SurVision Magazine

Night Whales


Always with crows in his bone-littered house,
he pulled the ship up by its hair, layered
warmth into possession's slab room
on his back—a severe and delicate business.
How open our eyes? cried the old kettle broken
on table's back teeth (a rather vague gallon
of whiskey enwombed). There's no more
smoke to earn, echoed the night whales
as the tensile strength of an angel's wing
flattened the earth with her down-strokes –
such a flogging event! I'd love to hear
my Seabone sing once more across the waves
he dreamed as the dead boy forked another history
into dust, its little feet wondering how tongues
could house such wounding of a mouth.






The Awkwardtist


The steep cliffs approach; above, voices
cut ribs before dying as contrails hyphen the sky
(that sentimental christ-mechanic's bad movie
made with cheap blue film). Maybe we are dead
in a house that is not our house. Maybe the hand,
in falling, will drop a healing nap to wake us:
pillows ravished, applauding our dreams. Maybe
the conjured anthem of some sad country
will cascade with the milk—maybe the rain
will be on this side now (under the house a lake).
Maybe groans will freeze the garden pressed
upon by many things: six people in the tub,
toy-makers gluing old hands to the wall,
owls offering eyes to the lampposts. Maybe
the road-dipped horizon will lay deathbeds
on our regrets. Maybe in promising not to love
poverty the tiger's single curve will be sighted
from the bath, singing: O Holy Night /
in perfect grace / in silent grace / in perfect /
holy / silent / grace / something will explode /
But the time-server periscope moves on.
It won't be too bad. The house will heat up,
I will be gone. Penny for the candles, love?
I'd kill for a gun like that.






Dancing on Our Fractures


Juggling blood and fire
under the stars of Egypt
on the roads we once heeled,
imagining ourselves at least one
among the putrid birds and stars,
devil hunters amid the hellishly
single-minded (most consummate
of dogs), cynical tips of the iceberg
fingering the sky, knitting our moose-gut
rugs, unraveling previous finger-parades,
the shitty butterfly's mouth-gun rattling,
I realize I want skin against my lips
with muscled-intent behind. And heat.
And sleep (clicking like fox feet on glass).
There isn't a moon (that fate-fated
prepared-soil's birth-explosion
of Earth's emerging child or anvil
on which God's Occasional Fist
pounds and compounds our salt)
allowed to intervene. It's nice
when we nip each other, sister.
It's good to have wounds upon
our arms within a weather-mirror
(rough angels numb to the lyric
should be bright enough to see),
to finish the crime we've set upon
as blight cousins swim wildly across
the lawn to rain-fattened breasts –
those hairy maidens of nature,
unbaffled by mystery
to accept.




Matt Dennison is from New Orleans. His work has appeared in Rattle, Bayou Magazine, Redivider, Natural Bridge, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Matador Review and Cider Press Review, among others.