Author Archives: Lee Dunn

Lee Dunn has been writing since the age of 18, but found that work got in the way for the ensuing 48 years. In his home town of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, he reveled in his independence at an early age, and spent as much time as he could exploring the city’s Arts scene. He was introduced to poetry and prose by the works of two literary giants, namely J.R.R. Tolkien and J.W. Lennon and thence fell in love with the written word. His work includes poetry, short fiction, and personal essays, and ranges in theme from the surreal to the horrific, nostalgic, and themes on the human condition. He has been published on Spillwords.com, The Dark Poets Club, Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Crepe & Penn Literary magazine, and the Shelburne Free Press.

No words

Looking back,
I think she was afraid
when I saw her truth.
We had never spoken,
but in the group sessions,
she surprised me
with split second glances
and strange blushes.
Then, tables turned,
I made a game
of trying to catch her eye.
Not a single word.
That’s how it goes.

…and then one night, as I walked under a streetlight in the fluttering snow, she pulled up to the stop sign in a pickup truck. Rolled down the window. Smiled and waved. I waved back, though I didn’t know who it was, or how the heck anyone would have recognized me in a winter parka. Next morning, I waited in line for a coffee at the drive-thru. As I pulled up to the window, there she was, with her half smile and eyes averted. I broke the ice and said “I know you. You drive a black Ford pickup, right?” Again, a blush. “Thanks for your order, Sir.”

Twitter

Here is a Book of Faces
of a nobler sort.
Each one (that can be seen),
beautiful in some way.
If we but read between the lines,
we can divine their colours.
So many are umbral now,
I fear.
But I am fatalistic, cynical.
I hope I am wrong,
when I cry
for the ones who smile.

Puppers

We were nine.
I believed everything you said.
Touching a toad gave you warts.
Step on a crack,
you break your mother’s back.
Kill a spider and it rains.
We made grasshoppers spit tobacco,
knew the divinity
of buttercups, daisies,
and dandelion chains.
Such puppies in love.

On my way

In a while,
maybe,
I will not know you.
Don’t cry or be afraid
when you do not know me.
There’s a short story
yet to be told,
and it begins its writing
with a halting hand.
Even as I stand over a tiled drain,
I make the water hotter.
That spinal rush.
That warming touch.

A hand taken

Trickle-down drops
and slowed lightning
speak to me of pathways.
Oh, I know
that practice makes perfect.
Must I learn, once again,
what was glossed over
too quickly?
Numbers and Deuteronomy
taught me that details
are not bedeviled.
Now, I pay attention
without training wheels.

Coquette!

Side glances are nice,
I like.
Eye rolls with a half smile too.
I’m always glad to see the back of you,
but not in the traditional sense.
Coquettish.
In my dream, I drink champagne
from your glass slipper.
Help you with your broken zipper.
Stocking seams are back in style.
Ahem!

Ghost writer

All murky she sat,
with her palindrome pen,
as she flavoured the localized ether.

And her Hallowe’en cat
was asleep once again,
as it lay on the carpet beneath her.

When she’d written her prose,
and its vapours arose,
she danced (for the spirit was willing).

Her compadres were lazy,
and the rest had gone crazy,
so the market was hers for the killing.

[Art by Bryan Baugh]

Adamless Eve

Dearest Eve-
When you are born,
may you grow
in sacrificial love.
May you bathe
in the galloping days,
take the hand of many,
and rejoice in that which is given.
When you teach,
we will follow,
laying aside all that is false.
This is your time.
We will be ready.

The oddness

Could it be a tangle of ganglia
that makes me think odd things
and care about devil’s details?

You see a tree, a rock, a brick.

I think of searching roots,
the alchemy of an acorn,
compactions of crystals
from Earth’s hot breath,

and cuboid ovens cooking in colours.

No fun

I spent last night in the hospital, after taking a new medication.