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September 2018

Signing Petitions

Signing Petitions

 

It was about prayer

Something I was thinking while

Nodding off

(officially, I’m trying to learn napping)

Prayer can be done in any stance, I think

(for instance, the entry into dozing)

Standing, sitting, kneeling, even

Prostrate

For we see the nuns and monks do this

And others in obeisance

Maybe the positions are for us

Appealing to ourselves

A signal to our peers

A sign of intent

 

What do we need to concentrate,

What makes a prayer a prayer?

It might be focus

It might be lining up the body to have this

To promise it

But can’t we pray on the fly?

In an instant, while we must be doing something else

A prayer sounding

Off the cuff in an

Emergency

 

Like a child who baptizes someone

In a dire situation

It counts

The books must record it happened in

This way

 

So prayer matters

In whatever way

Whichever muscles might be

Angled here or there

Sometimes we can’t apologize enough

Sometimes we can’t apologize at all

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Bill Kuykendall, Photographer (NARA record: 2708009) – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17118564

 

1

Dance Fever

Dance Fever

 

Exhale

Breathing’s good

I’m in favor of it

Sometimes it’s hard

That’s the heart disease,

I guess,

And maybe something more

Una poca de grácia

Y una cosita más

That’s the secret of

“La Bamba”

Hardly the lesson for some difficulty in

Drawing breath

Unless

It’s a cure

We dance with fervor, even fever

The world pushes air into our lungs

We breathe, regardless

And everything improves

 

The secret of the life is dance

The healthy life

I hope that counts in thought

I could waltz

But hardly tarantella

 

Dancing in the brain

A different kind of falling

And without romance

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Tarekheikal – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55507993

 

0

Looking

Looking

(not with eyes)

 

I’m sure we’ll be all right

No compelling reason

Faith, I guess

Measures of hope and hope for grace

In faith, these are promises,

 

Which on a tired, hungry morning

Sore and cynical

Do not win over, easily

For anyone

But there’s optimism in that, too

Tolerance unearned

Shame assuaged

 

Should take more strength than I have

You might be tired, too

But the next hour will arrive

Without us

We can’t make everything happen,

Thank goodness

Though we can do this much

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Poupig – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20853200

 

0

Green Room

Green Room

 

It’s after nine o’clock

Not in a bar with smoky music

But in the morning

And I’ve barely slept

I hear when we age, we don’t need

So much

But that is not an anodyne for me

 

What is it that keeps us going

What is it that gives us pause for rest

Then takes that peace away

Pain and guilt

I can guess other things

Or is it that

During the day, there wasn’t enough running

Playing tag

Kicking the can

Hiding or seeking

 

Children can wear themselves out

I used to take part in that

I never thought about expenditure of energy

I wasn’t winded

The greater fear was being bored

And I wasn’t

 

But for all the contradictions

For the paradox that grown-up rest is cardinal

When grown-up style renders everything

Self-conscious

With affronts to dignity

All around

 

We reserve our steps

Then start to count them

We want to measure everything

In that is prognosis

For a life of balance

 

Well, I’ll try again tonight

Maybe earlier

Maybe without a marker

About how much time is good

 

Maybe I’ll dream about not

What is catching up to me

But what is on the caliper

Something new, even if it’s unrehearsed

Ready nonetheless

To take center stage under the lights

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://snappygoat.com/s/?q=bestof%3Aspot%20spots%20spotlight%20fresnel%20lens%20stage%20lighting%20theatre%20lighting%20theaterspot%20theatre%20spots%20studio%20altman%20light%20greenbox%20stage#3b201108edfe184116a82aad4610908c99b394fb,1,341.

 

0

Firenze

Firenze

 

My sister and her family evacuated Wilmington

Before the hurricane

We’re “bugging out,” she said, no doubt

A reference to all the M*A*S*H episodes we used to watch

 

Now they’re home, she says

No electricity but plenty of red wine

And all the cleaning-up to do

They’re both alive

Their little dog, too

Old Poodle

While the storming moves up here, I guess

Maybe it will be less

I don’t really know

Who does?

The forecast is given in percentages

 

And we’ll joke about

The job one gets to have

For being paid to get something wrong

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Ever stared down the gaping eye of a category 4 hurricane? It’s chilling, even from space,” says European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex), who is currently living and working aboard the International Space Station as a member of the Expedition 56 crew.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/staring-down-hurricane-florence

 

0

Pluto Attacks

Pluto Attacks

 

The problems of impatience

The perils

I hang up on sellers, anymore

They’re doing a job, I know

But I can’t handle little parts of

Conversation prior to a pitch

I feel the pressure

Lean into my wall

Pressing on the shield

Of disclosure

 

A stranger wants me to buy

I have nothing and want nothing

In that way

Maybe you relate

I do not curse

I do not wish ill upon the current

Generation of marketers

Or the next

I simply want the phone to answer with

The known

The friendly, the familiar

Some comfort in connection

 

So I can’t listen, anymore

Can you?

Does your day have either holes

Or heroic capacities

To have the agenda pushed

With additives or promises, once

Paid for?

