SurVision Magazine / Matt Dennison

Too Closer Far

With no one to milk them,
the heavy horses, brilliant and white,
suffer and sleep into a dozen red pails,
a dust museum's requiem example
of comfort to others – the ones who crawl,
who go down to the sea in a salt-smell
of nocturnal purring. Still, I would like
to empty you, cleanse you, dry you –
sew your sides wide open, arms flat above
head, hands and long fingers pointing north,
eyes ever up, legs straight, ankles bound to float –
sweep aside the ghost droppings and kneel within,
grasp my paddle and push out, out away from here.

Point the Spokesman

Today I sought oblivion and failed –
all the distant me's resisting – though
once I fought the raging ocean,
beat its waves black with my
feet and hands, seasoned its lightning
sky to death and slapped its bobbing
head with the palm of love – the singularity
of a piece of light upon reflection, the gloom
of aquaria, the horns of the snail, the handle
and the spout that will always align the surrounding
thousand moments of truth, flattening for all time
that cheapest of words – understanding – duly
abhorred by all rich labors.

One Acre Left

She knitted her moose-gut rug
while saying, "It's hard to talk about
how the dirt feels in the shovel –
the pots, the pans, the walls,
the young mother smiling
at the babe in her arms,
the first, the last, the only
luxury item she will ever possess.
The waitress's old hand
bringing us fresh pie –
the brown ghost crawling
elegiac over the mouth,
playing the pucker-pipes'
vile gesture of respect. How
the cat doing flips in the street
is not playing. How the night within
its etiquette complete observed us
wandering the darkened streets to count
how many definite bats are now ceiling
your house in the deep dark maybe of
everyone with a picture of themselves
crying pinned to their sleeve and
how the sun, when the moon
has just laid her eggs."

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An international online magazine that publishes Surrealist poetry in English. Issue Nine MATT DENNISON Too Closer Far With no one to milk them, the heavy horses, brilliant and white, suffer and sleep into a dozen red pails, a dust museum's requiem example of comfort to others – the ones who crawl, who go down to the sea in a salt-smell of nocturnal purring. Still, I would like to empty you, cleanse you, dry you – sew your sides wide open, arms flat above head, hands and long fingers pointing north, eyes ever up, legs straight, ankles bound to float – sweep aside the ghost droppings and kneel within, grasp my paddle and push out, out away from here. Point the Spokesman Today I sought oblivion and failed – all the distant me's resisting – though once I fought the raging ocean, beat its waves black with my feet and hands, seasoned its lightning sky to death and slapped its bobbing head with the palm of love – the singularity of a piece of light upon reflection, the gloom of aquaria, the horns of the snail, the handle and the spout that will always align the surrounding thousand moments of truth, flattening for all time that cheapest of words – understanding – duly abhorred by all rich labors. One Acre Left She knitted her moose-gut rug while saying, "It's hard to talk about how the dirt feels in the shovel – the pots, the pans, the walls, the young mother smiling at the babe in her arms, the first, the last, the only luxury item she will ever possess. The waitress's old hand bringing us fresh pie – the brown ghost crawling elegiac over the mouth, playing the pucker-pipes' vile gesture of respect. How the cat doing flips in the street is not playing. How the night within its etiquette complete observed us wandering the darkened streets to count how many definite bats are now ceiling your house in the deep dark maybe of everyone with a picture of themselves crying pinned to their sleeve and how the sun, when the moon has just laid her eggs." 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.
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