Best Surrealism Poems
the only tree for a thousand miles
gave him welcome if temporary shade
a kaleidoscope of mockingbirds filling its branches
it was no longer possible to be blind
but very possible to be jailed
for being unaware of our surroundings
being that we are panphibians capable of TV
where apathy and turmoil don't mix
wracking our brains for the worst solution
every day since time began again
banding bending binding bonding bundling
mind turned upon itself like minds tend to do
a moth eaten panorama of agonies
everything still broken the breakers unpunished
our narrative not telling anyone anything new
long live the revolution in wisdom
that's my drooling occupational therapy grin
it's gotten me out of more than one derailment
feeling life as a prelude to a guillotine basket
or worse a juggernaut of ambition
now that will immediately inaugurate
a prison epidemic of eyeball rolling
can we escape seeing the unseen
or is it just a bigger cage
don't let the blighters
sell you your own real estate
or discoveries in hysteria research
from the Intergalactic Whats Next Council
acting in accord with the statistics
make it more aerodynamic
everything means something
a tool for every job
daily nightly I try to be less stupid
a simple formula designed for
the sweet gurgling idiot infant within
out cold but still in the game
now you got me laughing
momentarily dazed and surprised
prepare only for the eventual
because what remains tends to
influence what is to come
in a logic both apparent and subtle
not exactly free from ahem connotation
as most doors don't open themselves
meanwhile somewhere back in history
the Dog Clan had trouble finding women
with eight or ten ****
there that opened something up
from the spare parts bin
apparently his bulging eyeballs
were on full creme d'menthe death ray
the universal sense of alarm just went off
wailing it's not all brain chemistry
he spoke many tongues in faucet mode
the ramifications came tumbling out
but often heading in opposite directions
while the oppressive crows circled
where the Wizard parks his wagon
every home from Kansas to Atlantis
instituted a reign of madness
terror and ballroom dancing
As the Dime Store sirens flared
bolts of irradiated invite,
my query was denied.
Their pimp-striped pilots only moaned,
their lust fueled by encapsulated
stench carried only by toothless carnies
from the canyons. Canyons o’ Crazed Confliction.
And behind… the dull dynamo hum.
I screamed for the Kelp Queen to come to me,
her tresses woven wave-like in the wabe.
My demands were simple.
The scars of the trucker's she must carry
(as war carries death)
for inbreeding has tainted her line.
“Can Omaha be far?” she pleaded
and tugged at my inter-ache
as tin balloons tug with time .
“For you?” I replied in a
flatulent belch.
The boiling madness was by now
beyond the horizon but kept in check
still by the neon dogs crouching by day under the interchange.
It is they who will now stalk the disease plagued ports
I sailed from so many
days
and
images
ago.
Until her kleptic crew of vagrants and priests
sprint with me in postpartum harmony.
Hipsters for TRUTH.
painting ideas that cannot be seen
Her naked face
Aroused me.
I was helpless
Looking
To find a
An unexposed seat
To sit down.
Form:
The events of last evening were such
that I awoke this morning to find
I was beside myself—
not metaphorically,
but in the most literal sense:
two versions,
one body short.
The mirror caught us first—
a flash of double movement
where there should have been one.
I blinked.
He didn’t.
Or maybe I didn’t.
It’s hard to say
when glass begins to lie.
We shared a glance,
the kind exchanged between commuters
who suspect they’ve boarded the wrong train
but are too polite to ask.
It seemed prudent
to seize the opportunity
for a discussion between ourselves—
a kind of internal summit
to determine the rhyme and reason
for our dilemma,
and sketch a path
toward reunification,
assuming it was worth the effort.
The other me—
slightly more rumpled,
possibly wiser—
suggested that last night’s self-reflection
had been too honest,
and that dreams,
when left unsupervised,
tend to rearrange the furniture.
We debated causation,
as one does:
Was it the unresolved metaphor
in that unfinished poem?
The hat and the boots,
still waiting for closure?
Or the quiet betrayal
of pretending to be whole
for the sake of social ease?
Outside, the morning
was already making demands.
Inside, we negotiated
terms of reentry—
no apologies,
no revelations,
just a mutual agreement
to pretend we were whole
until further notice.
I stood to leave,
feeling the weight shift
as the double lingered behind,
stuck in the mirror,
arms crossed,
expression unreadable.
The other me was unimpressed.
Listen!
I am not a Burger!
…. I am not a Burger!
