Category Archives: Poets

A MEMORY OF YOU


Here I stand in the light of an early Indian summer sun
Look through my eyes where it’s just peaking up over distant hills
While you and I stand searching for lions, tigers, sharks, and dragons
Of my imagination where we as children used to run
When you and I were just 8 years old and were addicted to having fun
Running barefoot with stubbed toes across lawns and dirt roads
When life itself was easy and at the end of the day
It always ended on pillows where our curly haired sleepy heads would lay
No one ever warned of changes or the future foretold
Where we met so long ago before fantasy windmills and rainswept windowsills
Blocked the view and destroyed the fun
When we didn’t own a car
But from where we stood we needn’t and didn’t go far
There was no need to feed the adventure
For it was just you and me
And we were completely free
With love enough in our hearts for any 8-year-old to share
When life passed around us without any care
Without any conjecture and life left no scar
Lions, tigers, sharks, and dragons did not mar
The landscape that we ourselves made
In our memories, as we were running unafraid
But now the game has changed
And I look now, searching through the mists of memory for you
Back in the years when all was said to be true
And wonder where the time went, and life was rearranged
Then life changed, and I stand alone now with just a memory of you

Copyright 2018 Gordon Kuhn, all rights reserved 10/26/18

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A DEATH


A DEATH

 

A distant friend has passed this night

Passed and joined another realm, another dance

Brandy and death together in a waltz

Without tears falling from dry eyes

The sorrow of the dancers goes on living

Trapped in an eternal ballet as life goes on to die

While nature’s odd sorts in pose stand frozen

Where they are locked and wearing a disguise

And you love me as someone you cannot stop

While we will dance with brandy and with death

Until the hours fall away and death caves in

Leaving an opening where one had never been

Under the shadows of the moon

Amid a stagnate wind

Remember us when you drink brandy and dance in a waltz

While about us the dancers fall in death

One upon one to cover the ballroom floor

And tears cannot fall from dry eyes

Even when we are all wearing a disguise

And pretend to be just one across time

Dancing with brandy and with death

With dry eyes unable to drop a single tear

And a distant friend has passed this night

Passed and joined another realm, another dance

While you and I stand in love, hand in hand

And watch the world as for some it comes to an end.

 

Copyright 2018 Gordon Kuhn, Poet in the Rain 11/19/18

A CAST OF ELVIS


A CAST OF ELVIS

It was early in the morning
Before the sun had chosen to rise
While in the West there was reported the coming of a storm
For the clouds were stacked up to the top of the sullen sky
Thunderheads stood out in darkness forming
Telling a sleepy paperboy to carry a slicker in his backpack
Flashes of electricity free-formed in their announcement
While the church bells proclaimed early communion
As the priests in robes of silk left their hidden dorm
Down the street above where the butchers cut up fresh meat
And one of their number walked briskly along
A hidden pair of still warm panties gathered and out of sight
Tucked in the folds of his blessed priestly cloth
An overnight present from a grateful parish member
Given freely for blessings and release from her sins
But it was the early rising newspaper vendors that set off the alarm
That Elvis was dead!
And so the lines to meet him would be shorter later that day
But curiosity was peaked about the bathroom floor
And so, the restaurant cast a statute of the man to be blistered by the sun
As it sat upon a bench with an open arm to fit around a fan
It was covered with bird shit during the day
And then stood waiting for the coolness that would come with the rising moon
While wishing for rain to wash the bird slime into the gutter towards the sea
And in the dark of the secret time
The statues in the park would be set free to dance around in glee
While others found a need to kneel and pray.

10/17/18 Copyright 2018 Gordon Kuhn Poet in the Rain All Rights Reserved

Without a Boat (Amended and rewritten 10/15/2018}


WITHOUT A BOAT (amended/rewritten 10/15/2018)

Jesus was a sailor who sailed without a boat
He had no need upon that to stand, for he could easily float
Above the briny chilling cold and darkest dark of deep
Where many sailors struggled and in death there they fell to sleep
He had no need to save anyone from their drowning
For their lives, they sole alone by free choice were forming
While his force was in league with the ghostly godly nature
And blessed with acceptance of the final cleansing rapture
But man and God in their relationship had suffered a fracture
And the book said Jesus had come with his blood to repair
The breach that God had laid upon humans in despair
And in trusting to his words to those he left behind
Simple messages given to save and to remind
All in time of his divine and spiritual nature
But if today he were alive he would surely and sadly find that
The church he never formed is now a business venture
Run by modern-day Pharisees and scribes
With guilt, incense, robes, and chants they monopolize
with finance and profit at the center
suggesting sins can be obliterated by monetary bribes
But Jesus was a simple sailor who sailed without a boat
Others never realized their faith would help them float
above the briny cold and darkest dark of deep
where many sailors had gone to deathly sleep
then with his fellows and fish the main course for dinners
he would sit and break bread with sinners
upon the shore with a roaring fire the flames in curls
Where he ate and laughed and talked about girls
And there he broke bread and drank wine
so long ago in an ancient time.

