SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Seven
NANCY ANNE MILLER
Leonora's Landscape
A relief to know the Mexicans talk to the dead,
so many ghosts in Europe after the wars. Here, I feel
I am in one of my landscapes, Muertos face paintings,
green cacti, burro taxis, seen in one glance. I was told Surrealism
was born because of the camera. The lens' winking eye
fooled the world. I think after two World Wars, one
goes crazy, stretches figures across a canvas like a torture rack.
In the market today peasants beat a pinata, like my prayers
pelted God in Spain when I was insane, demanded treats after
Max's arrest. Here, roadside altars to Mary abound, replicate
kiosks in my English village, Madonna called on for the day's
errands. Cuernavaca pilgrims balance skulls on sticks, like balls
in a circus, play with the deceased. I remember tombstones in
the family cemetery at Clayton, shields we propped up against death.
The Poem is Here
Where the geranium leaves yellow
into a coward's colour as I have made
them one from over watering, dependent.
In the thin frail trail of clouds above
the lake's beach, as if the back bone of
the sky is withered by such balmy heat.
The poem is here where the side mirrors
on my Jag flash light like dueling swords
for the road's trail ahead. And the sun
rolls around in the opening in the roof,
like a ball in a box, bouncing from
the thrust of speed, unable to remain in borders.
Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet with eight poetry collections. Tide Tables (Kelsay
Books 2019) is her latest. She is published internationally in journals such as Edinburgh Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Salzburg Review, Agenda, Stand, The Fiddlehead, The Caribbean Writer. She is a MacDowell Fellow and Bermuda Arts Council Grant recipient.