Form:
waltz blazing sirens from shores of the frosted tomorrow
just look around and behold everything that makes our souls distant
l’existence est ailleurs! my negatively dear Clementine
in this omnipotent Babylon of boredom whoredom
where our shapes slowly turn shadowless
turning in their dreamless sleep
glide around our glacier home
and we follow the fireflies among the languorous joshua trees
into the land of dandy lions and burning monks
into the tinfoil country of cowboys riding the giant amoebas
feverish orchids on the horizon where the fire alarm is always on
so run & hop on the railroad to false paradise
where we will dance alone and leave footprints in the garden
leave footprints on every rooftop
then walk up the clock tower to the ghost of a friendly lamp-lighter
who will help us from within to banish the darkening
and light up our own dungeons of blood candy splendour
as multiple painted phantoms of Van Gogh’s ear
listen to the foghorn music of pallid depths
in our much adored papier-maché sea shell mansion
our lovely cul-de-sac, stellar and crystalline, vanishing on a rota basis
standing in still life as a crescent groom, as graves on the Moon
opening the frontiers for a cosmis octopus, a zealot, a hypocrite
headless and worshipping the order of the howling iris
which makes our nosebleed grow longer like shadows do at dusk
and that’s when I love to unwind that brass hair
of your golden-haired psyche
now we come to the taboo part of our presentation
in which the secret of all time will be revealed
to those who wish to understand understanding
characters arranged in uncharacteristic sequence
a nice little codification on toasted bagel
hitched to the static measurement wagon
so many pretty numbers so subdivisable
into both shape and penetrated substance
down where the cognitive revolutions
splash about cageless canaries preening in song
what is it we perceive if not dimension
floating upon a squirming ocean of magnitudes
of enormous potential in zero space
is pretty much it see not so difficult
10,000 years of hocus pocus gurus
couldn't begin to tell you this eye to eye
being knee deep in spirit and guesswork
and various intuitive instruments of torture
while still thinking in 3 color caricatures
mystery on her own is something to bother about
this assessment brought to you by the same 10k
a constant ball park estimate for side arm pitchers
following the contours of the cracks in that great glass
where the buzzword signal meter needles
are perpetually evermore bouncing off the peg
trying to tell a story that hasn't been told before
to your narrator who is all ears all the time
bringing the reign of the ephemeral cortex
to the light of day much to everyone's disgust
irretrievably drawn to the abandonment of ornament
and their many delicate sedimentations
chased by a brace of Tennessee blueticks
baying like a steam whistle spitting sparks
assured of the one validated certainty
the wax was melting off his wings
apparently this is not a trial run
with God whispering in my big bunny ear
you probably want to be like me right
the wavy haired platinum blond at his elbow
adds a lascivious every day has its price
naturally I had to agree and nodded heedfully
knowing a single sliver of the future
the bogs will take them
if Rowena's kuzzle was
the center of the Earth
he'd look for a shovel
she was an underpass hooker
exploited by a grim and grimy past
reckless as the day is long
a tourism so shameless
her own union set her on fire
I can't praise them enough
I advised her to talk to her real self
and got 5 blank staring minutes
basically because she didn't have one
only an extremely accurate echo
but she was a rebel and I loved her
kept her head lice population down
just so she could tell me the occasional
bedtime story on an empty stomach
hear now the legend of the Headless Man
once and a long ago
lived a man with no head
one of the many stigmatized gentry
in the long forgotten dairy maid uprising
somehow he could see hear and gesture
even though the neck was a pink nub
but he was hung like a meatloaf
making maidens titter at the village well
sighing rolling their eyes gasping flushed
um where was I
ah he fell in love
with the Bodiless Woman of course
knowing she could be of some use
it's a story of egregious assumptions
a belching sewer of lust and depravity
a juggernaut of rash political ambition
um where was I
ah in the village below
the holy men gathered
around Rowena’s oracle head
they came as the ancient test required
to run barefoot across the fire pit
at Detroit Jimmy's BBQ
the winner was a few inches shorter
from the victory tap dance
a ritual purification of the sense of motion
accompanied by stigmas and signs of wonder
Detroit Jimmy married Nub and Rowena
in a cabbage patch ceremony under the stars
wicked little boy went Row
on their wedding night mud bath
work me like your first bag of fries
went Nub in all humility
and they rode upstate in his Rocket 88
the road spreading gently
like a great pastry
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
SUBTERRANIUM SURREALISM
if you can from your head
try make an opaque face
a spoon down the throat
left me speechless when
it counted the most
so many spaces and rooms
rooms of rooms of rooms
pebble portraits of bottle-top birds
scraps of paper bearing blood words
stains imprinted in a life
unlearned
© Kim van Breda—24 October 2015
Form:
Crashing the beaches
of my eyes,
lives are revealed.
In the small hours of drink,
sickness rained shackled lives
on the bathroom floor.
An abused child
tumbles forth
helpless in a runny sea.
A punished woman
spills out,
lavished with scents of heat.
An eager man
swings new arms.
