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October 2015

Hallowe’en Season

Hallowe’en Season

Why don’t I mind when Hallowe’en is overdone,
when stores stock up and pander to us
the colors, the candies, the costumes, the scares
of Hallowe’en time?

Because that’s what Hallowe’en is, folks.
For the ancients, a time to celebrate harvest
and express hope, through ritual, of a better
crop next year.

For us, a celebration of fright, the good kind (yes,
there is a good fright), the kind that children
can enjoy—and by children, an adult
admission, the child is any of us.

Orange and black, brown, red, and yellow,
colors of fall turned into colors of festivities.
Can it be overdone, over-sold, and over-lived?
Sure—what can’t?

This cool season (in the East) we enjoy beyond
the mask, the crafted holes we look through
to see a tunneled, focused world bent on
cheer and scare in equal measure,

I’ll take it, as it is. How much definition is
there, anyway? Wear anything (a pillow with
big holes and elsewhere black—you are a floating
ghostly head), and take the candy courteously

at the front door, in the mall, in the community
hall, or at the party. Enjoy. Enjoy the fright.
Enjoy the minor excess, dependant on the love of
chocolate and dark nights.

0

What do we talk about today?

What do we talk about today?

anything
anything you want
I’ll stand by
well, sit by

I’m still sitting

still sitting

sitting

still

2

for those who might not know

For anyone reading this who might not know, the poems I’ve entered over the last several days are mine (except for Tolkien’s) and from a course I’ve taken through Blogging University called Writing 201. Now that this course is finished, I’ll enter more things and try to spruce up this blog or at least make it more seem like my own. I like interaction (positive, polite), so I hope my blog will continue with a little life, at least.

0

the day after

sabbath

a poem that’s not an assignment
I can write anything I want
so can you

a kind of sabbath day, I guess
I do enjoy, regardless of formality, a day of
rest and easier reflection

I like this time when expectations are few
though that’s foolishness, because there’s always
much to do

but sabbath, personal or by tradition, gives us
a rest, a chance to think new things
to take life section by section

look at each, put it down after enjoying the texture
of each piece of living and the affects
of prior choice

and give new voice
to decide anew
after rest is due

our way
today

2

a poem to say t.t.f.n. to Writing 201 and friends

Our Way, Friend and Friends

(“My Way” is a song written by Jacques Revaux, Claude Francois, Gilles Thibaut, Paul Anka—popularly recorded by Elvis Presley and by Frank Sinatra)

“And now, the end is near
So I face the final curtain”

A melancholy song about endings
Though it’s kind of a conceit

Not based on final assessment
Or judgment in life

But an expression, a claim
A kind of righteous claim on life

“Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention”

Yes, we have regrets, and I don’t know
About too few

I would change things; so, I
Think, might you

We don’t act, we don’t choose
In a vacuum of discretion, since

What we enact, from inner to outer
Performance, affects others, too

It does—we might think, one by
One, we have no power

And what we do does not matter
But we do, and it does

“The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way”

Well, the blows fall all around
And others are affected, too

The song is a cheat—though I like
The tune—for there is good

In the reality of knowing we are not
Isolate, even in responsibility

We work together, however
Unconsciously

So let’s do it consciously
And so we have: we have worked

Together, and for what we’ve made
I’m thankful

Thank you, thank you, each and all, for
Making it, not one

But more than one
For doing it our way

Our way, better
Our way, real

Our way, our way

C L Couch

6

pleasure, sonnet, apostrophe

And so, dark lady, this is given thee
(I use “thee,” the ancient word for love,
the closer way to say “you,” hand in glove:
bland, loving pronoun “you” now claims to be) —

To thee (then), all I have respecting me
I offer thee, while still respecting of
my broken soul that I would set above,
my spirit armored, still, against cold sea;

I’m foolish, dear, to worry over things
but do protect myself against the stormed
and frozen heart-string now that warmly sings
the happiness I have from thee; new-formed
heart’s way, surprising. calms my fears from years.

Rejected pains let go as thy love nears.

4

Cold, Concrete Poem, Anaphora/Epistrophe (Symploce)

Walking in Autumnal Days Away

above is a link to a .doc filed in my WordPress library; as far as I know, if you have MS Word, you can open this just fine; if not, please let me know; you see, I wrote the text and then tried to re-cast it, as it were, into a sidewalk shape using text-box blocks (not that clever, I know–and they wouldn’t transfer to WordPress); then I embellished the original text with a second conversation within about sidewalks; for just the original words, look below (no shape, though, and no second conversation)

Walking in Autumnal Days Away by C L Couch

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
Past the library that is across
The street from the haunted house
Really, with tall and iron spikes
With arrow points along the tops
That make the rail, well, rail

[everything smushed into a sidewalk square, a new box opened, and so on]

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
Past the brick place with a roof
That we could huddle under
Waiting for the bus to school
Or town—the fumes from passing
Trucks and cars also huddled with us

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
Back then, I used to like the crunch the leaves
Even the chores to come that
Crunching would remind me
The dogs would need some care
And everything raked up and packed

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
We’re told this winter will be milder
Which is fine with me, since I
Recall the season when the bridge
Fell down across the city river
But I’ll take a cold autumn, thanks

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk

The walk I have is broken through
With roots of tree, but so am I
Broken bricks and not-so-smooth
Concrete: am I not made of the
Same stuff, I think—but I do like
The fall and the unevenness of life
The walk, even upended, invites

And I simply like the fall and
Cold-autumnal days; the shorter
Nights are sad through there is
Good thought in the melancholy
And I like the walk and walking
It’s an easier exercise to do
Which is why, however wet or uneven

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk

And so let’s talk

6

taste, elegy, enumeratio

Christmas Elegy at the Mall

a red wagon and video games and a baby brother and another puppy (the one I have’s grown up and harder to carry) and snow on Christmas and the day after (so maybe we won’t have to go shopping) and a snow day tomorrow and a big TV that will fill up a wall in my room and Legos for Star Wars and Harry Potter and enough left over so I can make a Bat-Cave and a cell phone I can look at ‘cause I know my folks won’t let me use it and the part I want in the Christmas play and a tree that hits the ceiling (which is what my father usually gets) and lights on the tree and the paper-mache ornament I made to look like a pear (you know, from the song—and it sorta looks like a pear) and lights outside the house and around the window in my room so I can look at the lights at night and for my sister to be good (I’m already good) and lots of the cookies I like (the kind with icing and Red-Hots—you know, what I leave for you) and just one big candy cane for me and anybody else who wants one

and

and

and

and—you know what, big guy, forget all that

just bring my mom home safe from the war

16

neighborhood, ballad, assonance

The Ballad of the Assonant Neighborhood

Consonants are confident
We use them all the time
But in small places assonance
Comes through to make a rhyme

The vowel sounds beg for listening
They make great sounds, you know
The “aw” in haunt and such a think
As needful sounds will show

I wouldn’t want to go without
The assonance of day
How could I moan throughout the town
On Hallows’ Eve, so say

A ballad this is not, my friend
For the hero is a vowel
And greater deeds are truly meant
For banners hung on dowel

But still I’ll sing of assonants
Though consonants are fine as well
But “O” and “oo” and other rants
Must true be used to tell

The better stories with full sounds
Come through from friends who bid
That songs be sung of “Ay!” and “Ouch!”
And other heroes’ laments in mid

Of larger things that ballads sing
In towns both grand and small
And so I say good night and sweep
My presence from this hall

15

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