Tag Archives: poems

The Flags We Fly: Patriotic Sonnet

Our household flys a few flags
outside of our doors.
Often just one or two.
Sometimes a few more.

In season there’s Packers, Badgers,
Brewers and Sounders flags, too.
Sometimes there’s an M’s or a “12” banner.
But there’s always the Red, White and Blue.

Old Glory waves proudly
from the dawn’s early light
and on through the sunset and dark,
when we shine her up with spotlights.

No matter what sport we might be cheering or involved in,
our house wants folks to know how much we love our great Nation.

My wife is so patriotic she wrote a book about freedom. Find out about “Restoring Liberty” here. 

Her Keyboard Versus Mine: Free Verse

How I wish my fingers
in the evening flowed
like the creek,
like wind through the trees,
like a late summer’s gentle rain,
like the deepening orange-red sunset,
like the darkening eastern sky,
like her fingers dancing
across the 88 black-and-white keys,
like the music she creates
swirling and ebbing and dancing
out her door,
across the porch,
through the grass and leaves.

Instead, my fingers
bang bang clickety-clackety
across black keys
with white symbols,
creating not beautiful sounds
but only words
I hope will ebb and flow
and move.

If they are read.

Otherwise, that obnoxious
clickety-clackety noise
is the only sound
the peaceful evening will get
from my flying fingertips.

#NotaContest

Thanking Those Who Serve: Haiku

This morning I thanked some/
firemen because I’m grateful/
every day for them.

OR
… firemen cuz I’m grateful each
day for what they do.

Embarassed In Patriotic Prayer: Improv Free Verse

Today,
as I prayed,
and thanked God
for the Liberties that we have,
in this free and blessed land,
suddenly,
in my mind,
I saw all these Patriots,
young men and young women:
D-Day,
Korea,
the Revolutionary War,
the Civil War,
Vietnam,
the World Wars,
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
all the wars;
men and women
with body parts
blown apart,
some of them
disintegrating
into pink clouds,
laying down their lives
for the freedom
which we enjoy.

I realized,
at that moment,
how rarely I thank God
for their sacrifices.

I was ashamed to know
I did not,
have not,
and sometimes still
do not
bend my knees
and bow my head
every morning
and every evening
in gratitude for them
and their sacrifices,
and from the bottom of my soul
thank Him for them,
these young men and young women
who don’t even know me,
who died just because
they were doing their Duty.

In shame and anguish
I wept,
and I wished to God
that He could call a great convention
of those Heroes,
gather them all together
and announce,
in a voice of thunder,
from His Holy Throne:
“Dave Kuhns is sorry
that he was a schmuck,
that he had forgotten
to thank them.”

I don’t know
that they will ever know,
from the depths of my heart,
how much honor
and respect
and appreciation
that I have for them,
as I look out on my land,
my free land,
and for the liberties
and the bounties
that I have here.

I have never said
“Thank you!”
to that vast and gallant throng,
but now,
weeping in shame and gratitude
I bow my head,
and beg forgiveness
for me overlooking them,
and tell those valiant Patriots:
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Immaturity Revisited: Haiku Lament

It’s tough learning your/
Immaturity caused your
prior marriage issues.

OR

I’m shamed learning my/
selfishness was the cause of/
most marriage issues.

Did You Have Fun? Soccer Haibun and Haiku

Soccer. Fussball. Futbol. The beautiful game. I started playing it my sophomore year in Nicolet High School, as a club sport, in gym and intramurals. I was on the BYU “C” team (you know: A, B, C) … or maybe the “Z” team … my freshman year, the same year a team I player/coached were crowned intramural champs.

In 1981 I started assisting coaching soccer in the Fond du Lac soccer league. With a few breaks, I continued assistant coaching nearly every year, especially in the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association. I also became a referee, as did my two oldest kids. I also played in the Eastside adult “Co-Wreck” league.

da Blues LWYSA girls youth soccer team, Kirkland, WA Sept 1999, Coach KuhnsEventually, I became a head coach of several recreational teams, especially of da Blues girls team and the Tarantulas boys team. Sometime around 2005 or so, I stopped coaching, as my youngest grew into Select and Premier soccer, but I always went to their games, including their high school games.

In about 2010 a group of guys I’d coached since they were little came up to me and asked me to coach them one last time, the fall season of their senior year, in recreational soccer. They said, basically, “soccer has gotten too intense. We’re not going to play in college. We just want to have fun again.”

It was rewarding they’d learned at least one lesson from me. After every game, win, lose or draw, I would always ask the kids I coached the same question:
“Did you have FUN?” They would (almost always) smile and say “Yes.” Then I’d tell them how proud I was of them, we’d do some goofy cheer, and we’d go get snacks.

The Next Generation of Soccer Parents

I haven’t coached for a few years, although I still go watch on occassion (#CFC #ChattanoogaFC #EBFG #SeattleSounders #BYUCougars)  and I own one share of the #ChattanoogaFootballClub (#CFCowner). Now I see the next generation of soccer parents (and, really, all sports parents) coming along. These are kids of the same generation that I coached. Just like I was, they are all so earnest and excited. They all want their kids to do well. So, even though they are not asking me, I want to share a major lesson I learned from all those years coaching soccer:

“Did your child have fun?”

Here’s the haiku to go along with it.

One truth all soccer/
parents must grasp: Playing is/
never disaster.

When Truth Is Revealed: Mission Statement ImproVerse Haibun

She and I often sit in the throes of great deep philosophical and spiritual discussions about our life and lives, about existence and our place in it, about the purpose and meaning of life and how we fit and what we should do. How can we best serve our fellow men and women? What does God want us to do and can we do it and how should we do it?

Often, the Spirit teaches us great and grand truths. We put our hands over our hearts and exclaim: WOW! This is true truth! This is real.” And we smile and we feel motivated and inspired and we keep talking and we keep learning.

When this happens, hopefully a notepad and a pen or pencil will be handy and we’ll write down the truths that the Spirit is teaching us and we’ll take direction and inspiration and plans and dreams and we’ll capture them. And we only look at back at them later and maybe we will say “Yes!This is a great thing, a great truth!” And we’ll print them and put them up on our walls and use them as benchmarks and inspiration to what we should do and how we are doing.

What is Unwritten Truth?

Many times, too often really, we don’t take the time to write down the truth we’re learning. Sometimes the truths come so quickly that we can barely keep up in our own minds what they are, as they lap over on each other and grow and intertwine and intermingle and we see the visions and rejoice in what God is teaching us. So we don’t write them down. And sometimes we’re just too lazy to go find that piece of paper and pencil. We think to ourselves: “We will write it down later. This is so fantastic and so deep and so rich we will never forget it.”

But we do. Then, those truths and those heartfelt visions fade, fade,  fade away and are lost unless or until God sees fit to reprimand us, and maybe remind us of what we should have captured the first time and done the first time.

Vanishing Taught Truths Haiku

Socrates discussed,/
taught, learned. Did those truths vanish,/
too, the way ours do?