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.

More cat trouble

just outside my bedroom door
that little beggar waits
it’s finished all the bowls of food
and licked the empty plates

it’s pigeon-toed and cross-eyed
a ghastly sight to see
belly drags upon the floor
and a gaze that’s fixed on me

I think it has a pocket watch
(it always knows the time)
and sidles to my bedroom door
upon the stroke of nine

anticipation’s in its eye
(the left one, so I think)
the right one sends the signals out
and neither one will blink

and so I rise, attempting to
ignore its nagging yip
I walk on past, it catches up
and tries to make me trip

every day I lose the fight
the wife, she thinks it’s funny
I think I’ll help it pack its bags
and give it bus fare money

she says we can’t have company
no more, ’cause it’s no use
if someone sees it, we’ll be charged
with animal abuse.

 

 

 

Crippled

A day, smartingly bright.
Smallish trees bend under windyness-
fishing rods tugged in unison.
Weeds party in the garish garden.
The fence, once painted traffic white,
leans into dishevelment.
Through its pickets, in time lapse,
the rarity of a skipping child.
A scooter-bound granny with a head full of stories,
and, later, the pilot of a souped-up wheelchair,
doing her death wish pirouettes in the roadway
while passers-by stop and honk.
All of these, like paintings seen through a clinging veil.
Seen by the crippled inside.
One more coffee, maybe,
to feed the prurience,
the insomnia.

These hands

These hands, today,

Are not mine, surely.

They make the motions,

So demurely.

Minding their own purpose, purely.

Bent on insurrection.

Brush my teeth with shaving cream.

Comb my hair with Vaseline.

Perhaps it all is just a dream,

But in the wrong direction.

Coffee mug all prepped and ready.

Loopy legs are still unsteady.

Grind the beans, they smell so heady.

The nose detects perfection.

Pouring water, I’m betrayed.

The rebel digits, they have played

Another trick, and I’m afraid

Of mutinous defection.

The coffee beans, they’ve put into

My oatmeal dish, to make a stew.

There is no other point of view!

This surely needs correction.

In a fix, in a pickle, in a stew

Captain Miller and his boys
Heard the lookout cry ahoy!
As they ran aground upon the bar of sand

And their hardy ship was broken
And their gunpowder was soakin’
And the situation soon got out of hand
When the storm had cast the crew upon this land

”Twas just a little island
But he warned them all Be silent
He was wary for the safety of his crew

So they brought what they could carry
And he told them not to tarry
And bring those guns and ammunition too
Or we’ll wind up in a pickle and a stew

Now, the natives, they were tribal
And they’d never seen the Bible
And they cared not but a fig for being kind

And they smelled the blood of others
Who were surely not their brothers
And they crept upon the crewmen from behind
With culinary motives on their mind

So they had them all surrounded
And upon their prey they bounded
They were silent, and they blended with the night

And the sailors were defeated,
Of their guns and ammo cheated,
And they couldn’t even offer up a fight
They were dragged away, before the morning light

Now, the tribal men were hungry
All they had was fruit and sundry
And the puny fish they caught within their net

And the coals, they were a-raking
Getting ready for the baking
Of the biggest catch they’d captured, as of yet
And the sailors, they were humbled with regret

Now the Chief, he started dreaming
Of the roasting and the steaming
And the savory delights they would enjoy

And the slaughter would be gruesome
And the barbeque so toothsome
A rotisserie of spits they would employ
And the sailors’ sorry ship they would destroy

Now, the Captain, he was cunning
And his mind had started running
To a way they might this tragedy undo

How to rescue all his crewmen
From these natives so inhuman
And find their guns and ammunition too
And free them from this Pickle, and this Stew.

Number 16- Shoulders in the sea

On the promontory, in the day,
Alone, I look in idleness.
Gulls circle, their cries a tapestry of the familiar.
But on this day, they swarm.  So many.
And, now, their crude symphony quiets swiftly
into a windblown silence.
Disturbed I am, in my ennui.
A smoky greyness filters all reflection.
The birds, in this cool contrast,
have the aspect and the purpose of carrion seekers.
I see, in this charcoal sea,
lapped over by choppy waves,
what surely are the twin backs of some marine enormity, not of this place.
The buzzards, still in silence,
circle ever more tightly,
but will not land.
The marine things do not move.
From the gloom,
I spy the coming storm, one of immediacy.
The carrion birds disperse, leaving the scene.
For a moment, losing my vision, I cower.
Then I see, in the charcoal sea,
not two beasts, but the shoulders of a drowned giant,
bared by the boiling billows.
As I hold fast to my rock,
the ferocious tempest turns her over,
and the dead face floats,
entangled in the green hair of the sea.

I am overcome.

What did he just (Tecum)say?

Truer words…..from The Dread Poets Sobriety

dReadpoetssobriety's avatarDread Poets Sobriety

I wanted first to touch on the fact that I’ve been making jokes for years about how in 1814 Canadians (really Mother England at this point) burned down the White House and most of the rest of Washington. Sorry aboot that… You’re probably however, good moving forward. It seems doubtful that zombie Tecumseh will be returning from the grave for a rematch. Just in case anyone was in need of reassurance…

I don’t really want to talk about economics today other than to say the benefits of free trade and in particular, the efficiencies achieved through specialization were made quite clear to me in an eleventh grade text-book. It is not complicated theory. Protectionist policies almost always achieve the inverse of their intentions. Unintended consequences. Fuck Keynes, that is the REAL “classical economics”.

Of course all of that said everyone knows the only way to get rid of a bully…

View original post 281 more words

Fear and loathing

This is something that cuts to my very quick, and makes me feel shame.

Today, I was sitting in my car with the windows down, waiting for my wife to get off work.  I was distracted from my phone by some loud and raucous noises.  My first thought was that it was a bunch of young ruffians fooling around, perhaps calling each other names and shoving about.

I looked around, and saw that it was an older woman, in her 60s or 70s, being led across the parking lot by a young woman.  The older lady was shouting loud expletives, making animal noises,  crying in a singsong manner (as sometimes children do), and attempting to pull away from her chaperone.

I was in awe of the young woman’s manner, which was kind and patient.

A few of the people in the vicinity stopped what they were doing and stared, some making remarks behind upraised hands.

I think that my greatest fear in life has been to lose my faculties.  I do not know why this is.  Maybe because I have seen it in others, some close to me, and reacted poorly.

I only hope that, if this is in the cards for me, that I have an angel like the one I saw today to show me kindness and understanding.