Saturday 15 June 2024

'Surly Lizards' by Matthew Bullen

I want to write a novel about dragons, she said, but I thought that three hundred or more pages of subverting tropes about surly lizards and the heroes who whack at them with swords was too predictable, if not exhausting.

We agreed.

The idea of a thing is more perniciously infectious than the thing itself, under the microscope, the contagions of the psyche too stubborn to stay dead for long; in any event, since most people rarely see wild animals of any significant maliciousness – racoons in the trash don’t count, nor the occasional opossum, nor the average territorial jay – let alone see mythological creatures, the theme devolves to a projection of the unknown into a reification of moral panic.

Dragons, of course, designed to destroy and devour, take any shape they please.

 



Matthew Bullen holds an MA in creative writing from Lancaster University 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, along with a poetry chapbook series. Matt has poetry published or forthcoming with Arsenic Lobster, Broken Antler, BS/WS, Cape Magazine, FERAL, glassworks, Harpy Hybrid Review, Memezine, Quibble Lit, Rejection Letters, The Daily Drunk (SMOL Fair Zine), The Friday Poem, tiny frights, and Underwood. His first microcollection, Who Needs a Door When You Have a Fence, was recently published by Rinky Dink Press. He has also published 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.

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