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.

Out of the woods

I have no story.
No masterpiece,
no grand release,
no claim to glory.

I live inside the artist’s brush,
the cooling night, the river’s rush,
the knocking of the woodland Thrush;
in Plato’s Allegory.

***

Art by Remedios Varo

How

How straight the young oak
that dreams of sky-rise.

How stilled- the hot houses,
brow-beaten in the heartbeat of the heat.

How contrived-
the perfect lawns like dime store pictures.

How bobbing-
the tiny birds that speak in peeps.

How serene the cat- curled in woolen sleep.

Perfect ~ by Lisa Alletson

Milk Candy Review

We would always stub out our candy cigarettes on the mulberry leaves in our tree house, fingers and lips stained purple from berries, watching our parents drink gin and tonics after sets of sweaty tennis. Mia’s mother with the long legs saying her daughter would soon need a nose job. Her whisky voice rising into the branches when she asked my father to join her for a shower. My mother giggling and pouring her gin to overflowing.

***

We would always track down the nearest bar no matter what continent. Mia’s huge grin getting us in even when the place was full. Waiters competing to refill her perfect martini. Refusing the men buying her drinks, she’d pull me from my chair to slow dance, her fingers smoothing my hair, holding my body tighter with each passing city and year, as we’d sway and sing Piano Man in every language we…

View original post 122 more words

Twelve

On a roaming evening in a town called Twelve, the houses were all of glass. One could see, as one passed, the cold and the warm hearths, the worshippings, the pointing fingers. The quick caresses or the coldness of turned backs and folded arms.

The street of shops was all dull metal, windowless with risings of sooty smoke . I heard the hiss of pavement rain, and stopped for a slowly train. On a lime-lit billboard in a field of wild rice, broad brush strokes said SEVEN, a devil’s tail pointing straight ahead.

All my life

I feel odd and strange: as if someone from the future has breezed into my room. From a point of light in a grey sky he comes. He has broken wings and sunken eyes, but smiles and caresses my face with warm hands. And he says…no, his eyes say…”All your life. All your life.”

(With acknowledgement to Lennon / McCartney)

[Art by Francis Picabia- “The infinity of God”

Laundromat

My opinion is that some go there with weeks worth of dirty laundry and take up too many washers & dryers.

Others come and empty the change machines for their poker games or parking meters, then leave.

At least one has stolen a nice sweater, when they thought no one was looking. They put it with their laundry, got in their car, and left. I took a license number.

There is a shy man who sits on the window ledge. Looks at you like a puppy and smiles as you enter or leave. It’s unsettling.

Once, a hundred-dollar bill was found in an otherwise empty dryer.

Another time, a bag containing a large piece of shit was found in a dryer when a person was taking their clothes out. They had to rewash and dry everything.

Some just sit on the chairs and don’t speak at all, and don’t read. Only stare. It’s unsettling.

Some come there, and their side gig is meeting new people. They chat you up when you’re the one who’s sitting and staring. It’s unsettling.

There’s a sign on the door that says, “This door locks automatically at 11pm.” Does that mean you are trapped inside if you’re late getting out? What if you have two or three loads to take to the car, but you’re locked out before you can get the last one? It’s unsettling.

Tempests

Having come from the seas of your storms and decades of disquiet, I step, directionless, on an unmoving Earth. Being tooled for havoc, I despair of knowing what might fill this brazen peace, this wild surcease.

[Art: The Ship, by Salvador Dali]