Tidbits From An Unknown Author

By Richard E. Kuykendall

Rev. Dr. Richard E. Kuykendall holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Master of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Ministry degree. He has served as a minister for over thirty years in a number of locations around California. Kuykendall is the author of a number of books: Prophetess of the Earth, Even Witches Have Names (which won the Gold Seal Award for Literary Excellence), A Dishwasher's Diary, The Dream Life of Jesus, A curmudgeon's Commentary on the Book of Revelation and Two Ways to Lose Your Faith. "Tidbits From An Unknown Author" is a collection of Kuykendall's poetry, dreams, selected journal entries, essays and even song lyrics. This is his first ebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard E. Kuykendall
• Release date: Jan 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310178221

Richard E. Kuykendall

The Rev. Dr. Richard E. Kuykendall has been a minister for over thirty years and served a number of churches in California. He is the author of a number of books which are available on amazon. His book, "Even Witches Have Names" won the "Gold Seal Award for Literary Excellence" and "Tidbits From An Unknown Author" is his first ebook. In this book there are a "tidbits" from his writing over the years: poetry, dreams, journal entries, essays and song lyrics. In reading this book the reader will be pleasantly surprised at the breadth of his thought and his completely unorthodox approach to religion.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I thought I would tell you some things about myself because I am an unknown writer to most readers. It seems as though as a writer I have surrounded myself by an assortment of other unknown authors rather than best sellers. For instance there was Raoul Fajardo who wrote, The Creative Constitution of the Universe and others. Then there was Bryce Yourd who wrote, An Ocean Awaiting Discovery and more.

Then there were two women in their 90s: Nellie Condon who wrote poetry and Dorothy Slack who wrote her autobiography.

Louise Schnur wrote her book, From Darkness to Light: An Autobiography of a Battered Woman and Stewart Rawlings wrote his Another Messiah, Delusions and others.

My friend David Osborn has written a number of books; none of them have even been self-published. And my friend Pat Bergman starts writing new books almost every day and never finishes one.

What do all of these writers have in common? They have either been self-published or never published. I too have self-published several books but my only book that was ever published by an outside publisher was my book, Liturgies of the Earth which was published in 1992 by Educational Ministries, Inc.

Anyway, in writing this I provide the reader (if any) to glance at tidbits of many of the things that I have thought, dreamed and sang about. And so with this, let us begin.

POETRY

Heartbreaks are heavy on a boy of sixteen

And his heart is easily broke.

Hell may weigh heavy on the song he does sing

And his mind they bind and choke.

Surrender to the human race

Or go out and find yourself a place—

To hide yourself from all your fears—

Bury your life in a lake of tears.

But I'm not afraid of anything

Except my imagination and what it will imagine.

And the only bells that ring—

They ring not for me but for my image.

There are dogs in the street—

There's a man in your room

And I fell in love with a sound.

I see you all now;

You stand by my bedside.

You touch my warm brow;

The tears in your eyes you can't hide.

I don't know why I'm here anyway!

I don't know why I'm here anyway!

I looked through a window

And saw the one I loved.

We kissed each other through this window

But the cold glass touched my lips—

It chilled my toes to my fingertips

And my face slid down the cold glass to the floor.

And a breeze blew in from under the door—

A breeze blew in from under the door.

Oh, that my head were a funnel

In which I could pour knowledge like water into a bottle.

I'm dying of thirst!

"As a hart longs for flowing streams,

So my soul longs for knowledge!"

Oh, that all libraries could be made fluid

And I could pour their contents into my head.

There is never enough time.

"Of the making many books there is no end

And much study is a weariness to the flesh"—

The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak!

There's got to be a better way!

Oh, that my mind were inflatable!

Sometimes however I feel

That my mind cannot stand another drop.

My head is almost ready to pop!

Like putting a balloon on a faucet and turning it on full force.

Like shoving a hose down your throat and letting the water fly.

He who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

"Do not make yourself overwise—

Why should you destroy yourself?"

There is a saturation point—

A natural or imposed boundary line.

Thus far and no farther!

Oh, that my eyes were made of glass

and I could see things as they really are.

I reveal myself in degrees

Like the moon—never fully.

The moon is never really full to us.

We can never see the whole at once.

Our sight is limited.

We see only that which faces us—

What is caught by our senses.

I reveal myself in degrees.

With an acquaintance I share only a thin crescent of light.

For a friend I pull the curtain back further.

For my lover the curtain is pulled yet further—

But rarely is the curtain drawn aside completely.

And besides the light of the full moon,

There is the dark side as well

And few have seen it.[1]

Few want to see it.

I reveal myself in degrees.

We reveal ourselves in degrees.

I asked for bread

But I got a stone instead!

Have you ever tried biting into a stone?

You'd think your teeth would break.

Mine did!

Both were immature.

They never grew up.

They never became strong.

They just couldn't take the pressure.

And so you know what's worse than biting into a stone?

Try having one dropped on your head!

A gift from above.

"Crush the head of the serpent!

You'll only bruise your heal.

And you'll leave it with a mark"—

The mark of the real Beast—

Not on the forehead though—

On the back of the head

Covered by hair where no one can see it.

They won't know you're marked

But you'll know it's there.

You'll have to live with It.

Yes, I asked for bread—

Why was I given a stone instead?

I shake my fist at the evening sky—

I couldn't care less if I live or die.

I grope in the dark but no one is there—

The words of my mouth fad fast in the air.

And when I have no more tears to cry

I'm left with a word and the word is Why!

This emptiness does always abide—

When I say it is gone I know I have lied.

Life is an irritant to me

I am an open wound that never heals

I have no scars

I only have open wounds

And there are no bandages to cover me

Life is an irritant to me

But whereas an oyster takes an irritant and makes a pearl

My irritants to not make anything of worth

I allow them to lay waste to my feelings

With anger, complaining and negative thinking

I look at the world through shit covered glasses

Who wants someone like that?

The world is an irritant to me

While there are beautiful children playing

Instead I focus on the children who are starving

While there is beauty in the world

Instead I focus on wars and genocide

While there are beautiful creatures in the world

I focus on those creatures that kill

Like sharks that attack people

Like lions killing gazelles

And while there are kind and honest people

I focus on killers and big money people

Who are in it just for themselves.

"O wretched man that I am!

Who shall deliver me from this way of thinking and being?"

We pass each other.

Your body calls me—

Bidding me to perform an ancient ritual—

A ritual which stages an illusion of life and oneness.

We strip off our clothes—

Mimicking our desire to be absent from the body—

Pure spirit.

Part of me hardens

In an attempt to convince me of the reality of my body.

It fills with blood

In an attempt to prove the presence of life.

It yearns to bury itself deep within you

And thus simulate union

A caricature of oneness.

And you—

Part of you melts, it softens and opens

In an attempt to convince you

That you really are open to me—

That you really do want me to be in you.

It moistens in an attempt to prove

That you will not hinder my approach—

My entrance.

And then in rhythmic motion—

Approximating the rhythm of life—

The beat of the heart

The ebb and flow of the sea

The change of the seasons

The movement of the spheres—

We progress; we evolve

Towards the moment where you and I

Convulse in an intensification—

A localization of that rhythm of life

And I fill you with the warm; living water of life.

We embrace.

Our hands and feet clenched

As if to suggest that we do not want

This illusion to pass—

This illusion of life and oneness.

For soon one becomes two

And this illusion of life gives way to

The illusion of death

And we fail to see the whole point—

That this ancient ritual

Is only