Kings Canyon

March 13, 2023 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ 2 Comments

When Annie discovered heaven
was harps and angelic choirs
without baseball or dogs
she changed her religion
to one focused on reincarnation.

She treated pastors
like used car salesmen
trying to get her to purchase
a pretty junker
she knew she did not want.

She always liked the Sunday bells
that called everyone together—
community over congregation
and the disturbed admonitions
of the black-robed men.

Summer pilgrimages
took her to national parks
where she turned Baptist
and immersed herself
in natural beauty.

Spoiler

November 28, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

In that far off city
where the cathedral
was built stone
by stolen stone
from three ancient
places of worship
the native peoples
attend the Catholic service
and feel their ancient religion
deep in those rocks
that now support
arched oak beams
and view the sacraments
each Sunday.

On a Winning Streak of One

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

Who put the “Why?” into laughing?

I have lived past the point of being beautiful.

We painted the fence pickets different colors.
We used the entire Sherman-Williams sample set in order.

The fence went on for fourteen miles.

It is difficult to determine if the thrashers see color
and noticed the chromatic variations.

I recall I placed one hair on each paint-damp picket.

Somehow this became a religion
and I traveled the land, painted fences and placed follicles.

Does that make me a loser?

Can a loser bring home eight figures a year
in internet donations?

I am now a professional head scratcher.

Lilacs Bloomed Again in June

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

The crashing through the roof
a little after midnight
was not a missile or meteor
but a fragment of God
when God exploded
and fell from heaven.

Mostly God splashed harmlessly
in three turbulent oceans.

This one finger-nail clipping fragment
crashed through the roof
destroying the TV in a white hot flame
that burst into existence
six white swans and one black.

Under such circumstances
it is hard to call this destruction a catastrophe.

The theologians failed to take notice.
Their heads were buried in the past
in writings thousands of years old
while lively debates sought to elevate
one translation over another.

Thunder

June 16, 2022 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Paul was struck
by his lack of desire for the Abrahamic God
or any of the thousands of interpretations
of the Word perpetrated on the day.

He decided as a child
he had not failed Sunday school
but it failed him
as it tried to indoctrinate his behavior.

He admitted some of the stories
were good to know in a vague way
like knowing where one hill is
among thousands of nameless hills.

Paul pulled water up from the well.
He knew no matter
what he believed
the water would be the same.

Sea to Shining Sea

October 31, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

I traveled these United States
to see the wonders of the continent
and harmlessly flirt with cafe waitresses.

As I traveled I learned the word united
holds looser connections
than the dictionary suggests.

We are ten thousand cultures
based on personal freedom of expression
and dodging responsibility.

The stripes of the flag
might as well represent bloody bandages
on our collective social wounds—

not the original thirteen colonies
steeped in racism, genocide
and slavery.

I found the practice of religion common.
But it was mostly Sunday only Christianity.
Not something lived through each breath.

I met a great deal of kindness
but I was a tourist. Not homeless or single
struggling to raise a child alone.

On clear nights I noticed
the stars shone down upon all of us
with the same intensity.

I am not Religious

September 19, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ 1 Comment

My idea of God
does not fit in a church.

I visited great European cathedrals
to view the artwork in the windows
statuary and architecture

not the reliquaries
and saintly crypts.

Churches do fit
within my idea of God.

Though not as well as forests
or mountain meadows.

I once started a count
of the everyday saints I met
as I traveled these United States.

Six full legal pads
and a box of pencils
sharpened to nubs
and I was only one week
into the adventure.

My idea of God
fills the void between protons
neutrons and electrons.
The galactic distances between molecules.

Something in the weak and strong forces.

Something that remains
gracefully and elegantly
out of my grasp.

Bubbles Popping Out of the Ooze

August 26, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

Karma sat down
on Saturn’s rings
and watched earth
from afar.

Too many religions
inside religions
further inside religions
deeper inside religions.

A multitude of centers
to the universe.
Contorted selfishness
circus-mirrored self-reflections.

The tooth faerie was unsure
how much change to leave
under pillows
depressed by sleeping heads.

Ancient DNA revival.
Arctic melt methane release.
Choppy seas chopping up
coastal city shorelines.

American eagle
now portrayed with two heads
split apart
gone in different directions.

A porcelain white witch’s caldron
brewed some crude liquor.
We added juniper berries
to the gloop.

How Afraid They Must Have Been of My Superpowers

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

Now that
I am older
I realize
that school
was designed
to teach things
out of me
as well as
teach things
into me.

Same
with religion.

It took me
decades
to unlearn
my way
back into
myself.

Hundred Hues

January 26, 2021January 26, 2021 ~ Kenneth P. Gurney ~ Leave a comment

The world reassembled itself.
It had not really fallen apart.
Bethany’s perception of it fractured
in the glint of the storage unit’s
razor wire.

Only a guest in the hidden chapel,
the light through the stained glass
worked better for her
than Christ upon the cross
with his decorative piercings.

Bethany sharpened her sense
of broken-down-in-urban-America
so the pieces fit properly.
No light shined through rough edges.
No cold winds pressed bare skin.

She relaxed into herself
as if lying on a pile of raked leaves
with the smoke of other piles
thick in the air before cities
banned such fiery rehearsals.

Bethany heard the song of the world
and how flat and out of rhythm
her life-notes were within it.
And the counter melody
of the long scars upon her body—

her repeated dash in the buff
through a thorn bush thicket
thinking she could embody
the Christ’s thorny crown
under the watchful eyes of owls.