Poems, prose poems, prose transcriptions of dreams-- George Mattingly's work is beyond categories and follows the surrealist dictum 'astonish me.'
Goodbye Sonnet
Outside cool July half an hour from morning
Charlie sends love from Salt Lake / Aretha Franklin fills the room
& distant trucksounds give life a constant disguise....
Smoke occurs to the plant by the clock:
It's a thought : smoke : to the plant : are my thoughts that
real? Orange drink, for instance, results from
the planter's affection for sharkskin, a few oranges,
& lots of chemicals, with thoughts of their own.
Birds plant their wings in the sun,
Roberto Clemente goes to sleep in the sea.
I dream I am dreaming but everything's real,
the snow on TV & the pictures of you left in me,
though maybe the real you's got your thumb out by now,
in the hamburger storms that drench America with identical details.