Selected Work

          by Kenneth P. Gurney









          WAVE LENGTH
          Delphi pushes Mars into retrograde
          with the turn of a card, with
          an orbital word inscribed by the sun.

          She repositions comets, meteors;
          trains Sirius to roll over, sit up, beg,
          before letting it play with the white dwarf.

          Delphi shoots marbles at the stars,
          knocks them around, but not out
          of the universal circle.

          She changes interpretations, meanings,
          future astrology readings. Delphi thrusts
          the great expansion to its utmost limits,

          with her thought to keep a shift
          toward any cosmic blues
          as far away as possible.

          EARLY NOVEMBER


          Delphi walks from one end of town
          to the other, knits a scarf
          so narrow it measures only
          two inches.

          She paces time and time again,
          all one night, until the street lamps
          dim with the rising sun.

          She started late on All Hallows day,
          and ends early on the Day of the Dead.

          Delphi leaves holes in the scarf
          so departing souls may leave,
          rise up and go.

          Delphi strengthens her scarf
          with prayers of love and forgiveness
          to catch the living who think they are dead,
          as gravity lets go its hold on them
          and, wondrously, they rise.

          FIRE STARTER


          As reason wrapped in an explanation
          she says, I can't take my eye from the light.
          Know that I will ignite one day, a blaze
          of fire, angelic glory.

          And that explains the hundred or so
          thin lines of ash, charcoal in the fire place,
          the screen set aside. A slight whiff
          of sulfides, potassium lingers in the air,
          agitates the nose.

          No papers in place, no pinion or pine
          or aspen---only the cold metal grate
          pushed to the back of brick, age
          cracked mortar encouraging drafts.

          She did this before. I was at work.
          But all was safe. Not a single
          dry leaf burned, not a twig, the patio tiles,
          concrete, bear the marks, blackened.

          She knows about Prometheus,
          about the fires raging in California,
          about how squirrels, when trapped,
          dig holes and bury their heads
          as the flames sweeps over them.

          I know she dreams, at night, of dragons:
          fiery flights across the sky,
          flying on the other wind.

          DEATH COMES TO MY DAUGHTER


          Death comes to my daughter
          and asks the time of day,
          for directions to the Stevenson's,
          for the location of the best spot
          on the lake to dangle bare feet in the water.

          Of course she answers Death's questions---
          all she sees is an angel, like a star,
          a light in the darkness.

          She hears the feet of the dead
          bend the staircase boards on their way to heaven,
          but she mistakes that sound
          for the wind rustling branches full of leaves,
          the groan of bending boughs.

          DUST


          Someone told me the truth last night
          but I chose not to believe it.
          Just a few words that rung like a church bell,
          but I failed to recognise the music,
          so diverted my attention to the sports page,
          the big game to decide the play-offs,
          the contenders.

          Only later, when I prepared for bed,
          I smelled flowers, a sweet scent
          that nagged the top of my throat
          and tickled my tongue like words
          needing breath for song. I pickedĘ
          up the bible, then set it back down.
          Instead, I sat in Whitman's grass,
          inhaled Laux's smoke,
          saught Harjo's woman falling

          and I knew my ears must search
          through a shift to red,
          a tale of stars coming close.

          Hot Bread Uncorked from the Oven

          Love paints the plain, wet plaster walls
          that distant Renaissance color
          from the slow float of dream,
          a hip swung in dance, release.

          One flower grows still, fat,
          without blood--my eyes
          absorb this new light, this turning
          away from myself into her seed.

          A songbird sits upon her nest,
          hymns of pain and ecstacy
          fall from her mouth, her wings
          crave flight again.

          Harjo and Nye ride her breath,
          the cusp of the moon, the midnight
          milkings, the urban chorus
          of a subsidized apartment complex.

          Love, you are the river: twists
          and turns, the pull of gravity,
          head spinning whorls, eddies,
          a longer bed than I ever imagined.

          Dead Face does not Die

          You know the story of the train
          and the tunnel and how it relates
          to Freud, but not how it relates
          to the woman who is not there.

          Or how the train is a bruise
          turning purple, blue, black,
          with shades of yellow green.

          We all guess the significance
          of her bleached hair
          and joke about the dumb
          and deserving, but we are wrong,
          as usual, as always.

          It is not who are we losing
          that matters most this day,
          but who we choose to find.
          It is as simple as the pronouns
          used inside the flock
          that the Christ risks
          to find his one lost sheep.

          New Dawn

          She leaves before daybreak in one of those countless
          cases of attrition, loss, heartbreak.

          He first feels the emptiness in the sheets,
          then the house, then his breath.

