With No Experience In Such Matters by Stephen Dunn
With No Experience In Such Matters by Stephen Dunn 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. And yet it’s as human as […]
Welcome by Stephen Dunn
Welcome by 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 behind the silence and the averted eyes) If you believe an afternoon can collapse into strange privacies- how in your backyard, for […]
Walking The Marshland by Stephen Dunn
Walking The Marshland by Stephen Dunn It was no place for the faithless, so I felt a little odd walking the marshland with my daughters, Canada geese all around and the blue herons just standing there; safe, and the abundance of swans. The girls liked saying the words, gosling, egret, whooping crane, and they liked […]
The Sudden Light And The Trees by Stephen Dunn
The Sudden Light And The Trees by Stephen Dunn My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog and wife beater. In bad dreams I killed him and once, in the consequential light of day, I called the Humane Society about Blue, his dog. They took her away and I readied myself, a baseball bat […]
The Routine Things Around The House by Stephen Dunn
The Routine Things Around The House by Stephen Dunn When Mother died I thought: now I’ll have a death poem. That was unforgivable. Yet I’ve since forgiven myself as sons are able to do who’ve been loved by their mothers. I stared into the coffin knowing how long she’d live, how many lifetimes there are […]
Story by Stephen Dunn
Story by Stephen Dunn A woman’s taking her late-afternoon walk on Chestnut where no sidewalk exists and houses with gravel driveways sit back among the pines. Only the house with the vicious dog is close to the road. An electric fence keeps him in check. When she comes to that house, the woman always crosses […]
Slant by Stephen Dunn
Slant by Stephen Dunn Yesterday, for a long while, the early morning sunlight in the trees was sufficient, replaced by a hello from a long-limbed woman pedaling her bike, whereupon the wind came up, dispersing the mosquitoes. Blessings, all. I’d come so far, it seemed, happily looking for so little. But then I saw a […]
Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn
Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines make you sleepy or bored, give in to sleep, turn on the T.V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand such things. Its feelings cannot be […]
Named by Stephen Dunn
Named by Stephen Dunn He’d spent his life trying to control the names people gave him; oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt. Just recently he’d been a son-of-a-bitch and sweetheart in the same day, and once again knew what antonyms love and control are, and how comforting it must be to have a […]
Landscape At The End Of The Century by Stephen Dunn
Landscape At The End Of The Century by Stephen Dunn The sky in the trees, the trees mixed up with what’s left of heaven, nearby a patch of daffodils rooted down where dirt and stones comprise a kind of night, unmetaphysical, cool as a skeptic’s final sentence. What this scene needs is a nude absentmindedly […]
I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone by Stephen Dunn
I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone by 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 in a motel, our two girls slip in between us and we’re all saying each other’s names and […]
Essay On The Personal by Stephen Dunn
Essay On The Personal by Stephen Dunn Because finally the personal is all that matters, we spend years describing stones, chairs, abandoned farmhouses— until we’re ready. Always it’s a matter of precision, what it feels like to kiss someone or to walk out the door. How good it was to practice on stones which were […]
Biography In The First Person by Stephen Dunn
Biography In The First Person by 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 will not believe in has always been why I was bold on first dates. My father a crack salesman. […]
At The Smithville Methodist Church by Stephen Dunn
At The Smithville Methodist Church by 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. She liked her little friends. She liked the songs they sang when they weren’t twisting and folding […]
Allegory Of The Cave by Stephen Dunn
Allegory Of The Cave by Stephen Dunn He climbed toward the blinding light and when his eyes adjusted he looked down and could see his fellow prisoners captivated by shadows; everything he had believed was false. And he was suddenly in the 20th century, in the sunlight and violence of history, encumbered by knowledge. Only […]
The White Peacock by Stephen Vincent Benet
The White Peacock by Stephen Vincent Benet (France — Ancient Regime.) I. Go away! Go away; I will not confess to you! His black biretta clings like a hangman’s cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click, As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him; I will not confess! . […]
The Quality of Courage by Stephen Vincent Benet
The Quality of Courage by Stephen Vincent Benet Black trees against an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering up like withered arms, Writhing like streams, like twisted charms Of hot lead flung in snow. Below The iron ice stung like a goad, Slashing the torn […]
The Innovator by Stephen Vincent Benet
The Innovator by Stephen Vincent Benet (A Pharaoh Speaks.) I said, “Why should a pyramid Stand always dully on its base? I’ll change it! Let the top be hid, The bottom take the apex-place!” And as I bade they did. The people flocked in, scores on scores, To see it balance on its tip. They […]
The Hemp by Stephen Vincent Benet
The Hemp by Stephen Vincent Benet (A Virginia Legend.) The Planting of the Hemp. Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas (Black is the gap below the plank) From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees (Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank). His fear was on the seaport towns, The weight of his hand […]
The General Public by Stephen Vincent Benet
The General Public by Stephen Vincent Benet “Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?” — Browning. “Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then,” The old man said. A dry smile creased his face With many wrinkles. “That’s a great poem, now! That one of Browning’s! Shelley? Shelley plain? The time that I remember best […]
The Fiddling Wood by Stephen Vincent Benet
The Fiddling Wood by Stephen Vincent Benet Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron, Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked Over the rough crest of the hairy wood In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked, Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ The trees with magic. All the […]
