Polar bears
declared war
on humanity
and invaded
North Dakota
and Minnesota
through Ontario
and Manitoba
to steal every hotel’s
ice machine
and every hardware store’s
extension cord
long enough
to enact a plan
to replenish
the vanishing
ice cap.
copyright © 2023 Kenneth P. Gurney
The forest shuttered.
There was no computer model for that phenomenon.
A new stream pushed
radioactive particles into the reservoir.
The city council
had no experience with such shedding.
Gender equality was on the agenda
but the review panel’s report was never read into the record.
A woman of color tabulated with an iPad
the health physics of human causes and effects.
The team sent out to determine
if a new crack formed in the earth’s crust never returned.
Someone got scared and waved a gun around.
The police applied a measured response that ended peacefully.
The issue is not health but liability
according to the former insurance adjuster on the council.
In the roundhouse, the debate centered on reparations
for evicted homesteaders with no consideration for the tribes.
The forest shuddered a second time
then lifted off in a cloud of dust headed for who knows where.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Note: The roundhouse is the building where the New Mexico state government assembles and has all of the representatives’ offices and meeting chambers.
I woke to the complaint of trees—
too much carbon in the air
was making them fat.
I read in a science magazine
that not enough water
reduced photosynthesis.
I imagined both
shoving an entire Big Mac in my mouth
and not being able to chew.
No pollen floating in the air
is a sneeze-less wonder
and down right scary.
The future plays hide and seek
and the distant skyline
now appears to be an event horizon.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
I do not believe
to love my country
is the same
as to love the land.
My country
is three hundred million opinions
joined at the polls
on election day.
The land is the ground
as my feet pass over it
without the pretense
of ownership.
My country
feels battered
by different visions
of direction and providence.
The land
evolves as climate changes
through migrations
and deadwood burning.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Sunday morning was so hot
the church bells melted
during the call to prayer.
It was a good thing no one arrived
since the colonial style brick church
turned into a kiln.
Everyone wanted an enemy to blame
so blamed everyone else
heedless of the terrible serpent inside them.
They learned the phrase
The Devil made me do it
counted for naught
as so much sweat poured out of them
that new lakes floated
emaciated bodies by the hundreds.
That night the prayed-for relief
arrived in the guise of snow
which powdered bodies
like an eighteenth century
aristocratic fashion
with lips painted a deeper shade of red.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
For all the names
applied to organisms
for their ability to adapt
to evolving circumstances
some of those organisms
choose a hallucinogenic twilight
over facing
the hard work of change.
No! I do not utilize elaborate
words and metaphors
to speak obliquely about
David’s drinking.
Nor the amount of weed
gone to smoke or brownies
in Edward’s apartment
before noon.
I mean, with or without us
the earth and its creatures
will move forward, adjusting
their molecules
like the first fish
that dared to crawl briefly
onto the beach sands
some geologic long ago.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
The ocean rose during the night.
More than high tide.
More than storm tossed.
It flowed through the first floors
of beach front houses
and unintentionally set two on fire.
It took wharf planks out to sea
for wayward gulls to land on
and curious dolphins to nudge.
The ocean went back down by morning
but left salty puddles
where the depressed land kept souvenirs.
An attempt to get over a little hump.
A new stretching practice.
Like Yoga. But for oceans.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Paul arrived with a garden sized trash bag
full of dirty clothes, an orange peel
and the start of a story he got lost in
somewhere toward the middle
where the hero seemed like a pudgy kid
with hairy feet and a stolen ring.
The clothes were not his clothes.
He found them along the road
and on the sidewalks on his way over.
Serendipity caused him to bring along
the garden sized trash bag in his left hip pocket.
The orange peel was actually two half orange peels
he picked up in our yard
unaware that we cut up one orange a week
and put it out for the song birds
on the belief or mistaken belief
it makes their songs sweeter.
The middle of the story is set in Middle-earth.
Which is something of a translation of the Norse
word Miðgarðr for this earth.
The one we live on now
with its pandemic and catastrophic hurricanes
and rise of authoritarian rhetoric
by people massively uncomfortable with change.
Like climate change.
So the pudgy kid is actually a hobbit.
A creation by J. R. R. Tolkien.
In this case Frodo.
As is the story and the ring.
But the moral is pertinent to our earth.
The evil of the world is defeated
when the common man decides
to take up the burden of setting things right.
Paul washes the clothes from the garden sized trash bag
so we can drop them off at Goodwill
or another five-o-one-c-three resale shop with agency.
Dianne invites him to stay over for supper
since it is easy to add another bratwurst to the grill
and there is enough sauerkraut and potato salad
to go around.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
I woke
with the ocean
in my bedroom
tidying up, placing
disappointments
in the back
of my sock drawer,
aspirations
in my underwear drawer
and achievements
under my
blue jeans
in the bottom
drawer.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
Dora starts to change the world,
then learns a permit is required
from a global authority.
No one is quite sure which authority
is in charge of climate,
which is in charge of human rights,
which is in charge of economic inequity.
The UN is no help.
The State Department is no help, either.
The corner gas station attendant is pretty sure
Dora should meet with a guy named Eddie,
who works in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, Illinois,
in a third floor office above the bank
at the intersection of Crescent and Main.
Dora searches for him on the internet.
She searches for him in the better business bureau.
She walks down the street from the bus stop
and up the stairs to his office.
She opens a door with Revolution on it
in large white Helvetica lettering with drop shadows.
Eddie happens to be in.
He always happens to be in
when someone enters his office.
Dora notices she cannot get a fix on Eddie.
He appears to be from everywhere and everywhere-else:
it all depends on your point view.
The permit is a simple form to be filled out in triplicate.
It takes almost no time at all.
Eddie places the completed form
in his notary stamp and squeezes.
copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 