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Kurtis Cullen Feb 2014
Prairie winds howling from the south, the entire southern plane a gaping maw issuing forth wide frozen tides in the air scorching the land. peering thru the open blotches of the windshield on the way home, headlights revealing the rolling billows of misty scintillating snow devouring the gravel road way, old raised green truck roars thru the drifts. Earlier, twilight. Freezing. Everything the wind touches, everything that blocks its path becomes still and solid and severely dense. Had a bubble bath before i went out. AB =Long Johns 7 mo's. outta the year. Cheeks barely exposed to the elements, cells begin to deteriorate instantly, the strong stolid ache appears seconds afterward, and spreads in my blood quickly, and doesn't stop till some minutes after i seek refuge in the truck. Taking an elk. old bull. my step dad bumbles the first shot and the beast runs down the *****. He shoots it again. Cuts the throat and eventually takes off the head. Draining Blood is steaming. Leave the entrails in the snowscaped pasture land. Chain the legs to the bale mover on the back of the truck and make for the shop a few miles away. There Fire rages in an old steel drum in the corner, burning wood blocks and black petroleum wax leftover from the pigs that blast out from the pipelines. Feeney's in my coffee mug. The heat radiates just enough to reach us in middle room but we still wear full coveralls against to stifle the endless cold. We hang the carcass by running a steel rod through its achilles tendons. Grandpa & Stepdad refer to a murdered family in Consort whose place was burned down, suspect the son was involved in a drug deal gone bad. (Cohen bros. come to mind. Real life in Alberta & BC seems a blend of Big Lebowski and No Country). Skinning the elk. Carving it up. Learning the different cuts of meat, where t-bones come from, tenderloin, round steak, sirloin. Cool. Mass more than a 100 lbs of meat for jerky making. Country cousins comin over the next few days to help with cutting it all up. Striking a balance between fine articulation and the art of laughing. Turns out Everyone respects poetry for the audience. Good god y'all.
Written during Xmas break
Kurtis Cullen Feb 2018
Ancient dreames fly in the face of the fire,
The Aer of the flame carven crystal Grove:
Tireless unstoppable force; repoire borne said
Again anew drifting morphing--

Snowflakes dart express in the sylvan dark,
Pushed madly by yawning Boreal wind,
Streaking in countless trains, innumerable
Gleaming vessels in the Steel Lamplight,
Pouring through the vista syncopated by
Silhouetted pines.
Kurtis Cullen Oct 2011
Dreams flaire brighter than any daylit sky
Some of them talk and laugh and cringe and cry
Rising over our dark horizons, a phoenix of the mind
Though the hotter they burn, the sooner they die
Kurtis Cullen Oct 2019
The gnawing in my mind
Like a hammer striking a bell:
Riding in an iron Balloon
Buoyed in a noxious plume
Dark tunic slowly yellowed in the flame of acrid gas
Round goggles of the iron mask corroding
Flakes of steel falling away
Floating above a skinny caustic river
Encircling winding channels
Banks of concrete bleached by the sun
Endlessly eaten
By the current's maw
Hard white lights sheen on the surface
Where bridges collapsed
The rhythm of my breath
The wisp of a noxious zephyr
And the steady flow of the stream below
Are the only sounds

Out of green purple twilight
A zeppelin comes from the east
Propellers humming
Flying behemoth with an
Arcade of steel and glass
Draws near
Delivers my poison, and,
My quaking mind vindicated lastly like a dream:  
Pass the lips 'ere the river of song into the chorus of the
Wide golden shining sea
Brilliant coral cascading in blooming rainbow jungles
Dance of Life teeming
Beneath the surf
Kurtis Cullen Jul 2013
Bodies that move as mysterious as the night
Threshing and weaving into blankets of flight
A quilt woven meticulous with heirloom care,
Yet taken apart-- piece by piece, square by square:
After the upsurge and the spiral
And the crescent and the descent,
The smiling eyes and warm faces
Suggest this magic carpet ride
Was time truly well spent.
Kurtis Cullen Nov 2013
Sleep among the sunflowers
Gaze at the felicity of raining stars
Ages & angels pass by you
Like perennials in the park
Kurtis Cullen Dec 2013
Tree Of Life
Darkness & Slurping
Ghosts haunt primeval goo,
Whispering genetic code
God thinks Helixes look Cool
Light seems to gesticulate underwater.

