Deluge Got Me Thinking

September 26, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Dallas is so underwater.
Fifteen inches of rain in twenty-four hours.

I hope the art survived
dry and temperature controlled in museums.

And that joint you told me about
with the good pastrami sandwich and pickles.

Really. All I know of Dallas
is the airport hub and jetting off to somewhere else.

One day I will have to visit the concrete and glass
to learn what makes it beautiful on the inside

instead of luxuriating in the natural beauty
of my sparsely populated New Mexico.

Apart from Myself

September 22, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

The five of us stood together
in front of our house
and watched the rain runoff
rise out of the gutter
and over the yard.

Those few out driving in this deluge
see me drenched with shadowy bodyguards
that no enemy is willing to approach—
not even the lightning
as the thunder reverberates over the block.

I am not a young man anymore
according to tradition and census
but this corralling empty trash bins
swept away from their homes
by the runoff tickles my fancy.

On the depressed playground
of the corner elementary school
a pool forms at least three feet deep
as someone young in a yellow slicker
hangs upside down on the jungle gym.

The four other aspects of myself
soaked head to toe
washed free of swagger
go back inside while I fish
a Barbie doll out of the gutter’s current.

Hitchhiking

March 17, 2020 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

The asphalt dries under the rising sun.
A crow steps over the broken glass,
tossed pebbles and fast food litter
of the road’s tattered shoulder.

Where they flock they block the view
of a midnight miscalculation carcass.
Hunks of flesh are ripped
and throats tip back to take it in.

A tumbleweed rolls into the sage
and parks against a wire fence
with a third rail electrified
to zap the grazing cow come too close.

A fence post flycatcher
zips up into the air,
performs winged acrobatics
and returns.

The cloudless sky promises
a deluge of heat,
the rising ripples
fool the watering eye.

A roadrunner dashes crazy loops.
A dance. Lunacy. A religious
practice summoning more rain
to bring the burrowing munchies to the surface.