SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Seven
PAUL SOHAR
The Lady Dressed in Black
The rooms I never open are hung with silence
and lit up by lewd irises and the burnished
bronze of leaping thighs, but the figure whose
shadow touches every feather of the peacock
tapestry is a lady dressed in black.
Slender like an umbrella furled tightly,
alabaster head held high, even when
reclining on the plush plum sofa
after teasing the soul of a faithful harp
or a stroll among the secretive ceramic pots;
she's free to come and go but she
decided to paint her reflection on my
message-pregnant vases long ago;
she wears my secrets as gold jewelry
wrought in lightning on her marble skin,
but it's her eyes that tell my story,
a two-handkerchief tear-jerker, she
recites in gestures cascading till a
gilded mirror stops them and then she jangles
her bangles with a whispered smile.
A lady dressed in black parades
through a secretive apartment
where charades of careless figurines
and fluted drapes attack the midnight
in a dance around the lady dressed in black.
Paul Sohar (also known as Sohár Pál) is originally from Hungary, now based in New Jersey. His poetry appears in Agni, Gargoyle, Rattle, etc. He has also published his translations from such Hungarian poets as Sándor Kányádi, Géza Szöcs, György Faludy, and Zoltán Böszörmënyi. His latest collection of poetry is In Sun's Shadow (Ragged Sky Press, 2020).
