I was hoping I’d dispensed with or at least shed some
surrealism ages ago, after it’d left me shattered
from repeat usage and over-determination. But this
morning, after trying to sort finances, something I loathe,
I walked into the post-rain sunshine and encountered
Jacky Winters on the block for the first time in fifteen
years. I use the phrase ‘for the first time in x’ often,
which is where surrealism plays its nasty tricks —
a form of double-dealing because the instance
of wonder and ‘discovery’ is no less impacting
through using the same phrase under different
conditions. The Jacky Winters seemed as excited
and surprised as I was, and their return was intense
with legacy and compulsion. Discounting surrealism
because of such limitations, I find myself pouring
observations into a sudden hole in a paving stone
with no sign of where the removed bit has gone.
No sign. Maybe I’d missed the damage ‘for ages’,
and moss had filled the hole even through the height
of summer. And now wheedled out by some creature.
When I am in a nightmare, I maintain the belief
that worst images will start to break-up and fade,
that sleep means they can’t be sustained. I use
the same technique looking at the hole, wondering
about moss, but the void remains. It sticks. A return
to surrealism would mean the hole and the flycatching
Jacky Winters exercising their tail twitches would merge
with images of loss caused by climate change
across the world, the heaped carbon and judgements
that avoid juxtaposing findings with flight.
.
John Kinsella
Picture Rupert Loydell
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