The voiceless fog
hugged me.
In that hug
it shared its dream.
A place of
contrasts.
Boundless calm.
The sun marred
with indigo.
The thrill of
climbing
out of the bay
up the slopes
into the cedars
and connecting
mountain snow
to the sea.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
I stood on a longboat.
A pretend viking sporting a mohawk.
The oars dipped into Lake Erie.
Strong backs at work.
Meteorologists predicted the fog to lift.
It did not lift.
To a degree we were irrelevant.
Our identities remained inconsistent.
We shifted through time. Past to present.
Present to past.
We made up new names
for our godly pantheon.
We made up betrayals
to focus our energies.
The foghorn moved
from front to side to back.
I have no memory
of how I earned the name Thor.
I think my shipmates
learned I was born on Thursday.
But it could be that I
cloaked the ship in fog.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Paul stands in a corridor.
He calls it a hallway.
We could call it a library
since books line both walls.
He is there to locate
the Encyclopedia Britannica
even though we stand
in the United States of America.
He looks up Fata Morgana
and he is directed to Morgan le Fay
Morgan of the Faeries and faerie castles—
mirages at the horizon line.
Though the entry speaks of the Straits of Messina
between Sicily and Italy’s toe
Paul believes it is the same
between Port Angeles Washington
and Victoria British Columbia
crossing the strait of Juan de Fuca.
Not today though since vaporous fog
blocks any view looking north
and the coast guard’s fog horn
rattles the cups in the cupboard.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
A bagpipe’s call
wends its way
through cedars
and fog
to my porch
where I cut my hair
with clippers
and a quarter inch
guide.
Forgive me
my selfish interests
and petty happiness
both of which
passed through
the shredder
this morning.
Draped
over a chair
my white shirt
does not signal
surrender.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
The fog plays its horn section
over the woodwinds.
A ghost emerges wearing only
my memories.
She wraps a moonbeam
shawl around her shoulders.
She traces my body
with murder scene chalk.
Against my will
I cry myself out of sleep.
My hands reach out
to pull her close.
The fog plays its horn section
over the woodwinds.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
In the indigo time,
between sleeping and waking,
the dream of love
feels the first manipulations
of the conscious mind.
During indigo
the conscious mind slides
out of the shadows
like a pilfering thief.
The whole message
slips through the thief’s fingers.
The sacred text of the sub-conscience
blurred and sullied.
Absorbed like rain
back into the fertile dreamscape
as energized thinking
rises like the sun
burning off the ground fog
of dreaming.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
This morning, the gray fog
snakes upward from the harbor
and the Strait of Juan de Fuca
to en-coil and squeeze the rain
out of the clouds above.
The snaking fog opens wide
and swallows the weakened clouds whole,
then retreats to a cedar filled valley
and curls into sleep
along a stony creek
until hunger stirs it again.
copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney
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