ROBIN WYATT DUNN - POEMS

​Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles.

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​tell me how close it was
was it close enough to taste?
or just a kind of memory half asleep?
 
I know it was some kind of sickness,
paid giving birth quiet in the night
a little blood and a little sigh.
 
tell me what to do
about the stand I have
two acres or so inside
ranging from my hands to my face

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​a woman is a kind of thing we kept the din in
dark bark and bread.
 
the bailiwick beneath her bed
the burial chamber of her quickening hand.
 
tell me how you came and when
the numbers of your dead
tell me where you'll sleep and how's your head
how're your arms and your face
how the numbers read you here and led you to lead us bright and blind over the ledge
 
I knew every time you said it was dead that I was yours
clawed into the wool of your nest
for the feeding

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​carry me dear
how close to think
the nip and tuck of the divine wind
starving my flesh to sleep
 
all the parrots on the hill are in
chanting my name
 
what is it again?
 
Robin Wyatt Dunn
 
like a seizure on the boat
stretched between oxfordshire and coventry
watching the light

---

​blacken and rage the engines in my hand, weirdo
knocking the breeze with my teeth
hardshipping sun braked to carry all the marvels in my face:
 
near the valley of your desk the books collide above your head
steering into your mouth
one by one we'll fit them in
inch by inch
to count the oceans in your fleshy face
for the photograph.
 
outside in the air all the students listen in for the professor's welp
red faces nourishing delight
 
weirdo, summoning the day around your neck
we'll arm the peasants with some songs
and a little dirt for their nails
the negative face of the silver sky
shudders to our hands