John Maradik Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“I used to play a game with my best friend from high school called, ‘Story.’ Once challenged, the other person would have to tell a very long, rambling story. The point was not to tell a good story, but to ramble on for as long as possible. While I was in this stream of consciousness, I noticed I could access a zone of braindead mythological thinking. My favorite surrealism gets to that place. Most of my work exists because I want to impress my wife and make her laugh.”
— John Maradik
~~~
D’Internet
I get all my food there
my decorative Scandinavian rock
my job
dear jeez/jeeves
I can’t sleep
I’ve got D’Internet
humans crawled from the sea
millions of years ago
up the muddy slope
into the chocolate pudding
looking for D’Internet
history was nothing but people
doing loud things
next to the woods
looking for a place to put D’Internet
staring at books for ages
expecting to see D’Internet
but books are ludicrously flat
their pages flap stupidly
their sad weight
those dumb ruins
all that dumb art
boredom burned like a fever
people just sat there
had long wars or
drooled into their hands
before D’Internet emerged
from the muck
a huge shining mirror
a deep well of water
people saw it and began to cry
collage by John Maradik
Inventory of a Sorcerer
his pipe
his knife
his leather pouch
his four gasoline lanterns
his thick mat that faces Southeast
his wooden needle
his handful of seeds
his exceptional clarity of hearing
his hard shriveled body
his weird persistence
his little mud woman
the converging lines on his palm
the haywire crow on his roof
the terrifying privacy of his patio
the peeled rubber in his sink
the extremely loud and horrifying shrieks he makes
his clapping hands
his seven sun spirits
his giant hump of soil
the time he became very stiff
and stayed that way for a week
his flesh chant
his silent birdcall
the harmful energy stored in his rattle
the scraping
the shaking
the vibrating when he burns his eggs
when he pulls smoke from his navel
when he purifies himself in the yard
when his pen leaks
when his feather bleeds
when his candles moan
when his leg jams
when he whiffs his crystal talon
when he puts the red blanket on me
and tells me what will happen
collage by John Maradik
shrouded
I was about to crawl into bed
when I heard a soft crackling at the front door
it was a young woman
pedaling homemade shrouds
I absolutely adore textiles
and before I could stop myself
I was covered in them
I put on a black shroud
twice my size
it was so awful it delighted me
the woman smiled as if to say
my fate and the shroud’s
were sealed
she put an entangled pile
of sheets
on my kitchen table
and then I wondered
how had she found me
out here in the mountains?
she twisted around
and her face was flat
like a sign
I hadn’t noticed that
she was four feet tall
I tried to pick her up
but she broke in two
like a piece of pottery
I hesitated over the craftsmanship
typical of this region
the woman was clearly dead
chickens were pecking
at the pieces
from dust to dust I thought
and then I thought act normal
because I could hear someone coming
a hairless, sexless, wooden, doll-like figure
who must have been her husband
walked up to me
followed by his twelve children
who were chunks of cement
covered with glue, enamel paint, and glitter
obviously the works of a visionary eccentric
I watched them pick up the pieces of their mother
and put her into a coffin
which was a glazed replica
of the famous coffin
found at the temple of Kukulkan
the children’s rhinestone tears
had tremendous dramatic impact
I was overcome
don't cry my darlings, I said
as I began to disassemble them
and pack them
into the back of my station wagon
I was almost done
when I saw something
running towards me
at an alarming pace
I froze in fear and wonder
before the insane mechanical fury
of the family’s golden dog
~~~
“D’Internet” and “Inventory of a Sorcerer” were previously published in jubilat.
~~~
John Maradik is the author of the book Surprises and Pleasures (Scram Press, 2023). He lives in Northampton, MA with the artist Rachel B. Glaser.
