Left Him Alone While It Rained

September 20, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Paul sat at a cafe table.
A sign stood on his table with the words
Arguments five dollars.

He played to his strength
since he was not good at reading
tarot or palms.

Business was not brisk.
In fact a cafe patron took pity on him
and brought him a burger with fries.

Paul looked her square in the eye
and said he asked for ham and Swiss
on pumpernickel with chips and a dill pickle.

The woman walked away in huff.
She failed to read the fine print on the sign
that said he accepted barter.

Paul would have added Coke no Pepsi
in quasi-honor to John Belushi
but the woman had brought him a ginger ale.

Uneven Undoing

January 27, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

A slide manufactured
from sleeping pills
midsummers the faculties
and renders permission
impossible to be granted
for the ride downward
into a legitimate oblivion
and the intimacy
of a swiveling easy chair.

The television continues
to tell the story
of an infantry lieutenant
on the back nine
of a Gulf War battle
and an extraordinary
rendition of a snowball
located in hell.

Above the television
across the antlers
of a mounted elk head
a spider strings new silk
into daily temperature readings
in a Montana gas station
where the Coke machine
is so old it charges
a nickel for a green bottle.