Dean Young, Skid

I had a hankering for a bit of surrealism. Albeit at some remove from the banal but occasionally... surreal is too dramatic a term for those moments in life... "surprising"?... And connected, where I could connect. Unlike the Simic I had read many years ago that just seemed like so much word play (and not very fun at that). So...

Start again.

I had a hankering for a bit of surrealism and found it in Dean Young's Skid.

I wasn't swept away by the collection, but I never am -- with either verse or prose -- when I enter into it expecting anything, let alone to be carried on. And somehow, for some reason -- seduced by the cover blurbs perhaps, by something I read online of his other collections -- I was expecting the world. Instead I found little crystals.

When young, fall in and out of love like a window
that is open and only about a foot off the ground.
Occasionally land in lilacs
or roses if you must
but remember, the roses
have been landed in many times.

"Whale Watch" (40)

And...

There was my famous use of humor
that Jordan said was the avoidance of emotion.

"Even Funnier Looking Now" (81)

But isn't that all we can hope to find, are lucky to find? Crystals that speak to us in the moment?

What a good horse he is...