Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Month

October 2018

Slipstream

Slipstream

 

Too many thoughts to keep

I must let them go

Around the corner, just before

The turn, a thought moving

Too fast toward the new street

 

And I can’t catch up

To tap it on the shoulder

To say, Slow down!  The neurons

Flash, and I miss everything

 

I want to get to know them

Look, here’s a café just along the way

We might stop, have some coffee

A nosh

While I may get to know you, maybe,

If you will,

Slip you in my pocket to go over with

Clarity, later on

 

No?  The synaptic pace is set?

I’ll simply lose you, then

Have what marks I made

(little more than bird tracks)

Fold them in a file

Read over the pages from

Time to time

Hoping for salience with

A slowed-down sense

Of light speed

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Joachim Lutz, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20052646

 

1

Creaking

Creaking

 

I’m sitting, learning forward

On a Sunday afternoon

As if I were counting vertebrae

I can’t hear them, not yet

Maybe someday

Ageing with an e or without

Isn’t so bad

Especially when most of what’s wrong

Has been extant for years

I wonder if someone else could relate

With ailments long-standing

Conditions that haven’t healed right

Events from long ago

That still have their way

For good or ill

Ill when it’s nightmarish

In the waking now

 

Creaking like an old door

That still moves

Thank goodness

But like a challenge that

Deserves a well-oiled response

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://pxhere.com/id/photo/1201631

 

1

Home Keys

Home Keys

 

I know who I am

Do you?

It’s not a challenge

Maybe

 

Maybe it’s a way to say

That if we talk

And as we listen,

It will go better if

If you have some understanding

Who you are

Me, too

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://pxhere.com/en/photo/627056

 

0

A Dose of Paradox

A Dose of Paradox

 

They sit next to each other on the shelf

Salt and pepper

In the fridge, mustard and ketchup

Beer and wine

The opposites that don’t attract

But must live near each other

And often used together

 

Complementary colors on the wheel

Yellow and purple

Orange and blue

The colors of Christmas

And the Italian flag (add white)

 

Paradox is ecumenical

I guess I should say yin and yang

But it’s not a coin, you know

Two coins thrown into an ocean, more like

Love and death

Sex and abstinence

Not opposites, not really

Not two sides

Not life and death

But death and resurrection

They must be by each other

On the shelf

They must be used

Both and unevenly

There isn’t a good pattern that we see

Through our dark glasses

 

It’s ecumenical

It’s church

Folk who get together for no other reason

And often reason breaks it down

The Muslim and the Jew

The Christian and the Hindu

The Buddhist and the Taoist

Confucian and Shinto

All those who have a way

And have it rather exclusively

 

Thankfully, the broad shelf is there

The place for all things to dwell

In readiness

No one wins unless

All win

Respect is the spice

That will keep us at the table

Using everything we know

And not so much

 

Mister Marlow said restraint

And he was right

The horror was in letting go

Not knowing there are many directions in

Which to fall

 

Well, there it is

It’s Friday

For those who have one, the end of

The work week

It is finished

Let’s hope for restoration now

Before the work begins again

And those who work on weekends will

Have another day

See, the cycles do not hold

For all

And without doubt

Not in the same way

 

C L Couch

 

 

MiraCosic

https://pixabay.com/en/salt-pepper-shaker-seasoning-food-993111/

 

1

At 5 a.m., How and Why

At 5 a.m., How and Why

 

God

You are there

And I am here

The distance between us need

Be no more than a filament

The breadth of a capillary

A pulse between two nuclei

Or the space can be

The width of a world

 

That has more to do with me

Since no qualifying of divine will stands

Beyond the condition you placed upon yourself

For a savior

 

One who redeems as God and a person

Flesh molded with spirit

Majesty in ordinary undertaking

To teach, to heal, to live, to die in innocence

And then all will returns

In death defeated

 

It is a Christian way to know things

It might not be yours

 

But to God

I wonder how you stayed the angel

Who took the knife from Abram’s hand

But would keep it in the Roman plan

To hack a cross together

Display one who dies because

A decision was made

In Sanhedrin and handwashing

Not for justice but for status quo become murderous

 