Written on 10/14/18 Copyright, 2018 Gordon Kuhn All rights Reserved

WITHOUT A BOAT


WITHOUT A BOAT

Jesus was a sailor who sailed without a boat

He had no need upon that to stand

He had no need to save anyone

His force was in league with nature

But man and God had suffered a fracture

And the book says Jesus came to repair

Today he would find sadly that

The church he never formed is a business

Run by modern-day Pharisees and scribes

With guilt, incense, robes, and chants

But Jesus was a sailor who sailed without a boat

And he sat upon the shore with friends

Where he ate and laughed and talked about girls

And there he broke bread and drank wine.

 

COPYRIGHT 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GORDON KUHN 10/14/18

THE TICKET


THE TICKET

It is the middle of the night
And the railroad freight has just come in
A sharp whistle slicing though the silence
The engineer has taken his hand from the throttle
The sound of escaping steam ends the prayers for the night
The passengers all wandered off, boxes, empty boxes
Wandering off to find a place to be unpacked
And I wonder if it was me or you who had committed sin
There in the railroad car in the dark among the silent boxes
If sin was committed at all and was this a holy night
When the conductor suddenly asked for my ticket
As the train came to its final stop
The sound of escaping steam ending the prayers for the night
And I searched my pockets with all my might but
I was not able to find the proof that I had bought one
When the train came to its final stop and the conductor asked
Wanting me to provide him with the proof
That I belonged there with you
But as I turned to where you had been, I found you were gone
I was all alone in an empty railroad car
The sound of escaping steam had ended the prayers for the night
Standing alone in the rain, I wondered
Which of us had committed sin
If sin had been committed at all.

Copy Write All rights reserved Gordon Kuhn 10/11/18

DISAPPEARED


DISAPPEARED

 

Morning comes and I find you are not here

Yet we are to believe that you are

The bible sellers stand on their stages

And claim the same claim from ages

And I see about the world and even near

Violence that you could easily stop

You are a religious star

But I am beginning to fear

That like Santa Claus they lied

It is a joke that society paid

To convince us of a redeemer

Who with the power to stop the slaughter

Perhaps was never here

Maybe like Santa Clause

You just disappeared

 

10/10/18 COPYRIGHT 2018 GORDON KUHN

TRANSLUCENT


Translucent
It was five o’clock in the morning
And there’s rain upon the roof
It fell hard without any warning
When it swept down the road
Rushed up through the woods
Caught the grassy fields by surprise
The wind bent the bushes and the trees
Then all was strangely gone
And, for some reason, in the midst of it
I recalled ancient tales of Beowulf
I remembered his meeting with Grendel
A descendent of Abel’s killer, Cain
Then the death of the Hag
Who did her seductive best, but lost to his sword
Before a dragon felt the cold steel
Then the rains washed it all away
Nothing was left for me to ask to stay
Not at five in the morning
When the rain came and wet the roof
Falling hard without any warning
Sweeping down the road
Catching all by surprise
Bending the bushes, trees, and me
Then was strangely gone.

Copyright 2018 Gordon Kuhn 9.29.18

AWAKENING


I woke this morning to a different world
Everything had sudden changed overnight
When the rains came, fell, and the grass uncurled
Where I had walked during the heat of the day before
And there was nothing for me to do
There was nothing I could or would say
The world changed when I turned and looked away
For a moment, a second, a sliver of time
When I thought all was safe and secure
And so I woke with a bloody nose
I woke and I found what I thought was false
And came to realize that there was no longer within the fight
There was little desire within me to travel much further
And yet I have to move along this path
And stay on the lane wherein it is true
That life is such and nothing can be undone.

Copyright 2018 All rights reserved: Gordon Kuhn

A Secret Life: Memories from another life.


A friend from a past life told me of a love
But sadly he said he doesn’t recall her name
That is really such a shame
For way back when he was just age 23
I knew him as we worked for the same company
He met her in a restaurant where she waitressed
Back when he in a suit was dressed
And he fell in love when she caught his eye
Along with his open, clear and honest desire
Hoping to date her but she was married
And his hopes on wing were carried
Right out the front door to fly away
And his heart was crushed on the restaurant floor
Then came a night following the heavy heat of day
Where in a pool hall barroom they met and she chose to stay
With a quart of beer and two packs of cigarettes each the other led
Back to his one bedroom apartment on Osprey
Down the hall from where I lived
There their clothes were soon shed
And in the heavy heat of the night she took his bed
So long ago was that singular day
But the reality was she could not stay
Each of them had a life to live
And she was not free for her love to give
Her face he can see in memory for years thereafter
But sadly, her name slipped away
It is just memories from another life that still remain
Memories from a secret life.