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun by Stephen Vincent Benet
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun by Stephen Vincent Benet “Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny, mooning around as usual! He will never make his way.” Letter of George Keats, 18– Night falls; the great jars glow against the dark, Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling […]
The City Revisited by Stephen Vincent Benet
The City Revisited by Stephen Vincent Benet The grey gulls drift across the bay Softly and still as flakes of snow Against the thinning fog. All day I sat and watched them come and go; And now at last the sun was set, Filling the waves with colored fire Till each seemed like a jewelled […]
The Breaking Point by Stephen Vincent Benet
The Breaking Point by Stephen Vincent Benet It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound […]
Talk by Stephen Vincent Benet
Talk by Stephen Vincent Benet Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes, Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling, As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets Cornell will win the relay in a walk, While Bob and Mac discuss the Giants’ chances; Deep in a […]
Road and Hills by Stephen Vincent Benet
Road and Hills by Stephen Vincent Benet I shall go away To the brown hills, the quiet ones, The vast, the mountainous, the rolling, Sun-fired and drowsy! My horse snuffs delicately At the strange wind; He settles to a swinging trot; his hoofs tramp the dust. The road winds, straightens, Slashes a marsh, Shoulders out […]
Rain After a Vaudeville Show by Stephen Vincent Benet
Rain After a Vaudeville Show by Stephen Vincent Benet The last pose flickered, failed. The screen’s dead white Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light Stabbing the eyes; and as I stumbled out The curtain rose. A fat girl with a pout And legs like hams, began to sing “His Mother”. Gusts of bad […]
Portrait of a Boy by Stephen Vincent Benet
Portrait of a Boy by Stephen Vincent Benet After the whipping he crawled into bed, Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had looked striped red! He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping A black, frayed rag of tattered cloud before In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed, Flooding […]
Portrait of a Baby by Stephen Vincent Benet
Portrait of a Baby by Stephen Vincent Benet He lay within a warm, soft world Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, Wave upon wave that broke and whirled To vanish in the grey-green gloom, Perspectiveless and shadowy. A bulging world that had no walls, A flowing world, most like the […]
Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet
Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk, The tiresome noises, all the common things I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke. I longed for the cool quiet and the dark, Under the common sod where louts and kings Lie down, serene, unheeding, careless, stark, Never […]
Nos Immortales by Stephen Vincent Benet
Nos Immortales by Stephen Vincent Benet Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun, Into the free companionship of air; Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done, All’s one to me — I do not greatly care; So long as there are brown hills — and a tree Like a mad prophet in […]
Music by Stephen Vincent Benet
Music by Stephen Vincent Benet My friend went to the piano; spun the stool A little higher; left his pipe to cool; Picked up a fat green volume from the chest; And propped it open. Whitely without rest, His fingers swept the keys that flashed like swords, . . . And to the brute drums […]
May Morning by Stephen Vincent Benet
May Morning by Stephen Vincent Benet I lie stretched out upon the window-seat And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, And feel the air like water on me close, Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat With a small noise, monotonous and sweet, Against the window — and the scent […]
Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet
Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet There is darkness behind the light — and the pale light drips Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships — And the firelight wavers and changes about the room, As the three logs crackle and burn with a […]
Lonely Burial by Stephen Vincent Benet
Lonely Burial by Stephen Vincent Benet There were not many at that lonely place, Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race Unseen by any. Toward the further woods A dim harsh noise of voices rose and […]
Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet
Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet The boat ploughed on. Now Alcatraz was past And all the grey waves flamed to red again At the dead sun’s last glimmer. Far and vast The Sausalito lights burned suddenly In little dots and clumps, as if a pen Had scrawled vague lines of gold across […]
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum by Stephen Vincent Benet
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum by Stephen Vincent Benet Here, where men’s eyes were empty and as bright As the blank windows set in glaring brick, When the wind strengthens from the sea — and night Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick; By the deserted paths, the vacant halls, One may […]
Elegy for an Enemy by Stephen Vincent Benet
Elegy for an Enemy by Stephen Vincent Benet (For G. H.) Say, does that stupid earth Where they have laid her, Bind still her sullen mirth, Mirth which betrayed her? Do the lush grasses hold, Greenly and glad, That brittle-perfect gold She alone had? Smugly the common crew, Over their knitting, Mourn her — as […]
Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room by Stephen Vincent Benet
Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room by Stephen Vincent Benet Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn, Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars; Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars Fantastically alive with subtle scorn; Fish, by a plopping, gurgling rush of waters, Clear, vibrant waters, beautifully austere; Roast, with a […]
Dedication by Stephen Vincent Benet
Dedication by Stephen Vincent Benet To W. R. B. And so, to you, who always were Perseus, D’Artagnan, Lancelot To me, I give these weedy rhymes In memory of earlier times. Now all those careless days are not. Of all my heroes, you endure. Words are such silly things! too rough, Too smooth, they boil […]