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.
Poetry
Wednesday and Two Tours in Vietnam!
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.
Georgia & Poetry
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
Hey There Mr. Scarecrow.
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
Georgia & Footprints in Time
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.
Where did the year go?
Another year moving into history. Seems strange. I am still in January.
Well, for Jan and I it has been an up and down year with moving away and then moving back when we discovered that “friends” weren’t friends and that the VA doesn’t have the medical facilities in Georgia that we thought they had.
So, here we are back in Florida with all of our friends and it is wonderful. The only sad thing is that my service dog Tread has a fungus in his hip and tail bone. No body knows how it got there and it is an expensive and long fight to save his life. We now have gone past $5,000 in expenses and have 5 months more of a fight to go. We do have wonderful help from our Vet and the Vets at the University of Georgia School of Veterinary Science. We are also fortunate in that we have medical insurance on him and that has reduced our cost significantly. BUT travel and motel rooms are not covered as is part of the medical. However, we are fortunate that we do have a lot covered and are very grateful for the folks at Healthy Paws.
I have a newsletter at Constant Contact and if any of you wish to be a subscriber just send me you email to gkuhnwrites@aol.com
In the meantime I am trying to find a literary agent for my true crime book: Nightmare in Terra Ceia.
I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and I hope a wonderful New Year.
Blessings! Gordon Kuhn
Constant Comment Newsletter
Hi,
I have started a newsletter through Constant Contact. If you wish to receive postings like are on here then I suggest that you write me and give me your email address for inclusion into my newsletter posts. My email is GKUHNWRITES@AOL.COM and I look forward to communicating with you.
Sincerely, Gordon Kuhn
TOMORROW TODAY
Tomorrow came late today
It wasn’t supposed to be
But the day had come to set her free
And there she was, and all was out of the way
Tomorrow came late today
And there was no place left for her to go
Street lights turned on and began to glow
As her love packed up and set about to flow
Down the river and through the town
To the open air where she would find the wide-open sea
Where she would finally find herself set out and freed
And tomorrow came late today
When they found they had nothing left to say
She untied her boat and set herself on her way
Those who stood and saw her go
Only could wave as she turned to the sea
She was on the tide and found herself set free
With a wave, a kiss, and she was gone with the flow
Tomorrow came early today.
Copyright Gordon Kuhn 2018 all rights reserved 10/27/18
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
