Marcus Slease
—
Horses
- for Leonora Carrington
She takes out the horses. There are so many colours. Purple, green, and red. Those are her favourites.
You have to jump them over the poles and also the water. You have to trot them around the grounds.
The moss covered branches. The muddy ditches. The purpling juice of the berries. She unlatches the
gates every morning. And also every evening. You have to feed the horses. When you pull back the lips
the teeth are very large. And also very white. She leans her ear to hear the crunch of the apples. She leans
her spine to shine the horse hair. The horses fill with snow. She cuts the moon with a silver spoon. She cuts
the bread with a golden knife. Rolling under the table. Clacking under the floors. Bagged in carpet. You have
to keep them steady in their sperm coffins.
Marcus Slease is a (mostly) absurdist, surrealist and fabulist writer from Portadown, N. Ireland. He is the author of The Spirit of the Bathtub, Play Yr Kardz Right, Rides, Mu (dream) So (Window) and Godzenie, among others. His poetry has been translated into Danish and Polish, featured in the Best British Poetry series, and he has performed his work at various festivals and events in Prague, Madrid, London, Bristol, Manchester, North Carolina and Ireland. He has made his home in such places as Turkey, Poland, Italy, South Korea, the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom – experiences that inform his nomadic surrealist writing. Currently, he lives in Castelldefels, Spain and teaches high school literature in Barcelona. He is working on a trilogy of nomadic surrealist novels entitled The Autobiography of Don Whiskers. His newest book, The Green Monk, is forthcoming from Boiler House Press in November 2018.
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