All Poems

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Walking The Marshland

© Stephen Dunn

It was no place for the faithless,
so I felt a little odd
walking the marshland with my daughters,

Slant

© Stephen Dunn

The trees, now, are trees
I'm seeing myself seeing.
I'll always deny that I kissed her.
I was just whispering into her mouth.

The Sudden Light And The Trees

© Stephen Dunn

My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog
and wife beater.
In bad dreams I killed him

Essay On The Personal

© Stephen Dunn

Because finally the personal
is all that matters,
we spend years describing stones,
chairs, abandoned farmhouses

Named

© Stephen Dunn

He'd spent his life trying to control the names
people gave him;
oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt.

With No Experience In Such Matters

To hold a damaged sparrow
under water until you feel it die
is to know a small something
about the mind; how, for example,
it blames the cat for the original crime,
how it wants praise for its better side.

At The Smithville Methodist Church

© Stephen Dunn

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home
with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
was up, what ancient craft.

Biography In The First Person

© Stephen Dunn

This is not the way I am.
Really, I am much taller in person,
the hairline I conceal reaches back
to my grandfather, and the shyness my wife

Story

© Stephen Dunn

Praise the odd, serendipitous world.
Nothing I'd be inclined to think of
would have stopped that dog.
Only the facts saved her.

Welcome

© Stephen Dunn

if you believe nothing is always what's left
after a while, as I did,
If you believe you have this collection
of ungiven gifts, as I do (right here

The Routine Things Around The House

© Stephen Dunn

When Mother died
I thought: now I'll have a death poem.
That was unforgivable.

Allegory Of The Cave

© Stephen Dunn

He climbed toward the blinding light
and when his eyes adjusted
he looked down and could see

I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone

© Stephen Dunn

The dogs greet me, I descend
into their world of fur and tongues
and then my wife and I embrace
as if we'd just closed the door

Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry

© Stephen Dunn

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You're beautiful for as long as you live.

Like Barley Bending

Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;

Blue Squills

How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!

On A March Day

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind
That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,
Making a key-board of the earth to strike
From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,

Guenevere

I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
There is no other havoc left to do.

To E.

But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you --
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.