SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Twelve
PATRICK DEELEY
Bestiary
In dreams I find myself possessed of a tail
which stretches over aeons, across landscapes –
a balance-giver, a propeller, a rudder,
a grasper, a show-stopper, a mood indicator,
a swatter, a stinger... In all its guises
my tail admits me to the fleet and furtive lives
of other animals nuzzling up to tails
appropriate to them. Here, worth nothing
or worth everything, their trembling revelations.
I cry – not pity, but joy. And my tail,
scattering raindrops, moths and stars, crooks me
about while I compose, as the earth
allows, my bestiary of the wild and the shy.
Dancing Ghosts
But why not something
vast and far,
clouds of electrons
outlined so the mind
comes to them
as two ghosts
dancing together
in the celestial wind?
The Trees Become Mewling Animals
The trees become mewling animals
with smouldering hoofs and cauterised antlers
puffing smoke as they twist away
into fire-blistered distance. Bits of them
flake off, flap ashy winglets before collapsing.
They crack apart, grin red-grained
and open, their trunks flinging sparks, sizzling
and ticking, while their crowns –
fused, shrunken – crookedly slide and tumble.
It takes days for the clearance to cool.
The farmer who lives nearby appears
and disappears, marching from side to side,
mumbling that the land is forever,
the land is his. Shrugs at the good riddance
of scrub. Meaning willow and hazel,
that spar and bundle – dens, nests, horizontal
understoreys. Meaning tall, pliant poplar,
and flat-stemmed whispering aspen.
The forester, shy in face of all, asks us to save
what is saveable. Velvety dust chirps,
squeaks, smears. Our chainsaws hop
from the heat-toughened trunks. We turn back
when rain slithers everything
into a morass. Some other April will find
lichens here, hummocks of fern, moss,
foxglove. We stare at the ground, tell ourselves
the only blaze will be furze blossoming.
Patrick Deeley lives in Dublin, Ireland. A poet, memoirist and children's writer originally from Loughrea, Co. Galway, he has published seven collections with Dedalus Press, the latest being The End of the World (2019).
