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Best Poems Written by Daniel Dubois

Below are the all-time best Daniel Dubois poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Cup

The love I have for you wakes me at night.
It sends me out at all hours shouting, 
Darting down the sidewalk in both directions.
It never smiles and always expects the worst.
It looks for you when you’re already there.

The love I have hollows me out with bombs when I sleep,
Then packs the broken spaces with flowers and scenes recalled, 
Of walks to the car wash when you were three, 
A spit-matted bear, clutched at your tiny hip.
 
I have no choice in loving you,
As much as a cat has whenever it bathes
Or a bird born knowing how nests are made.
So too am I mastered by codes too old and close to see,

How you’re in a cup in the hands of life
And the worried cup is me.

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Zoetrope

I see you      an      inch      at      a      time,
Filling the spaces left in the fence.
Glints of gaudy, plastic play-jewels,
A shimmer of hair trailing past as you run,
The bright, berry-red of a newly-scraped knee.

I’ve not seen your face,

But I see it in sounds coming over the fence,
Humming while filling your teapot with dirt,
Calling to friends that you know you don’t have,
Or chirping “I’m six!” when a bird asks your age.

Sometimes I “see” your house filling with shouts,
And little you crying in never-cut grass,
“I think he’s asleep” whispered under your breath,
And since you’d like someone to say it to you, 

“There, there.”

I’ve not see your face,

Yet I see you completely
In the wisps and the calls given off by a life
And what my heart already knows of

Loneliness.

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

The Week

Sunday, I take out a bowl.
Monday, a spoon.
Tuesday, open a box of Cheerios,
Pour a few in.
Wednesday, the milk.
Thursday, I spoon some in and chew.
Friday, wash the bowl and the spoon.
Saturday, put the bowl back on the shelf,
The spoon in the drawer.

Sunday, I take out a bowl.

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Heir

The house of my life
Is rotted and cracked.
The floorboards are warped,
And all of my broken windows 
Welcome wind.

But from the rubble,
I’ll piece out a coat,
Made from my very best pieces and shards.
Patches of carpets that came from Tibet,
And the spiderweb strands of a once regal drape.

Cupped like an egg in a frothy current of days,
You, my bird, my bud, my tuft of fuzz and light,
Inherit this coat of broken things,
Something more meager than a manger,
But sewn from all the love wrung
From a wasted life.

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Extras

Only when my costume’s
Been hissed at with steel
Do my garments ripple in small, stormless waves.

Only when my mask
Has been greased in pale mud
Do my blemishes blend with the sea of my face.

Only when my hair’s
Met a shower of glue
Does it cow to the waves that my fingers might make.

Only when my prop
Has been sharpened in stone
Does it shimmer like sun-shatter left in a wake.

Why preparation
To such a degree
When an extra’s the part you’re most likely to play?

True, when you’re starring,
I’m off to the side,
Doing my best to stay out of your way.

But I have a stage,
As do you, in the mind,
Somewhere my name’s at the top of the bill.

There, I’m flood-soaked
And pregnant with lines
And you’re in the dark standing perfectly still.

Oh, noble strangers,
Who pass through my life,
Storied and nameless, busy and kind.

There in the passing,
Your extra I’ll be,
And in my performance, maybe you can be mine.

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Please Tell Me: A Response to the Film 'Grown Ups'

Please tell me it’s summer every day of the year.

Please tell me that Aerosmith plays from the sky.

Please tell me that heaven’s a basketball court.

Please tell me that everyone’s life has a point.

Please tell me that no one is ever alone.

Please tell me that dying is easily explained.

Please tell me that broken birds get back their wings.

Please tell me the tooth fairy isn’t my mom.

Please tell me that people are just as they seem.

Please tell me “I’m sorry” is always enough.


Please, Adam Sandler, you loveable lout,

Tell me that everything always works out.

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Chickadee

Coming back home, after a long stint south,
I passed the blue sign on the turnpike that reads

“Massachusetts Welcomes You.”

Under the “Welcomes,” some Mayflower blooms,
And a chickadee perches there, under the "You.”

I’d seen this bird busying our woods as a boy,
Seen its black helmet with small streaks of white,
Flitting from thickets to rest on a branch,
Or maybe on mother's stone up on the hill.
From there, it’d cheer the winter woods with a call:

“Chicka DEE DEE DEE!”

Standing as still as a young boy knows how,
I’d see how it puffs out its tiny, tan chest,
Then sends forth the words
It hopes someone might hear:

“Hello!”
 
“Please be careful!”
 
“Let’s share what I’ve found!”

Sometimes, my human chest puffs out as well,
Set to deliver my own human calls:

“Hi, there.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So, where are you from?”

Still, some calls get stuck on their way to my throat,
And with all of my puffing, I can’t get them out.
Whenever I try, I feel misunderstood,
And the message gets lost from one tree to the next.

Chickadee, have all songs for your feelings been found
Or do some stay inside, never making a sound?

Details | Daniel Dubois Poem

Lady Wonder

No, I ain’t wrote.
I’ve been caught up
In the greatest things they say
Life has to offer.

But, in the midst
Of all my success,
I find myself feeling
Oddly like a pauper.

And in my darkest
Days and hours,
I get to thinking of the time
We spent together.

Your whispers
Never failed
To set my brushes
Hissing all across
The canvases of summer.

It’s strange of me
To come back now,
And it’s ok
If you don’t remember,

Cuz someone like you
Must get her share
Of sad and desperate letters.

But all of the music
Has faded now
From this life
That I’ve been living,

And hearing your voice
Just one more time
Could set my whole
World singing.

My Lady Wonder. 

Since we last spoke
My mind once busy
With the great divine
Has been riddled with reason.

But wise men say
‘All things must pass,’
Even my malaise.
It’s just one of life’s seasons.

But when I look
Upon my elders,
Dusty, yawning, pot-bellied,
And scared of dying,

I get to thinking
That the ones who say
This boredom’s the norm
Have all been lying.

I know that I ain’t
Been the best
At dialing your number,

But losing you’s
The reason for 
This cloud that I’ve been under.

So as you pass,
Won’t you please allow
Your garment for the touching?

Heal these beggar’s eyes
To see all the things
That they’ve been missing.

My Lady Wonder.