Gordon Kuhn

The Ragman Files E – 1


There once was a man who saved rag dolls, he saved them as he felt their lives were doomed, and yet, the reality was that he himself was a rag doll. As time went on the neighbors began to call him The Ragdoll Man.

MUSIC FOR READING

He had been born alone in a magical glen frequented by gypsies and elves and other such magical folk. His mother and father had been a pile of variously colored rags left by accident alongside a deeply rutted wagon trail that cut a path across the glen. As he sat there, alone, he looked about himself and at the remaining rags not part of his being and wondered at it all. He had no knowledge of who or what he was or how he had come to be. He had no knowledge of gypsies, or elves, or any of the creatures who lived in the surrounding woods or who flew in the sky. He had no idea of what it was to be alone. He simply was.

This is the opening. More to follow.

Simply hit the button on the left and listen to the music.

Friday 3.22.19 & New Poem


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

 

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

WRITING A BOOK ABOUT A KILLER


I have written a book about a killer. He came to Florida in 2008 and killed two women in 2009. His career as a criminal started when he was 14 and he raped a woman in Warren, MI. I am looking for an agent.

He was convicted and given two life sentences for a home invasion in Sarasota, FL. He was given the death sentence for a brutal murder in Bradenton, FL. He is now up for another trial for  murder in Sarasota, FL that took place in 2008. It took from 2008 to 2018 for the forensic investigators to find a dot of DNA on the woman’s dress to identify the killer.

 

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

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

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

BACKWASH


BACKWASH
Walking backwards in my mind slowly thru time
I find myself stranded, just another body standing in line
A pathetic piece of flesh and bone
Left alive to review all the scrapings my handmade in stone
Until the carving knife broke from all the writing
And I found that my life was not so exciting
As I had envisioned it
But drinking made it seem to fit
The surrounding air and places I had the train boarded
Without thought of where the trip was going or how sorted
It would be
But I would soon see
The bridge left broken and bloody near that meadow in years past
Where death took a friend and then came the revenge that failed to last
In my heart, that day as the vomit filled my mouth with backwash
And life about me began to sway and I felt the sting of a lash

Copyright 2018 Gordon Kuhn: written 9.9.18 first draft