SurVision Magazine
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An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Three
CHARLES BORKHUIS
Hand
please forgive me I never meant
for your hand to come off in my shake
but now I have three with which to juggle
granny apples in my studio at twilight
I've always needed an extra hand
to fork knife and feed my face just right
to paint the multiple biomorphic floaters in my eye
or inject swarming glowworms into a starry night
and point a third brush at a buzzing melody
caught in a child's thicket of restless arms and legs
an elemental light configures this blue hand
and me I'd gladly take it home in an ordinary tin box
to watch it finally emerge less encumbered
its pain squeezed through the paint
smeared and spread with a knife to learn to breathe
through straws while treading underwater light
I need another hand multiple mistakes loose threads
stains that bleed into a burnt sienna dye
I need an operation that will stitch loose pebbles into place
that will painstakingly observe a bird pecking at a grainy sky
an amputation through which I can feel the paint raising
my extra hand in answer to an ancient question
which is a damn sight better than going it alone
better than the child standing in front of the class
stuttering before a crow-faced nun "I d...don't
remember the poem but I knew it last night"
Page Turner
this face made up of little tales
that appear to write themselves
but that's not entirely the case
there are prompters in the wings
feeding me bits of forgotten lines
snippets of their own lives sprinkled
like breadcrumbs on a woodsy path
an oar floats unnoticed on a calm lake
a woman screams and pulls her hair out
a child contestant applies lipstick in the mirror
a robot asks you intimate questions on the phone
no doubt there's an infinity
between your eyebrow and your trembling lip
take my ear with you on holiday
have no fear if you hear an eyelid drop
halfway to the moon it's only me sleepwalking
I'm just a supporting actor
in a dance of moveable chairs
I divide and multiply for no apparent reason
I disappear in the words that pull me to them
reappear as a curious tear on the sofa
or a lamp clicked on above a sleeping body
anybody home
anybody out there listening
they read me now like a page turner
the way one cries over nothing
or absentmindedly twirls a curl of hair
into a spiral galaxy
Placeholder
they told us that as density increases
space shrinks inside the number
and at the zero point
the equation breaks down and weeps
they told us half of infinity is still infinity
and that illumination slips through
chips in the armor and words
are filled with oceans of empty space
they said that the largest licks the spiral ear
of the smallest and folds in upon itself
they told us to watch how leaves cluster
in open parentheses and then just blow away
they told us that numbers were hooks
in the clouds and that a poet must zero forth
to thread the eye through an ear
and learn to wing it outward on a word
they said that the foot lies in the leap
across death's gummy shoe
and that infinity guarantees repetition
but our return will be unrecognizable to us
for your hand to come off in my shake
but now I have three with which to juggle
granny apples in my studio at twilight
I've always needed an extra hand
to fork knife and feed my face just right
to paint the multiple biomorphic floaters in my eye
or inject swarming glowworms into a starry night
and point a third brush at a buzzing melody
caught in a child's thicket of restless arms and legs
an elemental light configures this blue hand
and me I'd gladly take it home in an ordinary tin box
to watch it finally emerge less encumbered
its pain squeezed through the paint
smeared and spread with a knife to learn to breathe
through straws while treading underwater light
I need another hand multiple mistakes loose threads
stains that bleed into a burnt sienna dye
I need an operation that will stitch loose pebbles into place
that will painstakingly observe a bird pecking at a grainy sky
an amputation through which I can feel the paint raising
my extra hand in answer to an ancient question
which is a damn sight better than going it alone
better than the child standing in front of the class
stuttering before a crow-faced nun "I d...don't
remember the poem but I knew it last night"
Page Turner
this face made up of little tales
that appear to write themselves
but that's not entirely the case
there are prompters in the wings
feeding me bits of forgotten lines
snippets of their own lives sprinkled
like breadcrumbs on a woodsy path
an oar floats unnoticed on a calm lake
a woman screams and pulls her hair out
a child contestant applies lipstick in the mirror
a robot asks you intimate questions on the phone
no doubt there's an infinity
between your eyebrow and your trembling lip
take my ear with you on holiday
have no fear if you hear an eyelid drop
halfway to the moon it's only me sleepwalking
I'm just a supporting actor
in a dance of moveable chairs
I divide and multiply for no apparent reason
I disappear in the words that pull me to them
reappear as a curious tear on the sofa
or a lamp clicked on above a sleeping body
anybody home
anybody out there listening
they read me now like a page turner
the way one cries over nothing
or absentmindedly twirls a curl of hair
into a spiral galaxy
Placeholder
they told us that as density increases
space shrinks inside the number
and at the zero point
the equation breaks down and weeps
they told us half of infinity is still infinity
and that illumination slips through
chips in the armor and words
are filled with oceans of empty space
they said that the largest licks the spiral ear
of the smallest and folds in upon itself
they told us to watch how leaves cluster
in open parentheses and then just blow away
they told us that numbers were hooks
in the clouds and that a poet must zero forth
to thread the eye through an ear
and learn to wing it outward on a word
they said that the foot lies in the leap
across death's gummy shoe
and that infinity guarantees repetition
but our return will be unrecognizable to us
Charles Borkhuis is a poet, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. He has published nine collections; the most recent are Dead Ringer (BlazeVox Books, 2016) and Finely Tuned Static (with paintings by John McCluskey) (Lunar Chandelier, 2017). Among his other collections are Disappearing Acts (Chax Press, 2014), Savoir-Fear (Spuyten Duyvil, 2003), and Alpha Ruins (Bucknell University Press, 2000), which was selected by Fanny Howe as runner-up for the William Carlos Williams Book Award. He translated New Exercises from the French by Franck André Jamme (Wave Books, 2008). Two of his essays on innovative American poetry were recently published in separate anthologies, Telling It Slant and We Who Love to Be Astonished (University of Alabama Press). He lives in New York City and has taught at Touro College and Hofstra University.