Fixtures of pain askew,
confined companions swim free.
i shake my head no when the target employee asks
if i want to sign up for a rewards card
i shake my head a lot
i have a nervous twitch that jerks my head around
to listen for signs of oncoming freighters
my father and mother call me overmedicated
i call myself in the middle of the night when i am awake
with claws poised above my wrists
antidepressants are a funny thing
when your depression isnt a depression anymore,
when it isnt feeling sad or guilty or lonely
it isn't feeling at all,
it isn't even being numb
it is falling away from your body altogether.
it is you, adrift on autopilot
you've lost your edge, old dog, i tell my naked body in the mirror on the night of my fifteenth birthday.
i spent today underwater
i dropped my plate because i could
and i couldn't keep my arms up
and i stood amongst the shattered ceramic for far longer than i should have,
staring into space like a piece in moma
my father and mother walk in
and call me catatonic
i don't respond
they walk back out and i am still standing in the ceramic
i never move for the fear of sharp things
and for the fear that my lips work fine
and my standing here,
barely breathing,
isn't the medication at all.
In a swirling groove of surrealism
What a week it has been!
A weak passage of time fraught with disappointments have I seen.
Few sprigs of gleaming import found me as I went about my way each day.
Moments arose when it appeared that success would be mine, yet there were but
mere shadows and not true substance!
Following the relinquishing of hope, I unhappily surrendered to reality's dim outlook
and went on with life.
Now on a day of rest from labor, I am awash in anxiety and am found in a swirling
groove of surrealism!
The cord of dismay has me in a tangled mess, and I know not what to do!
I have no friend of kindred spirit to be my ally and kindly cull me out.
There is no one to assuage my anxiety with a cup of cheer.
Seeing that there is not a soul to break bread with, I linger in my solitary cocoon.
To break the silence of my world, I employ various recorded sounds to fill it in.
It is an option of lesser pedigree, yet it will keep me company as I journey on!
One might as well suffice, for should gold not be available, silver simply must do.
In the meantime I will hold on for one more day.
Who knows but God the good which is to come.
Form:
a one against all iconoclast
eat my shorts was his hello
after being driven from the village
by the Iceberg Clan physical therapists
and their dictatorship of deduction
a mere fascination with the grotesque
boasting an indignant moral high ground
their vast distortions parading as what's next
none of which was actually observant
ordered the award of a certificate of exile
prompting futile biographical excess
told his life story in a whisper
to the audience on the bus stop bench
in the fabled Flat Lands of Disturbia
trying to be more than what he thought he was
had the soul of a humming bird
chose his objects of adoration wisely
dodging recruiter demons at all hours
kick starting a thousand slave rebellions
you instigate one you instigate them all
inching up to the black widow at web central
twitching the cables just enough
with the help of his archangel air cover
shielding his free will for eternity
just enough for the look-o-meter
to get him through the mine fields
driving a '49 Mercury like he stole it
it is theater pure and simple
a Fellini runway extravaganza
playing evil A against evil B
resist and defy were his left and right
victory payouts collectible at Ed the Bookie's
a Ponzi scheme of titanic proportion
cosmic efficiencies being what they are
where the hierarchies choke hold your neck
zigging and zagging like sparring ghosts
a house of cards inside a hall of mirrors
forcing themselves not to look
since when have the observant sages
ever managed to end our misery
made it gnashingly worse more likely
If the amputation scars are any indication
this is a bad review no stars
in case you were wondering
a lot of that's not right out there
but only because context is everything
a blind eye is a blind eye
thoughts are surfaces
shared a strange reality made from footsteps
the land of spirit being open to improvisation
with existence a fountain of plenty for all
too much meaning too much of the time
is it not true to the self of selves that
suffering to one is suffering to all
they patiently awaited the great emancipation
which had been delayed more than once
due to their sharing the long end of the telescope
and other subjects that must never be spoken of
a non accomplishment of great relevance
life being a charade a painted wooden pony
whose surprise discovery was immanent
due to its continents of piled bones
ticking and tocking the smell of sulfur
Gu and Mo expectantly gazed edgewise
into the murk of their own apparition
which was clomp clomping nearer and nearer
beset by dread they clutched close
and waited for the final tap on the shoulder
hello bright pilgrims it was Calliope
muse to the amused and the wretched
a necessary duet if the one is to survive the other
she was an enduring oasis of song
in a measureless rattlesnake desert
planets and their luminous suns
capered about her ruby lit hair
drink from my breasts children she rued
you have just begun your confluence of chance
to wrench the Earth from its socket
a darkest lamentable catalog of crime
GuGu and MoMo gripped one another
eyes frozen for all time wide open
how can this be Mo went Gu
thank the nice lady Gu went Mo
and they both came to the mutual agreement
that they should start counting.