SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fourteen
NANCY ANNE MILLER
Gold Coach
It looks rather like a bad dessert,
one you wish you hadn't ordered,
a crusty meringue affair which might
break easily or flop. Resembles
the paralithodes californiensis,
the king crab known to live in
cold waters, here brought out
into daylight, like a crustacean up
from the deep, scavenging shores.
The Neptune figures in the rear
look back at when Britannia
ruled the waves. Wheels spin,
radiate a bright light out to edges,
like when the sun never set on
an Empire. Palm trees hold up
the roof, fronds, the gushes of oil
taken from West Africa soil. And
tritons on the front blow a conch
common in the Caribbean for rituals,
the sea deep sound of the indigenous,
a guamo used to scrape cassava
skins for food, a symbol of freedom,
resistance as the carriage moves
forward. A postilion, rides a mount,
to control the horses' gaits, like
a postman bore news to towns.
The message he brings to a world
watching, carries down the Mall,
is this king has the Midas touch,
turns everything into gold for his coffers.
Pink Map
It looked so kindly to young eyes at Bermuda High School
for Girls, feminine in territorial claim, reach. Flesh like in
colour, tone the fair skin of the Fair Isles. One thinks of roses
blooming, the blushed cheeks of maidens. One needed only
to look at the hue to get a comforting feel, gentleness and civility
reaching out arms to assure, give a sense of home. Countries
outlined, the skins from a peeled apple, geographies created,
carved out and added to the pie. Distorted through
the Mercator projection with top countries swollen as if
with territorial boast. Not to look so vulnerable, small, part
of the mental furniture to rule from the top of the world.
Unrolled like a decree or a shade pulled down over a window
to block out harsh light. Fun to snap it back up, close with
the tug of the circular tag hanging below like a noose.
Pink chosen because red absorbed, hid letters forming
the renamed names of countries, the way blood bleeds
through a violent act or a teacher's pen crosses out
the answer in scarlet, the attempt as not appropriate,
erroneous. Only displayed in certain school rooms lest
subjects get uppity, beyond their class. Not for all to
seek succour from this overstretched mother's body.
Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet. Pink Typewriter is her tenth collection (Kelsay Books 2023). She has published in Edinburgh Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Salzburg Review, Magma, Stand, PREE, and The Caribbean Writer.
