SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Eight
JOHN BRADLEY
How to Suture a Window (And Watch the Sun Split)
Meet me if you can, before you suture, in Antarctica. Delight
bends where a tall grove starts filling a plastic bag. You glanced,
groaning at the metronomic moon, says Cheryl. Comfort
oneself with dozing gloves and October night apartness. Hours
tied off with a surgeon's knot. When the time zone came lurching
down, I called many people into the wilds in less than 10 minutes.
Comfort the cottonwood leaves that will outlast us. In Denver
or Salt Lake City, a tendency to fade. Take a man's well-chatted leg,
says Cheryl. In Dallas or Chicago, iPhones the height of glitzy
trees. Peer closely at the school bus in my motel room (anyone
can order anyone online). Orange and lavender caught in my throat.
Ensnared in the town of Kayentaor Cambridge, says Cheryl,
using dental floss on her doorway boots. Disconnect the interrupted;
interrupt the disconnected. Comfort the snow-capped lacerations
at the truck-stop. Delight bends in Antarctica. I had plenty of duct
tape to kill in my motel room. Anyone caught in my throat really hurts.
How to Stop Biting Hundred-Year-Old Photos
I need to categorize your thumb and index finger, gone
fragile all over the house. Something from the 1920s
says, Swallow New York until you injure yourself.
I also hate a chair in an unfinished story. Long-dead
people take about a week or two. Try a slow and sweeping
waltz a few times before. 30 percent of Americans love
speeding around the kitchen table. Something full-eyed says,
I get emotional reading about impulse kissing. Exhibit A:
One day a pond in Los Angeles will be a pond in Los Angeles.
I need to categorize your girlfriend's thumb and index finger
gone wobbly. When you feel you will be the last person
on Earth, thin sticks sprout from the ground. Get out of the way.
For example, the fast ticking of the secondhand all over the house.
Keep in mind the discarded neuroscientist on a tricycle
who says, We're all drowning in half-full pitchers in the 1930s.
Try speeding the waltz. Try slowing the chair. Try.
How to Make Protons Spin
It's almost alive! says the dining table. At age 23, I want
to embrace the Atomic Age for 98 cents. Every week,
the protons spin more readily. After the second bounce,
think about living in Los Angeles around 1967. Smell bad?
Skip February every February. At the dog park, it should
take you a few days to distribute the many hundreds
of babies. But it works. Darlings, spin faster. Distribute
your vision into a smaller and smaller crawl space.
What's coming is inevitable. Across the city, gumballs
gently deform into one beautiful arc. To not have to think,
says my favorite personal banker. In a ventilated room, you
feel the stillness and noise of nothing. The protons spinning
more readily. Until it's impossible not to move the moon
out of my pocket for 98 cents. What I miss most is
the momentary sting of protons on my ability to walk,
says the pharmacist. Twenty-five more minutes. The Atomic
Age is falling, says the dining table. What's inevitable
is inevitable even in a ventilated room. Spin faster, darlings.
John Bradley lives in Illinois. His poetry and prose has appeared in Caliban, Hotel Amerika, Shadowgraph, and other journals. He has had eight books published, the most recent Erotica Atomica (WordTech, 2017), on American nuclear history. He frequently reviews books of poetry for Rain Taxi.
