Sample Poems by Jeff Gundy
Deerfly
When I was a redwinged blackbird I knew every post and stump, I could tell
exactly when it was time to fly.
When I was a water lily I gave all my best leaves to the pond, and my best
blossoms too.
When I was a cattail I knew my friends and my numerous enemies by their scent
and their shape and the size of their stems.
When I was the multiflora rose I found many cozy spots, I was thorny but hip,
I was nicer to the bluebirds than the crows.
When I was the duckweed I stuck to any bird I could, half the time I didn’t
even bother with the flowers, just split whenever I got the chance.
When I was the pond I rested for weeks on end, let the wind and the sun do
all the work, said whatever all the time.
When I was the sun I had many urgent and utopian ideas, I changed millions
of tons of this into that, I didn’t care who watched or burned themselves
blind trying.
When I was the path everybody thought they used me, but they all went exactly
where I led them.
When I was Jeff I walked some paths, sat beside ponds, listened to songs I
couldn’t name. During the eclipse I looked straight at the sun for an
instant and afterwards I could still see, though never as clear nor as far
as I dreamed.
When I was a deerfly I zoomed around every body’s head, as if I could
persuade them my troubles were their own.
Mumble
And my high-dollar ultralight runners are so thin at the ball
that any stray rock means a bruise. Let’s not calculate
this economy of cash and waste, not while my feet still feel
the cobbles of Colmar and Rothenburg. Let’s not complain
of the weekends spent sulkily at quiz bowl meets, the lost arches
where gleams the untraveled world. Say it’s all one,
the dizzy traveler and the guy on the side yelling yes, yes
as his son puts the ball in the net and the one in thin lamplight
knurling back and forth on some stubborn sentence
as though enough wear would turn it soft as old denim,
dark and heavy as the Black Gate of Trier where Simeon
had himself walled right in for seven years, as if to prove
that only the faithless fear simplicity. Oh let’s believe
that all sounds rhyme, water spill and boys fishing and one bird
chirring like a knife on a plate. Let’s pretend we can see
straight to the bottom of the lake. Let’s pretend we can
say what we need and then someone will give it to us,
our one lost desire, the fat coils of steel that get
hurried down the highway, the shiny-eyed girl sauntering
up the path, the solid hand of Jesus yanking us out of the creek.
Let’s reckon the history and geometry of driftwood
battered into radiance. Let’s imagine we know the true word
for this life, for one duck and a silvery battered boat,
three men on the quarry and the mumble of afternoon traffic,
persistent and stunned as the leftover mutter of the big bang.
Brief History of Life
Once you could just say Onions or No Onions.
St. Francis basked in the gorgeous countryside,
gazing upward like a man watching a spaceship hover,
his pet skull abandoned in the cave. Then I saw
the lovers nuzzling in the doorway, the nipple rising
like a dark berry. Genius seemed not so rare
as we had thought, though ambiguously linked
to the god of wine, spontaneous couplings,
and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Such a weltering
in the blood, such roaring in the ears,
we no longer found ourselves concerned
with a few millions less or more. Even so
she shouted You guys are doomed, and the door
slammed shut behind her. Now I know
my soul-bird is a penguin, stupid
but an excellent swimmer. Only this morning
I dreamed that I woke to live the wolf’s life,
cold patient miles across the empty fields,
passing room after room without
a single thought for the hollows
within, the bodies rocking in dark beds.