“One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.” ~ Salvador Dalí
Author’s Note: When I first started this Substack, I was sharing poems from my first book—yet it evolved so rapidly into a space for my photos, prose, & other pieces that I never really finished posting all of the content from that collection. Below is the middle of the longest & most experimental poem in that manuscript—but you can start by seeing the previous part.
I’ve identified as a surrealist (artist & writer) for as long as I’ve been aware of the movement… Except, in literature, it appears under a variety of monikers (avant-garde, experimental, imagist, realismo mágico, & so forth). Of course, there are differences (dreams vs. fantasy, subconscious vs. supernatural, etc).
You pick up the phone to discover « surréalisme » has dialed your number, & is asking to speak with you. It whispers into your ear, & deconstructs your mind…
The difference between what you see & what you recall, what you experience & what you dream, begins to blur… A snake eating its own tail becomes an apple.
I first visited The Dalí Museum with my mother over twenty years ago. I love exploring museums with her, because I always get art history lessons out of it. Also, because she stands before the paintings for a while… Giving me ample time to scribble notes into my journal about the ones I find most evocative.
The phone is weeping into your ear again, while a clock made of hands screams the time. Another nightmare buzzes around the room before landing by the bed.
By the time you awaken, the walls have melted like candle wax & puddled into each other. You scoop up the molten colors & try to mold them back into reality.
The last time I went to this museum was with my partner for my 37th & 40th birthdays. I took fewer notes, & simply relished standing before the artwork. These days, I don’t think in words (or at least, in poetry) as much as I used to. The images bubbling forth from my own subconscious don’t have names yet.
Seashells rattle inside your skull. You shake your head to get them out, & they tumble through the window-shaped hole in your heart—then turn into sand…
Your body is an hourglass marking the passage of time, every grain a memento mori—a reminder of the inevitability of death for your life to have any meaning.
Surrealism is the art of resisting something—usually reality—in an attempt at seeing or reaching something greater than the reality which is being resisted. Dreams fascinate the surrealists because, in them, we defy reality both easily & naturally. It’s the dream world setting that sets the genre apart from others.
You crack open a lobster tail & miniature moths fly out, splattered in blood. The ants are making a feast of the grasshopper, surrounding its body like a frail nest.
Boat as an eye, fishhook in a human head, naked woman as a mountain range… Every word an act of violence, every act of violence a word caught in the throat.
The art of writing has something in common with the act of dreaming: We can impose our own rules & create beauty out of emotions, instincts, & memories. Personally, I’ve always preferred artists who stretch limits… Artists who defy our expectations of what should be considered art (& displayed in museums).
Your mind is stuck on a single image like a projector sputtering on film. Woman with a face like a disappearing wall through which you can begin to see the sky.
Woman with sky as face. Woman wearing your face as her own. You face your reflection in the mirror, & the entire room shatters & then clatters to the floor.
I love what is reassembled from other things to present us with something we’ve never before seen anywhere else. The surrealists do this effortlessly—taking apart everyday objects to reassemble them into different shapes, or to fashion them into brand-new things as though they always belonged that way.
Picking up the pieces, you reassemble them into recognizable shapes. Then, you begin to assemble them into new shapes—ones you barely recognize from your
previous life. The pieces take on a life of their own, until it is your life that has taken you apart & reassembled you into a shape you barely recognize—but new.
Considerations { excerpt }
Consider, O Lover, my throat
white as cigarette paper.
The crushed lavender of my knuckles.
My heart, a dulled
needle threaded through
too many patterns.
Lover, they were stitches of pain
you undid me of;
There is blood gone rancid in me
you can not move.
But how we comb
and comb the night for jewels
to stack around one another,
to cast in the mold of our love.
That dandy, the sky, enters blue-suited
sun like a scotch in hand
as I consider the brevity of a lion;
How many flies can touch at decay.
Consider the road, long
and forked as the Devil’s own tongue.
Consider the Devil, burning
every bridge; Placing
in every tree a black bird.
In every bird a black thought.
Considerations {1 of 3}
“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” ~ Salvador Dalí