 

You are better than I

And I imagine you are, anyway

You have peace

Where I sense only perturbation

You can give

When I must withhold

Energy, even motes of time

 

Well, this is me

This is me now

Don’t try to sell me anything

It burns the hole burned through long ago

I don’t want to have what’s left

Set up on the block

In a marketplace of phantoms

 

C L Couch

 

 

Grzegorz Rejniak

https://www.freeimages.com/photo/old-phone-1313726

 

0

Hot Spots

Hot Spots

 

It’s close enough to be war

Venezuela, Colombia

The Philippines, Myanmar

Eastern Ukraine

Syria, Yemen, the Sudans,

And Nigeria (thanks to Boko Haram)

These are near enough to war

And there are other places

Do we name Chicago?

 

Are wildfires war? Then we must

Add California

And the violence of our spirits?

Where does that extend the boundary?

 

Is it a cosmos that wars as well?

In terms of matter, we might claim entropy

Or the mustard gas of stars’ annihilation

But where is will?

I think we need to know

 

This becomes our place in the universe as well

Does matter tilt toward intention

Or simple cessation?

Whose woods these are I think I know.

Does it participate,

The maker and the builder—

Does it build?

 

Do we matter,

Does matter matter?

Does a notion of a providence bamboozle?

Okay, I don’t think so, the Calvinist

In me will out

 

We need to talk about this

Let’s think first,

Maybe set something down

Like homework

Then come together, class,

To learn

 

We learn from each other

Dialogic, the style of Socrates

Synthesis, Hegelian

 

On the other side, what then?

We live more fully,

Fed on coffee, pastries, wine, and cheese

Civil plates’ discussion

Offering cups of cold water

Never forget that

A metaphor made real every time

Even a commandment

 

We live better together

Each one has one’s own

It is a choice

It is a pleasure

A present

And a future

 

C L Couch

 

 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

0

Emergency Calls

Emergency Calls

(remembering 9/11 in the USA)

 

Today in my part

We are remembering

A horrific attack on innocents

By crazy people

This kind of murder happens

Elsewhere

My country is not the battleground

So often

Syria, Yemen, Colombia, Myanmar

The Philippines, Somalia

Sudan

We’ve sometimes had a hand in these

That might have made the crazy

People crazier

Enacting their cause here

 

On this day, we remember here

Where death came to passengers,

Firefighters, office people, and

The rest

Companies of normal people

Noncombatants, we would say

If this were anything like war

Between fair nations

 

I suppose on planet Earth

Wars and war-like actions must

Happen in someone’s yard

The playing fields, business places

Farm, and town

We have few dedicated battle zones

The DMZ, maybe ocean surfaces

And depths

Air and now we think to weaponize

Space, above and beyond

 

So war must happen close to home

Inside

And things warlike, if not war

Which then we call killing

We call it murder

And I suppose on someone’s ugly surface

There is a plan to do it again

Pray that we stop it

And praise those who do

 

But as we honor peace

So may we honor them:

The victims, those who ran toward

The concussions of air and sound

And matter

Turned into explosion and horror

Metal, blood, and bone

All those who died first

First helpers

And the many who were saved

Who are with us, still

 

We are here

Remember

Celebrate

Pray for cessation

Pray for profusion

The horror gone

And peace prevail

 

C L Couch

 

 

By United States v. Zacarias MoussaouiCriminal No. 01-455-AProsecution Trial ExhibitsExhibit Number P200066Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by User:Russavia using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15252009

 

 

0

The Sacrifice of Isaac

The Sacrifice of Isaac

 

What is remarkable is the presence of the angel

Who stayed the hand of Abraham, bearing

The knife or whatever would be taking away

 

Isaac from his life

And is it remarkable

The surrender of the spirit of the son

To be carried away from the promise not of prophecy

But of parenthood

 

It happened

It would never be forgotten

My father took me to a place and set me down

To steal my life

Rams could not do this time

I must be the sacrifice

 

He is the offering to God

For what

Sorrow of the people

Plea for repentance

Future abundance in the land

 

Is it enough

To give up himself,

The words promised his father and his mother,

The dealing out of Ishmael,

His mother

 

Once sacrificed, always gone

Even spared, what should be left

Of hopes and dreams

And a father’s guard

If not affection

 

What is left for Isaac:

Was he blinded by the presence of the angel

Suffuse with the strength and majesty

Of God’s own following,

Will he live in love and faith and

Aspiration for a lifetime?

 

So much later, David weeps for Absalom

We might also wonder about the tears

Of Abraham

Relief, sorrow, the temerity of

Surrendering all sides to

Barter with the future

Of a parent

Of a people

Of a child

 

C L Couch

 

 

(caption) The sixth-century C.E. floor mosaic from the Beth Alpha synagogue, in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. The mosaic lay near the door, so that anyone who entered was confronted by the scene. Walking from here to the apse, visitors crossed a large mosaic zodiac and then a panel depicting a lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron), menorahs, and the Ark of the Law—the same objects that accompanied the Akedah image at Dura-Europos 300 years earlier.

(from) https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/binding-sacrifice-isaac/?mqsc=E3987540&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDDaily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=ZE8A9JZ80

 

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