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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wait when
who said
but then the end
or the beginning
no, the space between
not the middle
but the space before what becomes possible is possible
the beat before the beat
you remembering you before you become you
that moment:
 
wait for it
and in waiting for it
you're waiting for yourself
to become yourself
 
who are you then
before you're you
after you've stopped being you
 
you're nobody yet
an absence
in the frame of time
 
wanderer without a road
energy with no form
 
wait for the beat
in the musicless dark
 
to remind you
of all so many things that have happened
and will happen
to all that's you



                                                                              *
​

my light shines death
cuts storms out from the boom of time
 
I loom over your bed
I heard the call out of the wall
 
pound it out with a hammer
and find out who sent the devil to our city
in his many forms
like you and me


                                                                             *


unlovely
my lovely
 
bedove black universes with your lustful gowns


                                                                                  *


no holy rite
can separate you from my eye
still terribly fused:
 
what transformation endeavors to explain
to my trembling body
 
decide whose eager dark swarms over the microphone of your thoughts.


                                                                                    *


some fire
of your holy vengeance
ignites our American scenery
in our little schoolhouses
on our stumps at evening
 
I watched the boy and his gun
disappear into the woods
 
what is the boy under the land's hands
and what have I become
these years?


                                                                                *


no death for me comes sweeter than in Los Angeles
city of light
light buried sweet
under my tongue
over the storm
 
burn my house
torch my village
kill my family
 
take my tongue out of my mouth
in los angeles
 
with your words right out of your mouth
 
burn the stalwart boat
eat its skin
smear its ash over your face
 
beat me with the meaningless sounds of hollywood
bludgeon me to death
 
beat me with the meaningless sounds of hollywood
give me meaning
 
burn the cinema to the ground
 
and hang em high
 
let their lovely faces adorn the pedestals of los angeles
over the storm of light

now and tell me
who was it that came
who heard your voice
vibrating over the soundscape of god
and decided
'this is the guy'


                                                                                     *


I will be gentle with myself
 
life writing
on top of my head
an illustated poem for five cents
not the tunnel of love
but the song heard around the corner
the singer vanished before you turned
love is like that
where you never know who it was


                                                                               *


load the weapon and fire
with my love
 
each round
suspends my body
inside of death
 
throw me
and fill me
with your worth
with your brazil
 
with your thrill of my blood
my flooding gerundative
running sunning
gunning my love



                                                                                     *

it's nothing;
a dead village
a scar over the weight of destiny
some weather system subjugating the Nile of stars into the roof of your body
 
some saint cut down in south central
 
give me the blood
let me put it on my face
I am an Indian


                                                                                   *


a saint to duke
in a bent howled form
in a bent holy form
thriving en masse in the air
hear him
announce
the seasons
 
hear him imbibe the deep
 
dance under the seasonal sun
all the work is done
under the evening of his mouth