Split Suitcase Littered Clothes

August 30, 2021August 30, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

No one tabulates
the death
our highways score
or counts
the blood droplets
as plasma evaporates
crusting rusty
hemoglobin
on the asphalt.

Even that
relatively empty
stretch of I-25
from Raton
to Las Vegas
New Mexico
produces enough
red blotches
to cause a soul
to consider
the highway
has acne
and no Clearasil
or other cure
to un-blemish
a surface.

If you doze
near Wagon Mound
and your car
spits gravel
going into
the soft shoulder
and then flip-flops
end over end
gravity eventually eliminates
momentum’s force.
It may be hours
before anyone notices
the absence
of your vehicle
from the road
until the crows
or turkey vultures
begin to circle.

Mental Engine Block

August 2, 2021August 2, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

My car refuses to enter Denver, Colorado.
In fact it refuses to go over Monument Pass.

I tried gunning it up and over
but the engine died and we rolled backward

against traffic on Interstate Twenty-Five
which is as scary as you imagine.

My car works fine south of Colorado Springs.
I doubt my car’s disfunction is perpetrated by the Air Force Academy

by the Garden of the Gods
or some healing water spirit in Manitou Springs.

I have tried entering Denver on US Two-Eighty-Five
and from the east and west on I-Seventy.

All attempts failed. I took a Greyhound from Albuquerque
and the bus broke down outside Fountain

under the gaze of Cheyenne Mountain
with both NORAD and the Zoo.

Other than this fact, my car is a good car
and gets me where I am going in a timely manner.

Hitchhiker Fidgets Not Allowed To Smoke

January 14, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Kansas is a long flat drive,
but not as flat as Nebraska.

It is torture in a borrowed car
with a broken radio and no AC.

But it gives me the chance
to sing all the Peter Paul & Mary songs

I remember from those folky days
when I ignored the Beatles.

A study on billboard art
proved an interesting research paper

and so did the different ways
hitchhikers hold their thumbs.

You can imagine
how the engine strains

doing ninety on the interstate
elevating to the Rockies

or enjoying the gravity-payback
and extra miles per gallon

descending toward the Mississippi
and Saint Louis.

Decomposition

September 24, 2020 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

In the forest
an idle car
accepts
the dew
that slips
past paint
into its dents
and dings
to spring
rust into life
so oxidation
may slowly
consume
the steel
leaving
rimless tires
and upholstery
to be covered
by wind
blown dirt
and leaves
to the berry bushes
that grow
from the seeds
the wind
and birds
drop off
or others
store
in the nooks
and crannies.