Three Poems by Dustin Junkert: A Monstrous World, Glory, Two Questions for Andre Breton

Three Poems

By Dustin Junkert

A Monstrous World

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person.
—Czeslaw Mislosz

The image of the poet as a house of demons.
A family of demons
who all love each other very much.

A house of ghosts and demons
getting in each other’s way
creeping each other out, slamming doors.

One ghost demands an exorcism.
Demons don’t go out alone at night.
Gabriel stands with his back to the corner.

I take this seriously, the haunting of angels.
One is never safe.
One is never one.

Glory

What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding,
what if laughter were really tears?
—S. Kierkegaard

Rain is all God’s angels laughing at us.
There’s no crying in heaven anyhow.

The devil was the first to see God in all His glory.
Eve was the first to see the devil in his.
Then Adam saw her in hers.

The devil said goodbye to God, Eve said
Hello to the devil, and Adam was quietly acquiescent.

Maybe babies are trying to cry when we show them
Stupid faces, thinking that’s all they have to look forward to.

We prefer to be laughed at.
After rain, grass can be heard slurping.

Two Questions
for Andre Breton

1
Occasionally a man appears
to himself as a ghost.

Who is this person I’m haunting
or who is haunting me?

2
Can we at once be honest
with ourselves and each other?

3
The lingering ache of that first, unknown
sacrifice, what I ceased
being to be this.

4
Unmemorized
memories, what we need
is old

friends. Other minds left ajar, like doors.
More keyless entries.

Dustin Junkert started writing to impress girls. Most girls aren’t all that impressed by writing, he has found. But here’s hoping. The resident of Portland, OR, recently won an essay contest in the New York Times, and had poems published in The Journal, South Carolina Review, the minnesota review, Georgetown Review, Danse Macabre and Euphony.

Copyright 2013 © Dustin Junkert. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.