Rachel B. Glaser Surreal-Absurd Sampler

“I've always loved the surreal. Some of my early influences were Dalí, The Legend of Zelda, and stories from the Old Testament. More recently I've admired James Tate poems and Remedios Varo paintings. I love the glorious freedom in creating art, in saying and picturing new and unusual things. Sometimes art feels like the only place one can truly do whatever they want. I've found poetry to be an especially lawless and inviting zone. While I do other forms of writing, poetry is where I'm most loose and playful.”

— Rachel B. Glaser

~~~

dark Paris

you take me to Paris but it’s dark Paris

a bat flaps across the museum

it’s been night for three days

in bad Paris we become lonely puppets of ourselves

roadkill abounds

carrots go soft

we wanted a vacation but we end up in pain Paris

where every painting hurts your head

we’re sexually frustrated in dry Paris

and choke on handfuls of bread

I end up in hell Paris

where every thought is excruciating

but escape to sad Paris

and wander through its weepy lakes

there is nothing quite like the music of sad Paris

which fills one like dessert

and I like the movies in dark Paris

and some of the jokes in bad Paris

and the sand art in dry Paris

He’s got a huge soho loft, but no dick

he’s got a really big vocabulary but no dick to speak of

he’s got a motorcycle parked in the garage

but still…

he’s never had a dick or lost it?

I’m in his loft, like where is it?

he shows me his watch collection

his high thread count

he has a valuable stock portfolio

I left feeling amiss

I called my friend

He’s got a great personality but no dick, I said

Front row tickets to the concert, but…

he called and I put my friend on hold

he said, I have something for you

I said, Did I leave my bag?

he said, Yes, you left your bag

but I have something else to show you

and I felt a ripple of life within me

I walked hurriedly back to his loft

Look, he said holding it in his hands

it twisted around his arm

its little tongue felt like sandpaper

It’s endangered, he said

It’s my brother’s, he admitted

it pumped with air

it curled like smoke

I’d never seen anything like it

What is that? I asked

ready for love

Wet Sleeve

she was conceived in a toll booth

she cooks porridge that tastes like Xerox paper

she only watches census man porn

she hitchhikes to the post office to see if she’s “still got it”

she puts on temporary tattoos before teaching at the women’s prison

her ringtone is the sneeze of a vole

her high school mascot was the principal’s son

on beautiful days, she test-drives sports cars

on rainy days, she makes paper dolls of her neighbors

she has a love/hate relationship with her gynecologist, Susan

she can run a 45-minute mile

she got banned from the New York Stock Exchange for dancing

she once saw a cloud that looked like Julia Roberts

she doesn’t mind mosquitos because she likes being part of other lives

she debates freewill with meter-maids

she ages like a pressed flower, forgetting all she learned in school

she always orders the special even if it’s not that special

she once did a strip tease to the alphabet

she drives therapists to madness

when she sobs, it hails

every bath she steps into turns lukewarm

she wrote the controversial pamphlet 101 pranks for astronauts

she built a flute that summons the Northern Lights

most have never heard of her, but the great horned owl has, and hates her

her playlists of found audio ruins parties

her FBI file has lots of doodles in it

when she goes on dates her date can never see her

when she sends postcards they go back in time

she has new car smell but no car

Alien at the party

it looked human enough that I thought of it as male

but seemed deeply uncool

robotic, pleased with itself

its head swiveled on its long neck

its hair nearly touching its shoulders

it singled me out with its wet eyes

and began asking riddles

proving a language ability superior to mine

like me, it found humans conventional

and their lives common and boring

it showed me where it slept—

a dark capsule hidden from the sun

it began kissing my nipples over my shirt

like I… could be attracted… to an alien…

I thought skeptically

my blood pounding through my body

when it put its fingers in me

it felt at first like being prodded by a doctor

then there was a violent whooshing in my ears

my soul raced up a spiral staircase

an inner door opened

revealing wilderness

I felt pressure in my ears

as the alien transmitted his standards of beauty

you might assume he was hot for technology

but this was the opposite—

operas, Renaissance painting

it was over just as soon as it began

I don’t need the alien, I thought

returning to the party

but while the alien was immortal

I aged as a human ages

tangled in the past

blind to the future

ungracefully lurching into obscurity

Angels

often their tasks make no sense

make sure so-and-so gets on the train

keep the innkeeper awake

after, they stroll around humming, watching squirrels

they gamble and play pinball

make bonfires in the woods

they eat scrambled eggs in all-night diners

seduce strangers in hotel bars

they go on benders, creating messes

they have drunken foot races in soggy wheat fields

they forget their purpose, they break their headset

they do drugs and see things

they need more but there is nothing

screaming into the wind, they drive motorcycles off mountain cliffs

but always wake up back in the dorms

Dream Boy

I play in the eyes

the eyes are TVs

the eyes look out to the hillside

I flip the channels

I run through the body

I watch the mind spark

I write in my own thoughts

I stroke the brain absentmindedly

I’m gross

covered in tears

blood and whatever else

I sleep in the balls

I struggle up the ribs

I sleep in the mouth

I can’t die

I’m a fairy in a boy

I’m listening to the droning of who’s talking to him

I can read by the eyes

the eyes let in a little light

I can escape through the ears

but I just beam out

I ball up into fuzz

I burst in the air like dust

I stretch over him like a tight suit

the boy is mortal

can’t do anything but live

I grow bored

I dream up his dreams

and press them in

it all feels like maintenance

his friends drone on and on

the fluids! the mucus!

I need to bathe away from beings

I need to spend a summer in the garden

like last summer

but always a dimwit intrigues me

his voice trailing into a bar

I want to see the civilization inside him

never is it as enriching as a book

always he meets a being

a woman from the supermarket

or his own staggering self in the mirror

I should be exploring tombs

like Elsie does

but the smell!

I can’t imagine

~~~

“dark Paris” was previously published in jubilat. "He's got a huge soho loft but no dick" and "Dream Boy" were both previously published in Two Serious Ladies and later in the book HAIRDO (Song Cave, 2017). An earlier version of “Wet Sleeve” was previously published in blush. "Alien at the party" was previously in Muumuu House. "Angels" was previously published in Biscuit Hill.

~~~

Rachel B. Glaser is the author the poetry books, MOODS and HAIRDO, the story collection, Pee On Water, and the novel, Paulina & Fran. She teaches fiction in the low-residency Mountainview MFA program and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with the poet John Maradik.