A Thousand Thousand centuries
The Baptistina Baby kisses Chicxulub
(Or Vulcanism runs amok)
And then Platypus,
And then Plato,
And then Paradise City
Forever & Ever
Amen
Kurtis Cullen Oct 2014
Clouds roll on by the by,
How they tease the sinews of mine eye!
Kurtis Cullen Oct 2020
"i tend to judge people by how much effort they put into their own life.
Because that's really what im going to be sharing with them. Is their life.
With mine.
if they barely care about their own existence.
then the connotation is that i have to put that effort in to care for them.
that careful and precise art of embodying the human body in primary reality.
in order to channel time correctly.
the careful and precise alignment of the fulcrum of choice.
But.
its corruption.
or an intentional distortion of this process.
is such incalculable damage. why.
i can see no explanation beyond spite.
otherwise:
sadness rising to anger. judgment rising to scorn.
these emotions can be refined with reason to an understanding in face to face confrontation.
But spite does not create.
but the machine of spite. nothing else.
but that venom.
criminal.
So.
to care for another.
that is grace, and to generate the ways of the circle of grace. it is so fragile.
that humility is the only thing that makes this palatable.
if it is real.
the extremely fine art to take the heart of vulnerability from a wall.
to a door.
With a lock..
to reach this state is to freely share the fruits of time. knowledge.
labour.
passion.
therein is the High delight of the connoisseur.
who.
after sharing an exchange of words with another. experiences a multiple enrichment and expansion of his time.
And the story of it in itself told ripples beyond in the circles abounding.
that is the intent of comedy.
the effort to maintain all of it.
to ensure it continues on and renews.
And is here.
is the meaning of comedy. "
Kurtis Cullen Mar 2014
i. Sometimes the sky is purple where the firelight of the Sun meets the vapour of the Earth, and the vast mountains are overlain with crystals of ice and snow, scintillating among the peaks presiding above, and here IS the habitation of dragons, who soar in procession and ride o'er the rolling pure white, whose claws razor & move & rivet the Earth, and her bounty, for formations to roost, whose faces and bodies scale with white crystals, hanging bright and so clear, opened, void of concealment, and their eyes are orbs of lightning, looks of arcing illumination that hang in the sky like branches of a tall tree, and speak words like polished stones that ripple upon a balmy pool, like the flowing sounds of Vespers that Holy Angels play to you Endlessly in ur dreams, in the rhythm of golden oceans, and the melodies of rainbow harps, forever whispering to you during the passage of night and day.

ii. The blind snake gropes along the ground, bleary eyed, conceiving the body as a *** totem, seeking ultimately only to consume his own tail.
Kurtis Cullen Jun 2013
The arc of Hyperion's bedazzled sceptre
Issues forth a cascade of petals Rose deep
Laying the path for sweet heavenly Aurora
Chary± Divinity moving in a soft tip & creep ...
Until at last Her eye peers out o'er Terra
A shied face hidden 'hind the crest no longer.

For in her glance abides a treasure
No hallowed hall may contain:
Upon the Mount, within the Spring,
Roots of the Tree doth regain!
Fruits resurf, o' Golden Bough undulating
Seeped in kin vital, up the amber vein:
'Ere burgeoned wings do stretch & sing
Rising into Joy's boundless domain!
E'er again, again after!

Yea, be heedless to all fright
Nay, but to a solitary care:
Gallope free, alight
& kiss the silvery aer
Yet if ye be trapp'd in night,
& gaze morose in despair:
Thou pleasen only might; --
Pray, cease thine irradiant stare!

±Chary: careful about what is revealed; circumspect.
Kurtis Cullen May 2013
The race of the Spring is giving way
To the pace of the Summer,
More and more

Bees hover among the flowers, and
Young Chickadees are bigger now
Ripening like fruit on the vine,
Passing the test of hours

And in the lawn grass the Adder lies--
Still, stillness it must keep,
Wrapp'd by a hundred butterflies
Reds, oranges, blues, saffron, whites
All inextricably unique
Save when they rise,
Rising as they do like smoke when the serpent bites
The fang'd body uncoiled, vicious, sheer--

Nothing left in which to hide
Nothing more to make disguise
The Adder is bare before our eyes
The Adder is yielded to scrutinize!
See it before it flies! Spare yourself the surprise!
a poem about the deepening of what i understand about politics, relationships, growth
Kurtis Cullen Sep 2013
When the vaults of Heaven
Let go of that one,
Fateful star:

The skies leapt at her arrival
The air beckoned her ever on
& The winds carried her forward
So that she may never fall,

And so she soared:
Dancing round Earth's icy poles
Skirting the ancient tree tops
& Laughing among mountain peaks
At last She spiralled down the sleepy valley
That opens upon the sea...

There, o'er the deep fathomless surface
Containing its portion of the cosmic wild,
She crept forward
To see her reflection fly
Moving in unison
with waves swifting mild:

And in it revealed
The face of a Child
Tiny features, innocent grace
Yet an unspoken yearning,
A longing in her face:

For her eyes told a story
No words ever conveyed,
Her eyes told a story
Wrapped in a blanket of tears,
Her eyes revealing a story
Untouched by the passing of years...

And her eyes lifted to Heaven
And the rain drops soon came,
Her gaze steadfast towards Father
Mixed the celestial water, with pain--

It was then she remembered her Home,
With the blessings of ten thousand mornings gone,
And the promise of many more than that to come...
So She gave herself again to Father
While she continued to roam,
But her heart betrayed a knowing  
In Whom she called Home.
Kurtis Cullen May 2014
Every dance from every heart is a flower blooming in Heaven.
Kurtis Cullen Sep 2012
I wanna take you
To where Armies of emotion dwell in the night,
To where Princely fortresses crumble
By the slight of an old woman's hands.

To where Birds and Bees sing in wild harmonies,
And wind and water caress the surface of the Earth...

I wanna take you
To where Angels of the Hunt
Bathe and dream in stillness
And starlight.

To where smoke rises
And mist dances round the eyes
Of emerald children.

To where Stones sleep,
And sleep,
And sleep,
And bear the burden of the whole world on their back...
And bear it still
Though the tears of Millennia wash away,
in Furrows of wrath
and of wisdom.

I wanna take you
To where Sun's kiss is sear --
But holds you close like a Babe to the Breast,
in the light of a falling tear.

I wanna take you
To where we can be our best:
And let dust & shadow
Seize the rest.

— The End —