Middle Class Falling

December 30, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ 1 Comment

Paul never touched starved homeless people
even as their numbers increased.

He did help remove frozen homeless
from the neighborhood park where children played.

Paul proposed to the city council a fund be created
to provide the homeless cannabinoids so they could relax.

He went to resale shops and purchased old clothes
to donate to the homeless just before the first frost.

Paul sewed up any rips in the clothes
with golden thread stolen from a medieval pope’s robe.

He kept sandwiches in waxed paper in his car
to hand out to traffic-light sign-holders.

Paul wrote the word Manna on the wax paper
with a fine print disclaimer it was not sent from heaven.

He donated money to the food bank instead of the homeless shelter
on the mistaken belief one fed the other.

Paul wondered how the current severe drought
affected the soup kitchen’s production line.

Evicted

August 11, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

On the street a torn backpack
spills its belongings.

Not far away a bicycle
bent at odd angles awaits scavengers.

The body of a man with six days beard growth
is gone with sirens, fading as they get distant.

A stream of laughter flows off the sidewalk
from a student gaggle across the street.

Able to set concern aside
the high school track meet proceeds.

A policeman stands erect
at the starter’s pistol initiation of the hundred yard dash.

Involuntarily the policeman places his hand
on his service revolver.

He collects deodorant, toothpaste
and a toothbrush from the street.

And white socks too clean
to suffer from long term homelessness.

Open Door Policy

May 7, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Stained glass brings to light
biblical stories from the Gnostic editions.

Lori’s catechism
did not recognize the imagery or parables.

The pews appear to be made of silver
but are shiny gray carbon fibers

spun out of the flowing hairs
God shed walking the earth.

There is no reliquary
with bits and pieces of saints and martyrs.

The rose window above the apse
was created with cut crystals

that spay the entire sanctuary
with daylight broken into rainbows.

Lori vacuums the carpets free
of holy body bread crumbs

and dabs the holy blood wine spills
out of the burgundy carpet

after some homeless folks save themselves
and exit a few minutes before she arrives.

Streets

June 28, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Wrapped in rags
Paul survives a late freeze.

He washes in fountain water.
Air dries.

He spends half the day
measuring sunlight

and the heat it leaves behind
in body and stone.

Paul knows everything breaks.
He mends his brokenness.

He knows every break opens him
to reveal what is inside.

But only if he looks deeply
without lying to himself.

He wonders if he is chaff
being winnowed out of society.

Society’s kernels are unaware
he is about to grind them into flour.

Stewed

May 8, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Alphabet soup is served.
A long line files past the stainless steel pot with ladle.

Mostly misfit military men and women
secret stomach twisting ghosts in their guts.

Fatigues in various shades of faded
sit at tables butted end to end.

During the blessing
each soup bowl spells out a prayer.

Vegetable broth vapors rise
to cloud faces and steam glasses.

Some attendants
eat with a fork one letter at a time.

Succumbing

January 13, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

In a wheelchair
at a rural intersection
with the only traffic light for miles
sits a battered Teddy Bear
propping up a cardboard sign:
Homeless War Vet.

Under the shade of trees
a man with prosthetic legs
appears to snooze
through the awfulness
after twenty-eight straight days
without a bed or shower.

The sycamore trees,
old as the Civil War,
mark a property boundary
in the county land records
that go back
to nineteen-eighteen
when his great grandfather
purchased the farm
from the bank
after its owners,
with no successors,
died of the influenza.

With no traffic
at the red light
children bound
out of a solitary car
with less than
one dollar in change
for the Teddy Bear.
But that does not
fill his vest pocket
or the income gap
during the pandemic.

So history repeats itself.
Obliquely.

Shelter Receives No One After Five

August 22, 2020 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

We stood outside
the First Church of Christ.

It was one of six by that name
in the city.

We wanted sanctuary.
Our pandemic eviction was complete.

No one was home in the church
after dark—tale end of twilight, really.

Our boys and girls
played ring around the rosary—

a game they just made up
while clicking their tongues.

One of the boys argued this building
was the house of God

and God should let us in
to stay dry from the approaching storm.

One of our girls argued
God dwells in Heaven with the angels

and Heaven is in outer space.
She could not name the nearest star.

When the rain started,
one of our girls suggested

Fairies should kidnap all the children
away from us.

The youngest boy started crying.
He suffers from night terrors

and the night closed in
all around him, claws exposed.

Longing Red Lights

March 24, 2019 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

The homeless populate our street corners during the day.
The city councilors’ cosmetic solutions fail.
The gated communities wall their fears inside.
The soup kitchen volunteers fortify food with bible verses.
The hospital emergency rooms tend the frost bite of apathy.

There is an art to cardboard sign construction and literature
that should be studied, organized, categorized
and open to the public in university galleries.

No matter the weather, Robin disrobes
and runs one lap around the banking district.

He no longer begs or steals, but performs slam poetry,
though most people think he pontificates incoherently
and place a bill or two in the passed mitre
thus maintain their year-long absence
from the confessional.

POSTSCRIPT

The sight of homeless people panhandling at stoplights is common in Albuquerque. Often they hold their cardboard signs under metal street signs that tell them where to get help with a city department phone number to contact. I figure if you are homeless, you are phone-less as well.

It is rare that I give money to the homeless directly. I give my money to the foodbank instead that claims they have the ability to stretch my dollars to seven times the grocery store value of those same dollars. It is not a lack of compassion, but my attempt to get the biggest value for my donated money.

Regularly the city comes and removes all the makeshift tents between the dog park and highway. They city scoops every thing into a dump truck and cart it away as trash. Imagine if everything you owned, including shelter, was just scooped up and dumped.

It seems too me that the high paid CEOs should cut their pay in half, so more folks can be employed by the CEOs’ companies. I think it would be good if we judged CEOs by how many people they employ combined with profit margin. Example: If a CEO’s company is profitable only because he/she laid off 10,000 workers, social pressure should snap the CEO’s spinelessness and incompetence.

The best way I know to help the homeless, is to get them a home and a phone. It is impossible to get a job without an address or a contact number. So the government (greater community) has to step in and supply those essentials. I would see it as my tax dollars being well spent.

I am realizing I could go on for several pages on this topic, but I wish to get my morning moving to the great outdoors, so I stop this postscript.

Love & Light

Kenneth