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If surreal people were the world

our landscapes would

reflect the inconstancy

of our unconscious condition.

The evolution of flora and fawning

would have learned nothing

from Darwin.

Our bodies would undergo

countless transformations

from the grotesque to the sublime.

We would sleep dreamlessly,

our thoughts and desires at rest,

to wake each morning to a reality

framed by random association.

Worlds of metaphoric explosion

and grotesque hyperbole

would expose

startling revelations

lost in the moment

of their comprehension.

We would confront time

and its liquid ticking

in a petrified railway station,

and exalt in the

creation of gods and goddesses

of geometric exactitude

while burning herbivores

strolled across a lean horizon.

If surreal people were the world,

the wonders and horrors of existence

would forever begin anew.




Bruce Boston is the author of forty-seven books and chapbooks, including the novels The Guardener's Tale and Stained Glass Rain. His writing has received the Bram Stoker Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Asimov's Readers Award, and the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. You can read more about him at www.bruceboston.com and see some of his previous work in our archives.
Current Issue
16 Dec 2024

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.
exposing to the bone just how different we are
a body protesting thinks itself as a door out of a darkroom, a bullet, too.
In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.
Issue 9 Dec 2024
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Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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