Abraham was flawed, so was Noah

So was Sarah, so was Isaac, so was Miriam

Yet you made them whole

As all were knit together

Except your child

Who was you and yet was not excused from execution

Out of innocence

 

How do you mitigate your will

And maybe you never do

You allow yourself to bleed

Blood and water, liquids running life

 

You could have changed it all, and you didn’t

Change a thing

I am amazed and horrified

And would never lift my eyes again

Except

You promise joy and peace

And whoever have I been to argue with you

I must be content

 

Allow for Easter

For greater pain unknown anywhere on Earth,

Which splits the universe

And renders understanding into splinters

Of crystalline grace

‘Til grace is all that’s left

With which you save

 

With which you drag us into heaven

From drowning in deep waters

Filled with tendrils from wary sources

Always ready, in fact plotting

To bring us down

Away from light

From one day into eternity

 

I don’t get it

I don’t have to

I am here

You are there

And here

Closer in than I shall ever be

My God

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash

 

 

0

The Cup of Cold Water

The Cup of Cold Water

(“I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.”)

 

There’s nothing like cold water

If you’ve forgotten

Allow me to remind you

The aqueducts of Rome

Spiral wells in the Atacama

Oases here and want to be there throughout the world

 

The lack of it in Flint

According to recent studies

Not trusting my tap water, either

 

That’s all right, let them drink from plastic bottles

(we can have it with our cake instead of bread)

Tell that to the lack of wells in western Africa

And those who only have the wherewithal

For thirst

 

Other than the vine

No greater metaphor in Scripture

Yours or mine

Or simply keep the paperwork

That says we cannot drink

Or of the warlords who say,

I have water

So I win

 

I once drank water through the ground

Artesian promises

But

The pressure of the

Earth is not

Enough alone

To make it clear

To keep its savor

We have ruined all of it

 

I don’t mind filters

I’m glad for Brita

But too bad I cannot trust a spring

In the desert

It’s not the suddenness of romance

But the assurance of a poison

 

I’ll take my filters now

As long as I can

I’ll arrange fundraising for

Wells in real wilderness

But for the suburban places that were made into our own

We can buy

We can vote

We can find the difference

In the basics of thirst

The right to hunger

 

C L Couch

 

 

bb20_pt10

https://pixabay.com/en/flowers-cup-plastic-water-2690276/

 

2

On the Line

On the Line

 

Some days are cleansing days

I’m not sure what that means

I have a simpler breakfast

Coffee and dry toast,

I spread out around the computer

Ignore the phone (caller i-d keeps watch,

anyway)

Eat and drink and write

I’m tired enough

Though not so much

It’s a kind of litany with the elements

A collaboration with nature, God the

Maker,

And with me

Not trusting self but

Finding faith with (the) others

 

Gee, it’s Monday

I think the Earth hates Mondays

Sometimes (some days) I rather loathe them, too

But it’s a start-up day for the week

And that’s all right

Taking some time to prepare

 

A breath before the face goes underwater

The shock of cold, the return of light

When breaking through

One way or the other

Let’s see what happens

 

C L Couch

 

 

(by and at) https://plentysweetlife.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/sheets-on-the-clothesline/

 

1

1982

1982

 

My mother came home from the hospital today,

and I can’t handle the numbness from

exhaustion.  She has the disease, and it’s going

to kill her, but I can’t help but wonder (bad

son) about my role in this.  I try to cause three

meals a day to happen and earn enough outside

to pay some bills.  My father has proved useless.

I guess no one is surprised, though every now

and then I hope.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Robert Gramner

Just a lost key by a popular running trail.

 

 

0

Failure to Launch

Failure to Launch

 

The rocket didn’t fire right

The flight could not be realized

A visit to the clouds

And the colony beyond

Will

Happen another day

 

I suppose it’s costly to repair and repeat

Maybe there’s something

The pride of discipline at work

But what happened is

 

The crew escaped

 

We remember when

There were no considerations

Thirty-two years ago

There was a rocket failure

And no means

And so no hope

 

 

These in Kazakhstan

On the day

And not the day before

They are alive

They keep their sinued bonds with Earth

They will fly again

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://www.space.com/42101-soyuz-rocket-launch-failure-abort-landing-photos-expedition57.html

 

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