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How it Began
In the post traumatic stillness
of the crumpled front end
and air bag deployment,
white powder clings to her hair,
clothes, face, the curb makes a good
chair, as long as it’s in the shade,
the left hand remains perfectly steady
as the right hand continues to shake—
anxiety gives way to smut, porn,
which wets her dry mouth,
creates an itch, the desire
for nameless explorations
of blue movie scenes, extremes
in diversion, perversion,
excursions to bland motels
and darker places
long prepared by practitioners,
who teach beginners
in rooms with no chairs.
Self Conscious
She contemplates
the implication of lipstick,
the barely noticed sag of her breasts,
the fact she wears a dress
for the fist time in years.
Delphi’s tongue works over
a broken tooth, attempts
to remove a fibrous vegetable
caught there.
She fingers her string
of white pearls like a rosary,
feels the hem of her dress
like a boundary to be defended.
Delphi stumbles over
the inapplicable desire
to paint, measure the tensile texture
of moistened horse hair and pigments.
She squirms a little in her chair,
cascades through all her tense muscles,
notices how the pinpoint between her eyes
multiplies into a blinding star.
Delphi’s mental brush dips black ink,
paints swift strokes
a single, meaningless character
that evokes Chinese.
Distractions
Think about the skinny girl in the black lingerie,
how she rides the average looking guy
like a horse rides a carousel. So what
if she tears the fabric to reveal her breasts.
Think of the county fairs when you were a teen
and the long moments spent measuring
the distance between cut-off jeans
and where the curve of a girl’s ass join her leg.
Think of your first X-rated flick at college,
all the beer, the other guys hooting, hollering,
the ten-bucks you paid to be part of it,
how John’s girlfriend barely escaped walking into the room.
Think about Eva Braun giving pleasure to Hitler,
somewhere in the Bunker, when all was panic,
in the futile attempt to control how disastrous
Germany’s disasters would be.
Think about the times you’ve thought about
the astronauts doing it in free-fall, then laughed
when unexpectedly (in your daydream)
the news cameras came on for the scheduled interview.
Think about the mile-hi club, the submersible club,
the roller-coaster club, the city park club,
the coffin club, the zoo club and all the monosyllabic code words
you’ve typed for two months after your dreams.
Think about how often the deathmetal punk bands
get laid, the choreographed fly-girls get laid,
the Lionel Richie love song singers get laid,
the James Taylor folk singers get laid.
Think about when you thought male ballet dancers
were sissy-fagots and how over the years you learned
what all that muscle control did for their lovers
whose names are all in the pink baby-name books.
Think about your wife, you idiot, as she brings you closer
to that momentary release that unlocks heaven’s gate,
how she still loves to love you after all these years.
Pay her fucking some attention and appreciate it.
Kenneth P. Gurney currently lives in Albuquerque, NM. His gypsy
existence effects him in such a way so that he changes geography
every 2-4 years. He day dreams about living on his bicycle for a
year and touring the USA only as fast as he pedals. His poetry is
published regularly around the web and in print. Currently, he
produces Origami Condom, a poetry website that opened up in July
2007. When the thunderstorms come, you will find him out walking in
them or watching them cross the valley when the storms arrive from
the west. Kenneth is a baseball fan — Go Isotopes!
Email: Kenneth P. Gurney
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