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August 2020

The Rabbi Walked Out

The Rabbi Walked Out

 

I want to call it Thursday

Penultimate weekday

Some extra breathing

Room for action

‘Til the weekend mind take over

 

Issues realized

The work week

The weekend

Take the children from the factory

It’s taken ages,

And we still have a ways to go

For these

With older evils—slavery,

Sex work

The companies that say

You do not matter

We will use you ‘til you’re done

And then some more

Then forget you were ever here

 

We’re civilized, we say

But it’s a rounded apex

On a shifting base

Where evils

Slide like scorpions

Ancient riddles

We have left unanswered

While those of us who could

Have climbed

Set flags

And hope that they will stand

Until we’re gone

 

For the rest who stay

One generation to the other

Today should be the day

We stay for freedom

Fight

Start a resistance

Ask for help

Steal the technology for reaching

Count the cost

Each one has value

Lose until we’ve won

 

C L Couch

 

 

(the Rabbi mystery series by Harry Kemelman)

 

Photo by Marie Bellando-Mitjans on Unsplash

Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany

 

https://www.jmberlin.de/en/shalekhet-fallen-leaves

 

4

Riddle Me

Riddle Me

 

I look (don’t stare)

At the empty page

I don’t have to worry

If it’s crap, I’ll throw it out

Well, the electronic version

I suppose once something’s

Done in here

It’s never gone for good

Should that be daunting?

I don’t know

Mostly, I don’t care

Let the devil have electrons

God is with me here

And there

 

Words on the page now

Black tracks of gospel birds

The solution to

A medieval riddle

And a gospel message

The bird (the quill)

That walks across the page

Bringing new life to vellum

That was dead, the skin of animals

Stretched out

What passed for stationery

Then

 

A monk moving the quill

One of a literate minority

Leaving  a message first to dry

Then to be read

Wondrously illustrated

Presented at midday

The sun to bless

The effort of the monastery

 

And then, for effect,

A library

Maybe thirty books

For rank to show what

Can be bought, in fact, for show

And with tutors’ help

To read

And then, perhaps,

To change the world

 

C L Couch

 

 

a thousand years ago, riddles were fun

 

Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, New Haven, United States

This is a 9 RAW photo composite. This library is lit through 1 1/2 inch marble walls by natural sunlight.

 

3

Unchained

Unchained

 

I should say something spiritual

Because I always should

You should, too

Not because we’re prophets

Or Plato’s philosopher-monarchs

But because the world of “ness”

Ideals

(chairness, truthness)

Is far beyond us

While we’re looking in the cave

And through dark glass

 

So anyone might speak

And everyone should have a turn

Not for the ego, no

Not for hidden revelation

Revealed for a profit (that’s the

money and the ego-kind)

But because everyone gets a turn

And another

In each round

That’s how we talk

And carry on with each other

And with God

 

Each one matters

In spite of what we do

Angels as the agents

Will keep tabs

Keep count

Make sure we get it right

Or pay for it later

No, it’s not a matter of punishment

It’s an issue of being fair

Though for each one lost

There will be a reckoning

(sorry)

So give each one a chance

Or maybe lose it later

 

And this is spiritual?

Well, not everything is gospel

As in good news

Sometimes the news is hard

Maybe the bookkeeper takes a lead

From our own media,

Which certainly must tell us

What we value

No?

Then change it

Change everything, if need be

If you can follow the rule of love

To do it

 

Bring your new army to the door

And don’t release a rock

From a sling

Or fire a shot

But win the day because

The gates of hell will not prevail

Against us

 

C L Couch

 

 

photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash

Greece

padlocked fence

 

3

Unkept Doctrine

Unkept Doctrine

(and unkempt)

 

I’ve been meaning to

Write about grace

The kind that is

Free

That no one can hold onto

That has no rules except

To help ‘til heroes return

 

Like crumpling a butterfly

In a human hand,

It doesn’t

Mean so much if you try

To clutch it

Or claim at all it’s yours

It isn’t yours

And can’t be claimed by anyone

Don’t try

 

Enjoy the benefit

In a sunshine of surprise

Don’t polish it

Or ever, every try

To keep it on a shelf

It has no rules that we’re aware of

Someone, yes,

Not us

To those who want to market it,

You’ll learn, if you have to

Then be forgotten

It’s as if grace has a contract

Somewhere,

Chaotically enforced

When someone tries

To own it

 

The rest of us

Will bask, when we never thought

We’d have the chance

To breathe at all

Again

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

New York, United States

Steam venting in Manhattan.

