The surrealism of "Jelly" by Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger (trans. Brian Henry) is anything but subtle. It reminds me of the science fiction novel Blood Music by Greg Bear.
The poem is from Šteger's collection, The Book of Things (BOA Editions 2010), which I picked up at a Border's bankruptcy sale. "Objects of all stripes are transformed by Šteger's alchemy," writes translator Brian Henry in the introduction. "Though various and variously treated, the things in The Book of Things have in common the attention of a singular mind."
I find the collection interesting, but uneven. Some of the poems read like writing exercises (write a poem about shoes!) that never quite made it to the next level. But in many of them Šteger does transform the "things" that are his nominal subjects. "Sea Horse" is lovely and changeable:
Creatures of liquid light, vagabonds of underwater currents,
Students of belly dancing, the ocean’s brides loyal to his moods.
With their final breath, forgotten Phoenician gods
Inflated glassy bodies that shine like empty clepsydrae.
Tails wrap playfully around the mesh in fishing nets,
The tiny wings’ fluttering sketches pillows of eternity in the restless sleep of the drowned.
Slovenia is part of the former Yugoslavia and I believe many of the poems have political overtones that are not going to be readily apparent to many American readers (myself included). "Stone" and "Wall" are probably examples of this (available here by a different translator). See also "Earring." Here is a more complete review of the collection, focusing on its parallels to Gertrude Stein's "Objects."