SurVision Magazine / Lavinia Kumar

Open Ocean Rigors of 3AM or 2AM

Here we are at the dateline.
There he is dead. But alive here?
A comet-tail clouds the here and there,
winds not able to change imposed longitude
or waves of uncertainty Heisenberg searched –
that place and that velocity one point in time.
Which cannot exist – nature not consumed
with naming, measure, nor man's whims
for category, identity,
let alone the undoing of water
into its atoms, even quarks,
against its need to hold together.

And our dead/alive man is mostly water,
plus many other atoms, some common,
some rare, some ingested unwisely,
but not one alive on its own.
He lolls in the rhythm of ripples,
disturbed sometimes by curious fish or whales,
who care not a whit about dates of days,
let alone the solidity of a dateline,
yet do feel currents, cold, warm,
sound wave messages,
the movement of predator, prey.
They know the pattern of flow,
the time for migration.
They know the moon,
glow of stars,
the clouded certainty of a comet.
And night without
man or time.

Merzbau

Kurt Schwitters

The wonky tangle of the room captivated.
A tall man stood with his back to me,
another faced. Were they mirror imaged?
Beige coats matched, and the men waved
as retching music played. Slivers of glass
slanted over my head in epileptic diversion –
white slim walls, shelves to nowhere.
And a corner erased. Or perhaps not.

Earlier I thought I saw a man hide from rain
among trees. A cut-off log on the grass
carved as pig, body sagging from wet.

All was for the seer to see, a kaleidoscopic
slippery view through squalls of nooks
and grottos, the cave of things in a house,
made, bombed, remade. Souls were carried off,
fragments sometimes on trains – through houses,
villages, farm fields. Sometimes mirrored backwards.

Lavinia Kumar grew up in Ireland, and now lives in New Jersey. Her poems appear in Ascent Aspirations, Atlanta Review, Caper, Colere, Edison Literary Review, Exit 13, Flaneur, Kelsey Review, New Verse News, Orbis, Peacock Journal, Pedestal, Pemmican, Poetry24, River Heron's Review, etc. Her full-length collection is The Skin and Under (World Tech Editions, 2015).

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An international online magazine that publishes Surrealist poetry in English. Issue Nine LAVINIA KUMAR Open Ocean Rigors of 3AM or 2AM Here we are at the dateline. There he is dead. But alive here? A comet-tail clouds the here and there, winds not able to change imposed longitude or waves of uncertainty Heisenberg searched – that place and that velocity one point in time. Which cannot exist – nature not consumed with naming, measure, nor man's whims for category, identity, let alone the undoing of water into its atoms, even quarks, against its need to hold together. And our dead/alive man is mostly water, plus many other atoms, some common, some rare, some ingested unwisely, but not one alive on its own. He lolls in the rhythm of ripples, disturbed sometimes by curious fish or whales, who care not a whit about dates of days, let alone the solidity of a dateline, yet do feel currents, cold, warm, sound wave messages, the movement of predator, prey. They know the pattern of flow, the time for migration. They know the moon, glow of stars, the clouded certainty of a comet. And night without man or time. Merzbau Kurt Schwitters The wonky tangle of the room captivated. A tall man stood with his back to me, another faced. Were they mirror imaged? Beige coats matched, and the men waved as retching music played. Slivers of glass slanted over my head in epileptic diversion – white slim walls, shelves to nowhere. And a corner erased. Or perhaps not. Earlier I thought I saw a man hide from rain among trees. A cut-off log on the grass carved as pig, body sagging from wet. All was for the seer to see, a kaleidoscopic slippery view through squalls of nooks and grottos, the cave of things in a house, made, bombed, remade. Souls were carried off, fragments sometimes on trains – through houses, villages, farm fields. Sometimes mirrored backwards. Lavinia Kumar grew up in Ireland, and now lives in New Jersey. Her poems appear in Ascent Aspirations, Atlanta Review, Caper, Colere, Edison Literary Review, Exit 13, Flaneur, Kelsey Review, New Verse News, Orbis, Peacock Journal, Pedestal, Pemmican, Poetry24, River Heron's Review, etc. Her full-length collection is The Skin and Under (World Tech Editions, 2015).
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