One Poem by Matthew Bullen
The latest resident of the aquarium of memory
seems displeased to find itself there, glides over the ultrafine alabaster sand, curls up the tip of one slender tentacle,
then punches an oblivious neon fish—
likely from sheer spite, but who’s to say?
The idea of a thing is only the surface of a reflection, the echo of the thing coiled in a speculative cave,
or a shipwrecked flask bubbling with an indolent dragon’s wine.
The territorial swarm remains indifferent: too small, too absorbed in the wakes trailing its collection of striped fins.
The filter hums, stirs lucid currents.
Matthew Bullen holds an MA in creative writing from Lancaster University, England, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of Red Ogre Review, an indie press that publishes an online journal of contemporary poetry and visual art and a poetry chapbook series.
Matt has poetry published with Arsenic Lobster, glassworks, Harpy Hybrid Review, Quibble Lit, Rejection Letters, The Daily Drunk (SMOL Fair Zine), tiny frights, and Underwood, creative nonfiction with National Geographic and the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, and fine art photography with Exist Otherwise, Punk Monk Magazine, and Setu Magazine. He lives in Santa Monica, California.