Thomas Helm Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“For me, writing surreal-absurd poetry is a way of sifting through the unconscious and encountering things that feel important there. Often the best images are those that feel all too real despite their obvious artifice. They are like luminous excavations of the unconscious, jewels mined from the silence and darkness within. I use the word “image” instead of “poem” to stress the intensely visual nature of the medium, as I perceive it. The reduced language setting of prose-poetry can help bring those images to life without other elements of poetic artifice getting in the way. These surreal-absurd prose-poems come from a work-in-progress manuscript titled ‘72 Names of God(ess)’.”
— Thomas Helm
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THE POET
In the cardboard ruins of a subterranean library, a poet goes from shelf to shelf, floor to floor, searching for the perfect book. In the perfect book is a perfect sequence of words that reveals the structure of reality, the reason for life, the meaning of action. Those words are so final and absolute that all other forms of communication sink back into silence upon their utterance. The poet has a sense of being in the library before; other hands have held that same torch; other eyes have scanned the dusty volumes whose binders are like pressed flowers. However close she gets to the book, there is always further to go.
THE DIGGER
Five men are digging a hole but only two of them are human. Assembled quickly and cheaply in a nearby factory, the other three are made from grease and sugar cubes. They grin and talk just like other men, but are sweeter and tend to be less concerned about themselves. The trucks that deliver them take the older ones away, free of charge. And with so many holes to dig, they are always in plentiful demand.
THE SCULPTOR
The sculptors rob their stone from old tombs, abandoned offices, and other mens’ wives. Squirrels and rats used to curry favour with them, though after a series of unfortunate communication failures, the old alliances gradually fell into disuse. Now only badgers nibble on their robes as they are working. You badger, pass me that blasted chisel, the sculptors are wont to shout, momentarily forgetting that their badger friends lack hands and are incapable of most human work. My apologies, sweet creature, comes the inevitable afterthought. Building a masterpiece can be stressful, you know. The badgers are thicker-skinned than the squirrels and the rats and so tend not to take these outbursts personally.
THE BAKER
The baker who got lost in the desert ended up walking in circles, until a crow told him to reach down and pick up a handful of the soft brick-coloured sand. Then he knew instantly what to do. Having filled his old bag with as much sand as he could, he closed his eyes and dreamt his way out of the desert. Five years later, in the terrible city with dark towers, he used the sand to build a bread oven. They say the bread from that oven could turn adults back into children; though no-one knows whether this is true, for one day the baker ate a loaf of his own bread and was never seen again. And then the lease on his apartment expired and the oven ended up being sold off to a militant group of ecologists, who never once used the oven, but somehow managed to lose it during a demonstration in Tennessee.
THE FARMER
A masked man is driving a tractor with two trailers attached to it. The first trailer is filled with stuffed animals - toys and taxidermies - and the second with people in chains. At the end of the road is a long and level plain fed by many rivers and a red and white circus tent. After a quick identity check, the masked man and his tractor are allowed to proceed into the centre of the ring, where he receives rapturous applause. His prize people are truly exceptional. By throwing them stuffed animals, he gets them to perform certain tricks. The crowd’s pleasure is so intense that it verges on mania. Somewhere, in a nearby prison, a fire alarm goes off, but nobody is overly concerned, because the show is just so great.
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THOMAS HELM is a writer and journalist and helps edit Mercurius. He has two poetry collections “The Mountain Where Nothing Happens” and “A Pilgrimage of Donkeys”, both of which engage with the surreal-absurd.