          The child god's pointed promise breaks
          on the empty coffee pot, in the blank farewell card.

          And with it his morning disappears, vanishes.
          The spiral darkness descends to blot the sun.

          He retains the power of money, but her departure
          depletes the laughter that made his largesse filling.

          He keens--lost as a butterfly stripped of wings,
          there is no more flutter, no more tumbling on the wind.

          It is perfect, her escape, somewhere, west of twilight,
          north of the crows. She invites the moon into her sleep.

          Her trucks starts, the dog barks as her fire ignites.
          A new light breaks the dark, illuminates all her visions.

          Actions

          Ellie's throat turns ashy-charchol
          when an owl calls her name.

          It's the same chill she feels
          on January mornings
          in those moments just out of bed,
          before the long-johns pass her ankles
          while the cast-iron woodstove
          radiates the cold.

          Ordering coffee is as simple as breaking ground
          somewhere in Oklahoma
          two months past the last rain storm.

          The hippy-girl behind the counter
          thinks the owl is so cool for Ellie, some shaman sign,
          Change, not death you heard, a mystery.
          But the hippy-girl can't spot salt from sugar
          when they are out of their dispensers.

          Somewhere on her ride to work
          a red-box of Marlboros opens on the bus
          and a city ordinance goes up in smoke.

          Two puffs into bus driver negligence
          and the harsh stares of twenty silent riders,
          Ellie walks forward three seats and,
          without a word, yanks the cigarette
          from the offenders mouth,
          crushes it, tosses it out the window
          and plops her owlish attitude down
          next to this inconsiderate twit.

          Sometimes I dance for hours

          I love the motion of a hand,
          striking a match and lighting
          a candle. How it is my own
          hand that is sufficient
          to bring soft light
          to the dark room.

          There are two white doves
          burning on the mantle.
          If you look close
          on one is scribed Palestine
          the other Israel. But
          they both complain
          about the cast of shadows
          and blame each other
          for the scary tricks of light.

          I must still be the man
          who found the sandy path back
          to himself, after long years
          tossed about by the neon tide.

          When you arrive
          from your long journey
          through the holy land,
          you will find the candles lit
          and set to be seen from the door.
          Open it and come in,
          as it is unlocked. I am
          on the west hill, dancing
          with the forked light of heaven
          which returned me to the night.

          Distant Friend Close


          You know the things you know.
          a friend reminds me, as if
          that will keep my body warm
          through the cold night
          or remind me where I left
          my hat.

          Worms work their way
          through that which once
          contained his soul, but
          I do not see him that way
          and his voice is the voice
          he had three years ago,
          before the cancer
          erupted in his throat.

          I never developed the habits
          of smoke, beer, booze,
          grass, drugs or sex
          as a means of hiding
          from that which is gone.
          Though, I am not
          where I stand from time
          to time. It puzzles me,
          but I always come back.

          Sometimes, I think of his mouth,
          the cigarette and the scotch. How
          he couldn't stop laughing at my life
          and how, not once, did I feel
          he made fun of me.

          The postman arrives. I know this
          because my neighbor's dog
          barks in that way Lassie barked
          to warn Timmy of danger.

          No matter what my age in numbers,
          I know that I am old
          because the count of friends buried
          is too many for my fingers and toes.
          It's not suppose to be that way --
          or, maybe, it is when you are the last
          as Chingachgook would know.

          My hat's location
          remains a mystery
          and I need it for the mile walk
          up to Starbucks
          in the Albuquerque sun.

          The fact that my body
          is cold under the covers
          on June nights worries me.

          It could be a sign that I
          will be early to the grave,
          but I fear it is a sign
          that the heavenly spark
          is withdrawn from making fire
          inside my heart.

          My friend from the grave
          watches my mouth form
          the word love, sees how
          my lips contort, twist,
          how anguish strips
          my eyes of any light
          and how the knot of muscles
          constricts my breath.

          Seeing me, now, through God's eyes,
          he knows it is not love that scars me,
          nor the word, nor sharing its effects
          as gentle kindness. But having
          lost so much, the pain that is there
          is having no one left
          with whom to share the grief.

          Yet, as I hear his ghost laugh at my life,
          the wonderful, lovable silliness of my humanity,
          I feel again that friendship we shared
          and the room is not so empty
          and my hat suddenly appears
          on the counter next to the clock radio.

          Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM. From 1995 to 2008 he edited/produced the poetry publications/websites: Hodge Podge Poetry, Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry and Origami Condom. "Greeting Card and other poems," a collection taken from his early chapbook work, is available through Amazon.com. He regularly craves dark, Belgium Chocolate. (August 2007, February, August, 2008, April 2009)