SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fourteen
DAVID P. MILLER
Why, Yonder He Is, Now
Like a hippopotamus about to enter
the living room, twenty-eight years ago
I almost set the porch on fire.
There was no way to monetize this.
Stretched out across the carpet,
mouthful of coleslaw, nicks and scratches,
minnows at my ankles. Spiral-twisted
velvet horn. A squid in a jar.
Groggy head at the kitchen table.
Barely a movement. Did a kind fairy
bring me small mammal skulls,
Ernie Kovacs on morphine?
Age, decay and corruption
puzzling over the cracker wrappers.
Knees and feet hoping the levees hold,
a toegrip on a glass mountain.
Lower the window shade, there's
a distant little motor sound.
Compost-soiled gloves gone silent:
off to the landfill with me.
A person of regular habits, I've
had problems with this from the beginning.
Born at the edge of a glacial basin.
Sharing a hospital room with Lazarus.
Puppet Show
I was five. I opened my eyes.
The sun was up in flat silence. My head
hung over the side of my bed.
My eyes were upside down.
I stared at where the opposite wall
bumped into the ceiling. My neck hurt.
Up went my head to find the pillow.
There was a hand puppet between
my bed and the wall next to my bed.
There was no space between bed and wall.
The puppet looked right at me. I looked back.
Not a murmur anywhere. It stood still,
a visitor from under the bed.
Then it hopped a little, moved its arms
just like a puppet show. Turned to face the wall
and started walking into the wall.
I put my head back down
to hang across the side of the bed
where it was at first. I closed my eyes
and went back to sleep on purpose.
No one else was awake, not even the baby.
David P. Miller is from Massachusetts. He was a librarian at Curry College in Massachusetts, from which he retired in June 2018. His collection, Bend in the Stair, was published by Lily Poetry Review Books in 2021. Sprawled Asleep was published by Nixes Mate Books in 2019. Poems have recently appeared in Meat for Tea, Constellations, Lily Poetry Review, Ibbetson Street, Solstice, Salamander, Cream Scene Carnival, Kestrel, Paterson Literary Review, Nixes Mate Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, etc.
