Douglas Dunn

by firecracker

Posted to WritersAndGenres on 2003-02-07 10:33:00

Hello all-

Recently a friend “pasted” to me an excerpt from The Year’s Afternoon by Douglas Dunn. I’d never heard of this poet before, but I’m interested in learning more, and reading more. Are any of you familiar with his work? Any recommendations or thoughts?

Here’s the piece that affected me yesterday:

from The Year’s Afternoon

This is my time. I am making it real.
I am getting rid of myself. This is my time.
I am free to do whatever I wish
In these hours, and I have chosen this
Liberty, which is an evanishment
To the edges of breath, a momentary
Loss of the dutiful, a destitute
Perchance, a slipping away from life’s
Indignities and works into my freedom
Which is beyond all others and is me.
I am free to do as I like, and do this;
I sink like a slow root in the name of life
And in the name of what it is I do.
These are my hours of 1993.
Ears, eyes, nose, skin and taste have gone.
For a little while I shall be nothing and good.
Then other time will come back, and history.
I shall get up and leave my hiding place,
My instinctive, field-sized republic.
I shall go home, and be that other man.
I shall go to my office. I shall live
Another year longing for my hours
In the complete afternoon of sun and salt.
My empty shoes at the bedside will say to me,
‘When are we taking you back? Why be patient?
You have much more, so much more, to lose.’

(Douglas Dunn )


Comments on this piece?

-fc