John Gurney lives in Stockton, California. John Gurney's poetry was also featured on page 7102 of the 1997 edition of the Central California Poetry Journal in 1997. He submitted the following biography:
Submissions
You will be asked to provide a short biography of yourself - no more than 5 lines.
Do not mention the arrests for drunken driving.
Leave out the night you crashed your car into a cement wall.
Deny all knowledge of past lovers - living or dead.
Such editing is necessary in any life,
you know this well.
Poets are not welcome anywhere,
their lives must reflect this.
Your biography should be simple, yet profound:
"I was raised by a family ferrets, who, (while good providers), never
understood my artistic temperament."
At 15 I was arrested for shoplifting a copy of Crime and Punishment.
Later, I would point out to the prosecutor how I believed any work by
Dostoyevsky was not worth reading unless it was stolen; that there was a
literary imperative for such crimes.
I was always misunderstood.
They want to know where I was born. Why? If I was born in East Orange,
NJ, will my poetry be more profound than if I was born in Des Moines?
I complete my application and send it off, along with 5 of my selected
poems, watching as the envelope slips into greasy anonymity.
It's Wednesday now,
today the dog gets cheeseburgers.
John Gurney - Wednesday, December 02, 1998
You may access John Gurney's web page at the following URL: http://www.planchette.com/poetry.htm, or send e-mail to Mr. Gurney at: mailto:jgurney@planchette.com
1.
Fog is how the night clings to the day -
Night too, hovers in your memory -
Somewhere
2.
Someday you say
We stumble upon a forest ,
but the light can never be held
and remains
in the damp cold of the morning
diffused and muted
dilute as a poor mans whiskey
scattered as your thoughts.
the sound of trains and tree branches
wind slapping against the loose board of a fence...
beyond the fog
the light remains
clear and pure
bluer then any sky you will ever see
waiting
for the smallest fissure to form
exploding like a bursting dam
to smother the day in light and warmth .
we will go and study the remains of ancient cities
rivers that have no end -
colors as true as your lovers kiss
linger now and form a palette against your gaze
like light itself,
we scatter and dance, twirl and cascade -
dark viney places
the sticky mat of dirt
believing that the warmth alone
is enough to restore us
enough to recall that which is lost
enough to create the spindly form
of a crocus
reborn now to life
unfolding in cadence with each slogging step
recalling the ancient glory
witness
to the persistence of the light.
In the place where I was born
Standing there
Driving back from Colorado
I stop and stare into their eyes
Somewhere
I reach to the earth
the horizon doesn't exist.
It is lost in a field of wheat
that travels
between the sky and the ground.
you can look back in time
see the great herds of bison
carrier pigeons -
elk use to live here then
rutting along the banks of the Missouri, the Platte.
I see a herd of bison
20-30 head
raised in a roadside attraction.
black as the asphalt
liquid as oil
for a moment I think I see a tear.
in the vastness of bison memory
is a vision of storming hooves
a recollection of bodies running and tumbling
seas of saw grass
rolling hills
the sound of a geese migration
chanting above them in Autumnal skies.
and clasp a fistful of the ancient dirt in my hand
release it to the sky
and watch as it becomes
a whirlwind
rising at their heels
beyond the horizon
beyond my perception
the thundering of their hooves.
I remember talking to my uncle Harry about California.
"Of course it's warm there all the time." he said
He never said it directly
The English felt the same way about the Irish and potatoes.
How could people with such a plentiful food source
This was how the settlers regarded the Indians
"But then so is Mexico, so is Peru, and you don't see
people moving there do you?"
but I knew he thought there was something improper
a bit sinful about not suffering through
the freeze of Nebraska's winter.
ever be expected to act responsibly?
when they landed in Virginia,
why they so dutifully toured the villages
with their sick and dying,
disease was a good thing really
proper and correct,
no proper savage could resist,
and besides,
no Otis ever lived in California.
Of what stark monuments
How each deep line
I carry these thoughts to your grave.
Recovery was never the cure.
If you were here
My life was never any other.
I don't blame anymore -
our hands betray!
traverses the pain,
creeps like drunken snakes
towards a wrist grown weary and torn,
battered too many times,
shaken in a fist,
collapsed and folded,
grasping for your face, your smile,
the long forgotten names of your life.
Perform lost rituals and dirges,
rites with no name,
binary recreations of
cruelty and fear,
sadness and desperation,
the last gasping words
spoken in fear or rage,
hurtled against the walls of a tone deaf room,
carted off in pieces
and assembled now
for closer examination.
I would show you my children.
I would tell you how much I really cared,
how much I've lost and stolen,
hated and forgotten,
left for dead and resurrected;
on the prayer of you,
on the vision of you,
cued one last time
and spinning now into steady disarray.
I only grieve.
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway 1998. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for
copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their
original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © John Gurney 1998.
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