NO BOOK IS THE FINAL WORD

To KP

No book is the final word.

Dissection of passages and

questioning the definitions

of certain words taint the

original message, perverting

the source of inspiration.

We send messages through

books with the intent to discredit,

challenge or defend controversial

views or topics. Many have died

over a book Many have been

tortured over a book. Many books

have been burned throughout the

centuries. Manuscripts have been

lost or shredded. Plenty of books

have been discredited. The contents

of a book in pious attempts to define

holiness or Godliness can be carried

to the extreme- the fanatic does not

read mercy between the lines.

The fundamentalist does not read

love in any passage. Truth has been

shredded into millions of pieces.

We can never glue the pages back

together while wondering about a

book's authorship and the meddling

done to it throughout the ages in

self serving agendas.

                                                 Ronald Kurt

 

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Bring the dead back from the dead.

They can grant us some insight

They can tell us how to avoid Armageddon.

They can tell us if we are on the right track

to paradise. They can warn us not to make

the same mistakes.

 

Maybe the dead wish they had never been born.

Maybe the dead would repeat their mistakes

if given another chance. Perhaps the dead

cannot give us any information. They are

trapped in their existence. They can only

suffer in their silence without any desire

to lift a finger for humanity.

 

We the living matter only to ourselves

in our short sighted goals in our little

empires knowing hell on earth, fully expecting

eternal hell to greet us in our last gasping breaths.

                                                 Ronald Kurt

 

QUIET DOWN

Quiet down. Settle into

silence. Leave the world

outside. Take the spirit

to a channel of peace

beside a bookcase lined

with insightful books­-

stories of lives lived

to a greater glory.

Quiet down. Praise the

ability to be dead to the

body while living in a

heart seeking purity,

innocence in a sacred

si1ence with your temple

reinforcing itself for every

cruel future prophesied by

God and man.

                                                 Ronald Kurt

 

SONG TO TAKE US AWAY

Music is a slow suicide

scrambling the senses.

It coats any rational thought

casting reason out of the

front door. Driving rhythms

initiate the dance of limb

and hand. The head can

move like a controlled ball

to hypnotic beats.

The voice can be moved to

hum or even sing to a lyric

control1ed composition. Yes,

we will go to war with a

marching band playing,

gallantly marching pride

and duty to heaven or hell.

We are the masses looking

for a good song to take us

away to love and bed night

after night, awakening to

a heaven filled day of bliss

and music reminding us to

forget life while trapped in

our desperate situations.

                                                 Ronald Kurt

Ronald Kurt is an Edmonton author of six chapbooks. He was a literary coordinator at Latitude 53, an Edmonton art gallery.