Paul closed his eyes and walked on water.
He walked on the sandy bottom.
His belief in denial was not strong enough.
Gravity applied itself.
Paul did not seek to appropriate a miracle.
He sought to replicate Christ’s love.
He discounted his gentle rejection of Christianity
as a cause for his failure.
That religious dismissal did not prevent
the spiritual manifestation of grace.
Maybe the bestowed blessings
assumed a different form than imitation.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Linda. Who is Linda?
Who lives inside of Linda?
She prefers to smoke
while looking at herself in mirrors.
She stands in a crowd
produces summer-time claustrophobia
so the beach becomes strangely quiet
and thousands of bibles wash up on the shore.
There is that something that seems
so off-century about her.
Like corsets. Like birds in her hats.
Like calling her slaves servants.
Linda is often spotted in the business district
impersonating the Christ
dispensing new order of magnitude kindness
while juggling three mercurial moons.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Jesus reached down from heaven
and placed his hand
on Lori while she slept.
He quieted her nightmare heart
with the unintended consequence
she dreamt kissing the lips
of the Christ on the Cross
in at least one local church per day
while on a great American road trip.
Her road trip started
at the ferris wheel
on Santa Monica pier
and traveled U.S. Highways
all the way to Roosevelt
Campobello International Park
near Eastport Maine
with many stops in between
for red place-of-interest boxes
sprinkled across the map.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
The radio turned on by itself.
It played a Cubs-Mets game from nineteen-sixty-nine.
The mirror turned black.
It chose to absorb light rather than reflect it.
My clothes rained
when I wore them outside under the sun.
Gold rings are bad in Fairy Tales
so I refused to give one to my beloved at our wedding.
A towhee perched above our sleep
caught our dreams like moths.
A flicker pecked ear-worms
out of my drummed head.
In a curiosity shop we came upon
a crucifix pencil.
To write a poem the Christ’s head bobbed
back and forth with google-eyes.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
You are
the twenty-seventh
coming of the Christ.
No one prophesied it.
Unlooked for
you quietly do good.
You learned your lesson
the first time
and do not antagonize
the church into seeking
a political remedy
for your anti-establishment leanings.
You wish to be
under social media’s radar
not particularly desiring
the world to appreciate reincarnation
or that there are
more than second chances.
This go-round
you present yourself
as non-binary
but continue to live and teach
the Golden Rule
and its platinum variations.
I am saddened that something happens
each time you turn thirty-three.
A car accident.
A drive-by shooting.
Some cross or another
to come down from.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
With zero being
why are you here
waiting for hours
for a data entry clerk
to speak to you
and finish
the endless screens,
consent, and
fiscal responsibility forms
after passing
identification and
insurance cards
back and forth
because your emergency
was not your heart
or sufficiently bloody.
And ten being
crucified on the cross
like any one
of Spartacus’
six thousand followers
on the Appian Way
between Rome and Capua
instead of the Christ
on the Hill of Skulls
so the idea
that anyone is saved
anything at all
by your agony
is a foolish notion,
while at the same time
promiscuous adolescents,
with the audacity
to laugh at your state
of helplessness,
throw stones at your ribs
like practicing fastballs
for a major league tryout.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
The world reassembled itself.
It had not really fallen apart.
Bethany’s perception of it fractured
in the glint of the storage unit’s
razor wire.
Only a guest in the hidden chapel,
the light through the stained glass
worked better for her
than Christ upon the cross
with his decorative piercings.
Bethany sharpened her sense
of broken-down-in-urban-America
so the pieces fit properly.
No light shined through rough edges.
No cold winds pressed bare skin.
She relaxed into herself
as if lying on a pile of raked leaves
with the smoke of other piles
thick in the air before cities
banned such fiery rehearsals.
Bethany heard the song of the world
and how flat and out of rhythm
her life-notes were within it.
And the counter melody
of the long scars upon her body—
her repeated dash in the buff
through a thorn bush thicket
thinking she could embody
the Christ’s thorny crown
under the watchful eyes of owls.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
On a whim sprung out of nowhere
I begin to worship the crucified.
Not just the Christ, but anyone
who has suffered great torment.
Maybe it is not worship, but
a feeling of kinship
in the search for honor codes
that people strive to live by.
I guess I should include the monk
of that famous self-immolation video
from June of sixty-three
whose sacrifice was not honored.
Maybe it is to appreciate directly
through simple acknowledgement
all the acts of kindness I observe
each day
and how no one asked permission
or weighed whether it was a selfless act
or a calculated one on the learning curve
to prepare the soul for crossing over.
This trying to find words for a feeling
drives me a bit crazy—
like trying to ignore the monsters
emerging from my personal history.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
One dawn I crawled
out from under the pews
and replaced the book
of common prayer
I used as a pillow.
On the cross
the Christ
seemed to be asleep,
so I tiptoed
not wishing to wake him
and jar him out of sorts
an hour before
the Sunday faithful
pinned their woes
to his flesh.
In the vestibule
a stack of polished oaken
collection plates
awaited the touch
of congregant hands
and the weight of money
as a secondary relief
from sin.
I seeded the top plate
with a dollar
on my way out.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
Some people who grow up never feeling loved
remain in motion afraid to stop.
While others turn into stone
unable to take the first step of any journey.
Paul walked into a church, lit a candle
and sought refuge from his loneliness.
It was not the image of Christ on the cross
or the story of salvation that he treasured.
It was the shadow of the cross
in the wavering candle light against the wall
and how in this heavy solitude no one asked him
for something he did not have to give.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
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