SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue
Nine
DAVID GREENSLADE
Full Pareidolia
To see nothing
takes a lot of looking
around.
Among the objects of this world
other objects
creatures, obstacles
prophets, prey
meat, seeds, medicine –
Buddha in a donkey's arse
Medusa in her grapevine
Arabic letters on a running shoe
hunters on Da Vinci's Wall
and, most pareidolic of them all
myself dispersed into the prism
of Lizard lighthouse
cast to the Atlantic
from the feather fins
of seals, thrown to roam
from dew on the whiskers
of a fox's snout.
takes a lot of looking
around.
Among the objects of this world
other objects
creatures, obstacles
prophets, prey
meat, seeds, medicine –
Buddha in a donkey's arse
Medusa in her grapevine
Arabic letters on a running shoe
hunters on Da Vinci's Wall
and, most pareidolic of them all
myself dispersed into the prism
of Lizard lighthouse
cast to the Atlantic
from the feather fins
of seals, thrown to roam
from dew on the whiskers
of a fox's snout.
Village Maid
Ablaze
with metals
platinum, nickel, silver,
in pursuit of mercury.
I guide my nag of river-froth
into the village cemetery
along an unpaved alley
towards a willow clear as glass
whose wands caress the swollen stream
and there, a steady farmgirl
bold and bright, waiting at the well,
one golden plait to heaven
one plait to hell – her
coopered bucket full of holes,
her barrack-room curtsey – coarse.
But I, entranced after a five-day ride
pause and propose, unreal maiden
water my aluminium horse.
platinum, nickel, silver,
in pursuit of mercury.
I guide my nag of river-froth
into the village cemetery
along an unpaved alley
towards a willow clear as glass
whose wands caress the swollen stream
and there, a steady farmgirl
bold and bright, waiting at the well,
one golden plait to heaven
one plait to hell – her
coopered bucket full of holes,
her barrack-room curtsey – coarse.
But I, entranced after a five-day ride
pause and propose, unreal maiden
water my aluminium horse.
Chef Rage
Alone in the kitchen
light-headed, I reach
for a damp box of buckled paperclips
Bible grease, crusted screw
top cough medicine,
sapphire aggregate
glass carnations
blended with beryllium dust,
unlovely grit. Some
with chopsticks, some with
scoops, straws, rusty whisks
& handy hooks interrupt
their greedy mouthfuls – praise
my opioid sauce liqueur
in wild confusion. Is
this why I play foodcook?
Engorged, in lavish
plenty, I rave eyeball
to bulging cross-eyed eyeball,
limitless, supreme
terrifying glory.
David Greenslade divides his time between Wales and Romania, and writes in Welsh and English. He has work in the next edition of Peculiar Mormyrid. Among his collections, Each Broken Object (Two Rivers Press, 2000) and Lyrical Diagrams (Shearsman, 2012). His new collection Full Pareidolia is forthcoming from CONTRABAND Books, and two other collections are due from Romanian publishers.
