A Page of Verse
Three poems by Dani Bundy that were spotted on the poetry.com website[1].
We asked Dani's permission to repeat these poems here and to provide us
with some biographical data, and she kindly confirmed that she was happy to
have her poems used on these pages.
"As for a biography", she wrote, "I don't really have one.[2] I am not published, nor
does my career have anything to do with writing. Poems are formed inside me like
pearls in an oyster, emotion the 'irritant' that is soothed by painting a verbal picture."
A
child, I am
but a child again-
hiding safe in a toilet stall
with blue-peeling paint
to stand behind.
Fingers crossed
tightly in my lap
twist and spider around
this tea-bag scrap.
Let me lie behind blank eyes,
wood-panelled walls my only touch;
Let me cry the silent fear,
curled dark in a corner-
just watching.
One
man lies trapped,
spit from the sea
on sand that grits his eye.
on one bare grain
of sand he found
his blanket spread on tattered time.
Revolving through
the water-dark
surrounded just by air,
he clings against
the cold, dry stone
in fear of here and fear of there.
Wheatgrass
it is called
in the catalog, but here it is July
when the sun has burned the color
of spring from my nose and only dust
and dried weeds can remember. All
is known beneath blue sky
but swimming in a midnight pool
is grace that cruelly glides
away from me. Tomorrow I will build
a house of clouds, protection
from the dance of stars,
impale this lifetime on my thumb to stroke
and hold so when the plum explodes
I can escape
before my throat is soaked
in sweet and salt.
[1] http://www.poetry.com is an excellent resource for - literally - thousands of poems and much more of interest to lovers of verse.
[2] (In response to a jesting accusation by me, Dani replied: "Joe, I'm not trying to be coy, I just didn't know anyone would be interested. My education is in applied mathematics with a focus on the use of computer models in science. Currently I am a scientific programmer for climate models, which means that I do the coding for a scientist (Phil Rasch) who is investigating (among other things) the effects of aerosol particles on the climate. It is an interesting question because these particles can both warm and cool the atmosphere; scientists use computer models to figure out what the overall effect is."