The trick is
to hold out your hand
and convince
a cluster
of carbon-dioxide
molecules
to dance
upon your palm
which will
produce a white light
while you stand
perfectly still—
static—
and it will last
as long as you
keep the molecules
excited.
So do this trick
in the nude
and exhale
deep breaths
onto your palm
as if you blow
a kiss
across the room.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Instead of teaching our parrot
to say hullo and goodbye
we taught it magical spells
from a battered leather bound book
we found at a woo-woo resale shop.
Some days the parrot used
the wrong inflection
on a turned phrase
and we found ourselves
at the beach by Santa Monica pier.
The third time the parrot
teleported us
onto a romantic seat
of the Santa Monica ferris wheel
but it failed to recall us
back to the kitchen
in our Albuquerque house.
Thus the parrot starved to death
since my wallet was still in
my other jeans
and Dianne’s purse
hung on the back
of a dining room chair.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
White flags flap the streets under street lamps.
I am not sure to whom Albuquerque has surrendered.
Abandoned cars take the place of cheap motel rooms
and couples hookup to knock the rust off sex.
The heat generates a fog that cloaks the Central Avenue bridge.
The fog sparks with a Día de Muertos magic.
Border separated families emerge
into the land of the free, the home of the brave
to locate their missing loved ones, crossing the span
in a symbolic entry over the Rio Grande.
Albuquerque and all of New Mexico sheds
a long political intolerance tragedy.
I.C.E. agents and political operatives pack their bags
and head home to stimulate the holiday economy.
copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney
postscript
Okay. Day of the Dead was at the beginning of November and it is the day after Thanksgiving at the end of November. Inspiration arrives when it arrives without asking consent or paying attention to holiday correctness.
The border tragedies the U. S. government has enacted during Trump’s term in separating families has bothered me to no end. I believe the whole program is a human rights violation. Part of the UN definition of genocide (BBC explanation here) involves separating children from families. So, in my mind, large numbers of federal employees helped perpetrate, in the name of the American People, a genocide.
I am regularly amazed how often people who claim alignment to a religion that is created around the idea of the Golden Rule commit such heinous actions. Maybe amazed is the wrong word and I should say appalled.
I think everyone has to help ensure everyone else’s rights are maintained so their rights are maintained. This is why we have a rule of law and work to make sure those laws are fair and fairly applied.
So much for my Friday morning soap box appearance.
Love & Light. Tree & Leaf.
Kenneth
Umflop 