SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fourteen
JOHN GREINER
No One Reads History Books
My army is out of sight,
in the bushes,
shivering beside
moldering roaches
that Noah couldn't reach.
I was once a sailor,
so how I ended
here is simply
the end result
of Odysseus's mismanagement.
Join up and climb a tree,
tie your boot laces
with a noose
made purposeless.
March of time.
No one reads the history books.
No one writes down noteworthy remarks.
No one is on the make.
The tasks are not met,
nor are the historical imperatives.
My army has dispersed,
taken off to the sea
where all of the ships have sunk
along with their land loving sailors.
I wade out.
Walter Cronkite
Tongue held tight
in
the house
on fire.
Through
the air the orgy flies departon fire.
while the mosquitos remain
licking lust in flames,
an appropriate ending.
John F. Kennedy was shot
sixty years ago today
the children of America
have forgotten Walter Cronkite's name.
John Greiner is a writer and visual artist living in New York City. He was educated at the New School for Social Research. His work has appeared in Antiphon, Sand Journal, Otoliths, Survision, Sein und Werden, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Value, etc. His books of poetry include In an Attic Palace Beneath a Slaughtered Sky (Arteidolia Press), Circuit (Whiskey City Press), Turnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press) and Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press).
