holds an MFA in poetry from Murray State University. In 2019, he received an Individual Advancement Program grant from the state of Indiana to complete a poetic sequence on creative breakthroughs centered around the Jackson Pollock surrealist painting, "Water Birds." His poems have most recently appeared in Nonbinary Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Stirling Spoon, and Surrealists and Outsiders—2018 anthology (Thrice Publishing, Roselle, Illinois, 2018).

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An international online magazine that publishes Surrealist poetry in English. Issue Seven ERIC PIERZCHALA What the Ancients Saw in Layers 3-D at the Philadelphia Zoo A fly lands upon the young, lazy-curled girl. I wonder how many more flies will land upon her in her long laborious lifetime? She shoos the fly away with a wave of an instinctual— mindless hand (the nasty creature). I ask with silent eyes to each and every passerby "where can I buy some cheesecloth?" A young boy stands, leans over a split-rail fence that holds a large sign posted upon it telling him, loud—in all CAPS— to do neither thing he's doing: standing on, or leaning over the fence. But this boy, he wishes to see the African lion's matted mane up close. He is too young to read worldly restrictions—(what bliss!) There is no father, no mother, (brother, sister, friend) to throw him over—push him in. These many men in Mennonite wear eat-devour vainglorious gobs of pink cotton candy in their black suspenders, grey trousers, shirts of French blue, the eldest of them with big beards; their broad-brimmed black hats un- blown by the cool summer breezes. Blessed are they (I think)—perhaps in their life of self-denial or is it by way feverish prayer? No one can deny any set of eyes who passes them by the desire to look, smile. Eric Pierzchala lives in Anderson, Indiana, where he is a Humanities teacher. He holds an MFA in poetry from Murray State University. In 2019, he received an Individual Advancement Program grant from the state of Indiana to complete a poetic sequence on creative breakthroughs centered around the Jackson Pollock surrealist painting, "Water Birds." His poems have most recently appeared in Nonbinary Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Stirling Spoon, and Surrealists and Outsiders—2018 anthology (Thrice Publishing, Roselle, Illinois, 2018).
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