SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fourteen
JOEL CHACE
Evolution Rag Completed
Sock drawer – supply
of nickels, one for each
corpse mutilated
to incapacitate in
the afterlife. Newspapers
stacked at top of dark
stairwell. Rope burns on
ankles; sting of sea water.
White's rapid increase. White
weasel tails on. Lists all
crossed off. Arms concentrated;
fingers to the sky. Thunder and
lilac. Inhale. Think again. Moon
should turn blue. Radio is
also a fine thing.
Sad Exams
Ungraded themes and finals
in a sack slung over this prof's
shoulder as he trudges across
the new campus, late
sunlight flashing off windows,
stone facades. He foresees
wrong answers: degree of
abandonment; miraculous
road; string theory is older,
now. So many buildings he could
enter, take a seat, empty
his bag, begin making marks. Her
eyes light the room; just one shop
open; pivotal screaming; odd
way to count them. But he
gazes only at his feet. Dusk.
Night. The old campus now
surrounds him: marble blackened
with grime; knotted clumps of gray
filth, draped over shrubs, drooping
from low branches. So
unapologetic; driving
to the document dump;
horizontal averages; silly
ducks wouldn't frighten; mourning was
let in; even they matter.
Farther and farther on, until
he's entangled, trapped, dark
figures beginning to move
along the ground, closing in.
Joel Chace lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His poems appear in Tip of the Knife, Eratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, Golden Handcuffs Review, New American Writing, and The Brooklyn Rail. His full-length collections include matter no matter, from Paper Kite Press, Humors, from Paloma Press, Threnodies, from Moria Books, fata morgana, from Unlikely Books, and Maths, from Chax Press. Underrated Provinces is due out from Mad Hat Press in early 2024.
