SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Six
MARK BLAEUER
To the Radiant
You assume an ocean
of coloring books, e.g. Gauguin,
to be fodder-in-typhoon.
Of a dawn you fill, matching solar pace,
tipsy on a 48-pack.
With rain to patter a low noon,
you redden outriggers in the mind.
Heavy dusk: a Cuttle Ink crayon exceeds all
accidental myth, osmosing toward
the blue—no, bluest—lorikeet.
Under a mango-pulp moon
you tear out pages, scissoring
wildly to fold,
to glue,
manila journey upward to palm fronds,
a tropic nest
in which to close your eyes.
Vitrine
Once, à la Brothers Grimm, a woman dwelt in a glass coffin.
She required neither food nor oxygen, yet she was alive
and, during business hours, awake. Her cozy home merited pride of place
near the cash register. She appeared comfortable, head atop a lace-white
cushion, the rest of her body gowned in cerise.
She was married to the famous journalist, Señor San Antonio y Oro de Madrid,
who was reportedly content to pursue his career without her,
and she seemed happy to carry on in his absence.
In no way did she consider herself deprived.
She was renowned for her excellent wit and fine laugh.
I conversed with her and enjoyed the privilege immensely. Turning
away for a moment, though, to record her comments in my notebook, I was startled
by a crash. Her coffin had fallen off its pedestal, shards everywhere. Three or four men—
perhaps employees of the store, perhaps her servants—ran to see about her
and sweep up. I, too, attempted to check on her condition and render assistance,
but one of the men announced, as if to spare me anguish or inconvenience,
that she was dead but luckily not disfigured.
On impulse I bought a plastic doll modeled after her—also, of course, available in the shop.
The item was not shrink wrapped, a process which might have evoked
the substance of her coffin. Rather, said femuncula portrayed the lady as a black-robed
adolescent. This thing was undoubtedly meant for children,
to be hung in a prominent location at Halloween, so as an adult I confess it frightened me.
I left these premises. The sky, what little I could detect among downtown buildings,
was overcast. As people walked by, I shook the doll in their faces
(most of the passersby reacted negatively) until my zeal abated.
I then sat upon an iron bench, alone
and clearing.
Mark Blaeuer lives in Arkansas. With an M.A. in anthropology, he worked in the fields of archaeology and physical anthropology, and later was employed as an interpretive ranger in the U.S. National Park Service. His poems and occasional translations (from Spanish) have appeared in dozens of journals, over several decades, and Kelsay Books has published a collection of his poems, Fragments of a Nocturne.
