Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

The Ballad of Bailability

                          Poem for 6/6/25

The sun hides between trees
It’s breath a humid hello
The sun machine is coming down
and there is daylight on the beach
Remember when we found that kid
Passed out -even the cops couldn’t
Wake him -thought for sure he was
Dead as a doornail or an unjambed door

What is the price of personal independence
When the art foundation asks you to cut your
Uncouth and disorderly beard
Never come back from Montreal period
Cause if you do, they will question you
At the checkpoint and at the homestead

Who needs questions when you have a
Beautiful girl singing in French
Rolling around your head with
The only answer acceptable
Dreads and beards have you
Dreading Monday but you are
Still on the clock over the weekend

In fact, you are the clock with both hands
Tied to the face and pointing towards heaven
The face of the clock wears a mask
And asks you to remember the time
Do you remember the time?
The time you painted the town brown?
The time you surfed on the wishes of an entire generation

Polis is the polished knobs of people
Community exists only when we can rely on the other
Or each other or invisible brothers,
Shared the good bread that is buttered
With the greasy palm of the patron saint of payments
When everything is taken care of,
Nothing is taken with care

Fishing for the same fish
From the same rocks of a chasm
With the same rainbow lures at the same time
On the same broken mornings
Is hit or miss
And I miss them all.

Jim Dunn is the author of Angry Bull’s Cadence (The Bodily Press, 2025), This Silence is a Junkyard (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022), Soft Launch (Bootstrap Press/Pressed Wafer, 2008), Convenient Hole (Pressed Wafer, 2004), and Insects in Sex (Fallen Angel Press, 1995). His work has appeared in Castle Grayskull, Blazing Stadium, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Bright Pink Mosquito, The Process, eoagh, Gerry Mulligan, Café Review, Meanie, and the anthology tribute to John Wieners, The Blind See Only This World. He recently edited the poems of Charley Shively, I Have a Poem for You with Erik Lomen for Bootstrap Press. He lives on the North Shore of Boston.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx