Will have the movers here this weekend to take back what we had delivered here a few months back. Good thing to find out in time the problems with moving here. Will be most happy to get back to our friends in Florida. Have a contract on the property and have an agreement on a lot of the equipment on the farm. Sad, but necessary. VA medical for me is virtually nonexistent here. All of our friends are in Florida. So, GA is not working out and selling everything here.
Another Friday. Another morning. Decisions to be made.
The property in Albany, GA has a contract on it. Wow, cannot believe how fast that happened. It just all fell in place within less than a week.
HUNGER SEEKING HUNGER
Beyond the window glass
Just there across the green cut grass
Dark blue and grey lies our pond that is filled with life
Pelted with a soft rain that sudden came
Leaving the surface dimpled, breaking the smoothness
Near a group of water birds that sat and pruned their feathered bodies
To dry off the wet from a recent dive for a fish for food
While an alligator who had been asleep in the sun was awakened
Disturbed it slid in off the bank in search of something to eat
Then, tail side to side, slowly the hunt began
With only eyes above the surface
It worked its way toward the birds who turned to look.
Copyright 2019 by Gordon Kuhn
Good Wednesday to you all! For me it started with being startled out of my sleep. That was because I had a rough night and needed more sleep and my wife had to wake me because I had a breakfast meeting to go to. So, I changed the time and met a buddy about an hour later than normal. He is a former Army Medic that did two tours in Vietnam.
He had wanted to be a doctor. He joined the Army and requested training in field medical. He then did two tours as an airborne medic. He saw enough blood and gore to end his desire for being a medical doctor. He is loaded with PTSD. Sad, really, I think he would have been a good physician.
Jan and I are both tired from driving to and from Georgia. Just a long trip surrounded by idiots either driving too fast or too slow.
One thing I will never understand is that near the Florida/Georgia border their is activity by both the Florida Highway Patrol but on the Georgia side they are like a bee hive that has been whacked with a stick and the idiots on the highway just go flying along. Between the border and Tifton it is a good chance to see (on both sides N and S) five to six cars pulled over. One would think that would slow things down. The answer is NO they just go flying along oblivious to the stops.
We have a radar detector but always drive within the speed limit. I just don’t understand these other people. And then, you will occasionally see not just one cop car with a stop but two and three on one car. Now why would someone want to bring dope into either state. Stupid. They are waiting for you.
Anyway, that’s it for today. Tired. Already irritated a nephew who is anti-gun, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, and anti-Jewish. So I shall retire into the sunshine. Until tomorrow.
Spent a week in Albany, GA on the 4.25 +- acres there that we own. Visited with the neighbor, his daughter, and her newborn son. Weather was nice. Little rain. Got some things done around the “farm” and in town. Then listed the property for sale. My health is not good and so we decided to sell.
Sending a copy of Standoff to Claire Perkins at claire@booktalkradio.info. She will review and do a radio show with me about the book. Any writer out there needs to know Claire for promotional purposes. She is great and works hard for you.
Anyway, so back in Florida and writing. Had a hard time up there writing.
Seeking Desperation
Desperate for the sake of an attack of desperation
Nothing to say, for what can be said,
As I am being led with just the fact that
The story is that I guess I am acting in silent retaliation
While the walls of life have so much there to be read
And I know, for some, I am not being much of a poetic diplomat
Too frank, too bold, a voice of exasperation
But in honesty, I see nothing to tame in the future
Looking out a smudged window I see a distorted culture
Nothing there that the best despair will be unable to nurture
Nor do it’s best to capture and contain the fumbling lost while
As a writer the writer stumbles forward searching for the proper style
While desperation is unable to hold back life from moving forward
I find myself a boat adrift, floundering, fighting the strengthening move shoreward
Unconscious the craft is of where the rocks and shoals wait to rip apart its hull
While the world is watching from above riding upon a single seagull
That has taken flight to oversee the death or survival
And life then takes on the form or lack of revival
As a thousand voices lifted cannot be heard above the roar
Of the surf beneath where a single bird does soar
And looks away in dismay for an opposite shore
Where peace it will find, peace it is to restore.
2019 Copyright Gordon Kuhn
Today my wife, Jan, and I drove to Tampa looking for a shoes store named Boot Barn. We found it on Adamo, near SR. 60 not far from I-75. Wow, talk about cowboy boots, hats, shirts, and jewelry. It also opened my thoughts and so I thought I would share a bit of personal history. Feel free to comment.
In 1962 – 63, I was in the United States Marines. The company I was in, the unit, was known to be a Landing Support Company. Within that company there were what was called as being teams. In the team that I belonged to was a champion bull rider. He was a corporal. His first name was Ted and I believe his last name was Morris. There was also an American Indian in the unit who rode bulls as well. They actually taught me how to ride bronco and bulls. These were very interesting men. They rode for prize money. They also returned on Sundays from having written and were badly battered. Ted returned to the base one time with a nasty injury to his leg. He had been gored. He drug himself into the squad bay and called to me for help. He could hardly stand let alone walk. He recovered and no one was the wiser as to the state of his injuries. I often wonder about him and that Indian. I wonder if they’re still alive. I wonder if the injuries that they sustained while writing bulls and broncs ever affected their lives later on. I lost touch with them in 1963 when I received an overseas assignment. I never saw them again. It became just another lifetime memory.
Well, I couldn’t find the shoes I was searching for at Boot Barn. However, I had a good time looking at all the boots that ranged in price from low 100s to high 500s. The smell of the leather was a treat. The various style of boots was incredible. There were boots made out of snakes and birds as well as just plain leather. I miss being able to wear cowboy boots. But I have swelling in my legs and my feet. So, I guess my days for wearing cowboy boots is over. But it is a good memory.
Well, for starters, I woke to find the 10K going over the Skyway. Over 11,000 runners. WOW. It was on live from helicopters.
I also have still not gotten my results from my colonoscopy. I can’t believe it is taking this long to get information back.
I wrote two poems this morning and posted them to my network newsletter. I am looking to find a magazine or book publisher. I have over 300 pages of poems now collected that needs to be done something with.
I am doing my best to avoid politics these days. Not doing too well.
Nice morning out. Weather is just perfect. Need to get a shower and get started and to write some more. I need a true crime agent to help with publishing Nightmare in Terra Ceia. Anybody with any ideas?
Thinking about changing the theme on this site as well. I have seen some great bogs and I think this is a bit….dusty? old looking? I don’t know.
Anyway, will be back later.
NOTE: for those who wish to be on my newsletter list please write me at GKUHNWRITES@AOL.COM and send me your email address.
For those who want to buy a book? http://www.authorgordonkuhn.com for autographed copies. If you don’t want that then just go to Amazon and get a download. But an autographed book is much nicer.
I am really tired of working on videos to post to YouTube only to find months later, if not years later, that someone has placed a copyright claim on them for pictures or (mainly) music. It happens all the time. Then you have to protest to get the ads off your product. It is just nuts. My suggestion is that if you do as I do then you have to keep a record of what source provided you with copyright free music because there are hunters out there that will do this and you may not even be aware that it is going on until you look and find the ads there because they monetize the video to themselves. Just a word to the wise.
Hey there Mr. Scarecrow
Standing out behind the barn
Just you and that old grey mouse that lives in your hay
Thanks for listening to me the other day
As I sat and let my own rain drop from my eyes to the ground
Hey there Mr. Scarecrow
You are so brave standing in the wind and rain,
Lonely there in the snow and heat from the sun
I saw you every morning and just before I turned out the light at night
Thanks for listening to me the other day, everyday
But yesterday I came to tell you of my love for you and found you gone
You had listened to me cry so many times in the day and night
You had heard how much I want to die
I came once with a knife
And told you I didn’t think it would hurt
Just a quick cut to end my life
Hey there Mr. Scarecrow you were there in silence
As we stood in the day or night and talked
Or when I sat next to you in the snow and the rain
With the knife tucked in your pant’s pocket out of sight
It seems just yesterday that you were there,
Waiting patiently in the sun and in the dark
You and that old grey mouse living in your shirt pocket
But that was before they came when I wasn’t there
And with a match and can of gasoline they burned you down
Oh Mr. Scarecrow, you were my very best friend
I told you of the beating of my mother that I saw
I told you of how my father had in anger walked out
And that he had come back, and my parents sat and cried
But something inside of me had died when I saw the blood
I told you of the pain that will not go away
I told you of the times I wanted to die as we sat alone in the dark
When I showed you the knife and tucked it in your pant’s pocket
But I wasn’t there the day they brought gasoline and matches
And not caring of you or me they burned you to the ground
My best friend, my very best friend, and the house for an old grey mouse
They burned you to the ground
To the ground, to the ground
Where I found the knife I had hidden in your pant’s pocket
So very long ago.
But I never found our friend
The old grey mouse.
Copyright 2019 Gordon Kuhn
We spent a week in Georgia on our property there. It is was nice but a bit sad. Raining in reality and in relationships. Funny how things can change. When someone is ill from drugs or alcohol and they get straight or die it is generally true that the family and those close by are found to be ill themselves. But they don’t recognize it. Such is the case in Georgia.
FOOTPRINTS IN TIME
Hours of minutes made to sand were turned
As days once were, they came haunting naked
Beasts as ghosts did arise to hungry feed
Upon the very aperture of thought twisted then to seed
Being spread out before the hosts from near and distant past
Disallowing peace to remain encamped or to last
As the fire of memory rose and clouded the sky
With a smoke meant to hang in the air and not to fly
On winds set to bring each day into focus pure
Instead in memory’s pain the days became obscure
Copyright 2017 Gordon Kuhn
Crossing the deepest river without a boat
Sailing the storm washed open sea in a cardboard box
My brain is climbing hills that only I can see
Each upward step is alive with pain granted and felt
With no medication to stop the fire
None exists unless alcohol laced
And it is such that it curls up from the earth below
While others float past talking
Their voices in pleasure do share and grant comfort
To them sharing the night and the day and the world travels on!
While the sky opens and — but not to me
I sing my songs in a vacuum it would seem
While standing in the dark on a street without a name
My voice claims the night in shyness
Beginning soft, then rising up to touch the branches of trees
While many memories come to haunt and
There I am, I’m crossing a river without a boat
Sailing against the wind in an open cardboard box
I speak to those passing in the deep dark surrounding me
But no one responds, no one hears my sound
No one notices me there in the deepest gloom
For, in truth, I am all alone
Alone in the night, alone with the gift
While the fire rages from the earth below
Coursing up my body with flaming words that no one can see or hear
There is no medication to stop the pain
That comes from sentence forming words swarming in my mind
But how glorious it all is to be alone in the night
While my voice lifts and climbs in song aimed at the stars and the moon
While I’m there crossing the deepest river without a boat in search of you
Climbing mountains that only I can see
Copyright 2018 Gordon Kuhn, The Poet in the Rain.
