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.

The spirits of today

[The scene:  Mister and Missus lie abed.  Morning light begins to filter in, but the snooze goes on and on.  Their eyes are their own, for a last time.  Two phantom faces, etched in smoke, circle the ceiling.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[RIMIDALV]  It is time.  Let us go.

[MIK]  Which one do you want?

[RIMIDALV]  You take the lumpy one.

[MIK]  Hah!  I think you just lost out!

***They enter into these two temples***

[RIMIDALV]  Ooh…you are right.  This is a bad feeling.

[MIK]  Do you think it will be a lengthy time before we learn the moves?

[RIMIDALV]  Nonsense.  We’ve had similar before.  Use the muscles, rise from bed.

***Mik sits up, stands, slides one foot ahead of the other***

[MIK]  Look!  I did do it!  Now you.  What’s the matter?

[RIMIDALV]  I don’t know.  The stiffness, the fog.  I think this one was a student of sloth.

[MIK]  Then give it some exercise.

***Rimidalv rises and does a few jumping jacks.***

[RIMIDALV]  The blood pumper doth protest.  We must lie and get some rest.

[MIK]  Sleep through the day…deal?

[RIMIDALV]  Yes, we will need the energy.  Tomorrow is a big day.

[MIK]  By the way, did these things have names?

[RIMIDALV]  Let’s look.

***They both smile, close the curtains, and jump into bed***

[RIMIDALV]  Goodnight, Mel.

[MIK]  Goodnight, Don.

 

These aren’t the ‘roids you’re looking for

hey!

I just got back from pikkapak

and I don’t know why I came.

It’s an asteroidy bric-a-brac

like in the viddy game.

It’s big enough to have some fun

but you gotta come out early

(just before the morning sun)

to catch the hurly-burly.

Their party time is two-four-seven,

and no one ever sleeps.

And nobody will go to heaven,

but no one ever weeps.

Now, if you’d like to visit there

to wash away your worry,

well…brush your teeth and comb your hair

and get dressed in a hurry!

The next conveyance leaves at five.

Be waiting at the station!

And try your best to look alive

to pass examination!

No rush, no rush.

On the old dirt road,
all is calm,
all is bright.
A stand of cat-tails recovers from yesterday’s bent,
telling me which way the wind went.
Browning fronds dip down,
drawing degrees of their deaths from the snow.
Nothing here for anyone, really.
Nor for feather, fur, or fin.
Here I stopped for an insistent bladder.
With that taken care of, I turn to go,
but stay instead, for a moment or two.
If my party friends could see me now,
they might say
“there he goes with his mooning daydreams”.
It’s a peculiar time, a pausing time, a settling time.
All that has been, and all that will be
seem to have met at this nexus.
A thing, put off through doubt,
is affirmed, and I nod,
to no one in particular.
From my backseat toolbox, I grab some scissors.
Cat-tails.
She always liked them.
But these are not the pencil ones.
And they are dead.

The planting

I had to support his brain as he disembarked, leaving the ship’s queer gravity. He was their monarch, born one in a billion. Emblazoned on the pale pink of his forehead was a galaxy with named suns. I have never become used to his elongated cranium, its soft translucent skin revealing a venous pattern of blue, purple, red. I felt his people’s deference to him, and was honored to have such a place amongst them. As rehearsed, the retinue bore his chair to an area of scorched earth. In vestigial hands, he held a vial. One of our number, using a cylindrical instrument of contained heat, neatly extracted a deep core of earth. Then, the Lord let fall his treasure. With ceremony, the core was replaced and tamped down. An attendant brought an urn of liquid and poured it out upon the site. In my third ear, I hear There will be plenty. And, at the last, You too will be of plenty.

You see, I also carry a seed.

In the waiting room

With the exception of an elderly couple, and a young couple with a toddler, I think everyone in the X-Ray waiting room, other than me, was staring at their phone.
It was the “please take a number” system, and I lucked out by having mine called about two minutes after I sat down.  It was, however, just a preliminary registration, and you still had to wait for your attendant to call you in.

To pass the time, I normally just people watch, hopefully without being too obtrusive.  If someone makes eye contact (increasingly unlikely these days), I smile and say a couple of pleasantries, perhaps remarking on their cute baby.  Today, there was silence, except for the old man and woman speaking in low tones, and the woman behind the desk, who would call out every few minutes “number eighteen?  Is there a number eighteen?”  After the third or fourth repetition of this, I suggested she could take a coffee break.

A man and woman walked in with a seven or eight year old boy.  They sat down without taking a number. The boy amused himself by picking up books, dropping them on the floor, running around the room , trying on another kid’s hat, and…..you get the picture.  His parents sat looking at their phones, and finally, after some glances of displeasure from across the room, the dad grabbed him by the arm, shook him, yelled at him, and plunked him down in a chair, whereupon he started to wail.  “Number eighteen, number eighteen?” sounded again, and they realized they needed to get up and grab the ticket.

The young couple with the toddler, who was remarkably well behaved, had him sit on his Mom’s knee, and she began to read quietly to him, from a Dr. Seuss book.  She made each character come alive, and her child was in rapt attention, his glance going from the book, to his mother’s eyes, and back.  It struck me that this scene made a little tableau that was like something out of a Christmas card, or a child’s storybook.  I was so taken, that the woman looked up and caught me staring.  I reddened a little, and smiled.  She smiled back, and continued with the reading.

I am nothing if not a sentimentalist, and this seemingly blissful family brought me back to the days when I used to read or sing my own children to sleep, and I thought “if they remember nothing else, I hope at least that they remember that.”

There’s no coming back

might it be
that you hear me only
as a poorly played horn
a bothersome oboe

as you rest in the wheeled chair
with your gown of faded flowers
and a tray of uneaten food before you
I think you have left little of yourself
to control this bird’s body
its care no longer a concern

its eyes they watch something
but not this room
not this person who is me

are you privy to the divine
forsaking all else

a week ago
inches from you
I cried.
you knew
at least that.
you knew,
for there was a wistful smile
a swimming back

and now
I make my peace
because I know that you take with you
something of me

Dream twenty four: in the funnel

I lean in from a cloud,
spying this lake of slate,
in the never evergreen bush.
The sunny side has big boats three,
yachting this shiny blue day.
Merrymakers loll on the decks.
Shapely girls lean out on the prow rails,
icons of the Titanic.
I hear their cries and laughter
over the gulls.
In my monstrous vertebrae I feel,
from southern climes,
the approach of electric grey,
with green barely seen.
No weather master am I,
and so I take a lungful of fluffy steam,
stadium-sized,
to blow a Southwind warning.
On deaf ears it falls.
They jeer at the momentary gale,
for I cannot blot the sun.
And then, the sounding storm.
The waters riddled with rain.
They scurry like aimless ants,
furling sails.
The stormfront’s infantry:
three vacuum funnels,
all of contrast sharp,
all of bright chrome.
Slowly they revolve at the outset.
Then, of a sudden, they part ranks at speed,
like silver balls released in a trice
by pinball plunger.
I fear for the fate of the four score on deck.
The spouts harass the boats,
like bothering bees,
and there is much terror and clinging.
They do a devil dance,
then congregate, as if by design,
at the North’s sandy shore.
Stay, they do.
The mile long lake they suck and spew,
into the clouds, as fine as dew.
And the sailors of the weekend?
Their upright ships do gently rest
at lower elevations.
Stuck in the mucky silt of centuries.