 

3

Releasing Hope

Releasing Hope

 

There should be hope

The only thing left in the box,

Which means it lay with

All the evils for who knows

How long

I guess Pandora knows

And what were the evils?

Envy, sloth, gluttony?

Yet there’s nothing wrong in

Wanting, in ease, in eating

Maybe those evils were

Culture-specific

Mesopotamian, Egyptian

Greek

Maybe a foe

Such as Carthage

Or allies, such as

One city-state to another

Maybe it was treason

The treachery at Thermopylae

False promises that might

Surprise for being small

And murder

These are harder to analogize

Disloyalty, betraying one’s own

Taking lives

 

Unless hope might be

Dispensed without

Letting it go,

Then she should open the box

Once again

Let the creature rise

And take the Earth

Then the mission might be

Re-collecting evils, placing them

Back in the box

Maybe with an intern

From Olympus

(an intern team)

Who could

For and with them

Re-think the evils

Remember goodness before

The ruin

But then the gods

Would need to learn about

What is good against the pettiness that

Snapping or a wave

Can wreck for mortals

Mortals, too, once freed up some

Might receive reminders, too

Goodness and balance

Golden means on a silver path

The final thing

For the Athens school

For the Lyceum,

Let everyone in

To give the good a chance

Democratized

As was their theory, after all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by David Becker on Unsplash

 

7

An Insignificant Response

An Insignificant Response

 

I think I heard on the local news

That some of us are going

In addition to the national aid

That I hope is on its way

The UN and EU are already there

With the UK and Russia

The numbers keep increasing

The dead and wounded

Hospitals, themselves damaged,

Are working at more-than-full

Capacity

There is broken glass and blood

All over the city

Like a shining sheet, say

Those who are there

Many miles away,

The blast was heard

Followed by a sonic wave that

Literally knocked people

From a standing posture down

 

It was a mushroom cloud

For a non-nuclear blast

A little prophecy at work

There are protests

In anger at what happened

Drawing police with tear gas

And rubber bullets

I used to think that could only happen

In another nation from people who

Fear their grip on power

But we have followed precedent

In self-styled, hoped-for despotism

So that

Everything that’s helpful is delayed

Well, we’ll get there, too

 

And I hope we stay there for a while

To help, most of all

Maybe to learn something, too

About our global neighbors

About the sheen of darkened glass

That covers us

Dusting by laying dust

Over our light

An experiment in democracy

For a few centuries, now

That can’t help but be a model

One way or another

 

Pray, help Lebanon

Let your angels work in Beirut

It is a sectarian

Sometimes the Christian fight the Muslims

Sometimes it goes the other way

Now, it should not matter

And, inshallah, it should not matter

Ever again

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Oren Rozen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92908578

Tel Aviv City Hall, 5 August

 

8

Wishing in Retrograde

Wishing in Retrograde

(after which the planet does return)

 

I don’t know

Everything seems stupid

What I’m writing, the images I’m

Looking for to go with it

(my looking, not the image-making)

If an apology will do,

I’m sorry I don’t have something better

And I want everyone to have

A good weekend

A safe weekend

In my nation, we’re expressing a split mind

On the one hand, everything is opening

On the other, the disease is worse than ever

Cases are spiking

Like a medieval mace in a museum

We’re number one for sickness,

Loss of life in the world

Like my state being first

For the worst roads

 

Is it any wonder

Other lands are barring us?

I wouldn’t want me, either

There are stories of break-ins into Canada

From the USA

Clearly, the wall is put up along the

Wrong direction

Having me think the purpose will be turned

Around, and from everywhere

We won’t be walling others out

But others wanting us walled in

 

Which isn’t everything, by far

The world is suffering

We should take a chance to help

Maybe our help would be accepted

You know, the WHO

And UN take us back

Maybe after Monday

In January 2021

The world will have us back

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

 

 

 

13

Field Manual for Seasons

Field Manual for Seasons

 

Blue peeks through

Green netting

On a midsummer day

Maybe it’s high summer, now

A timetable is needed

Not for tides

But for the broader reaches

Of the seasons

 

Something to say

These are dog days

Tell the dogs, they’ll want to know

When are cat days?

Silly humans, cats say,

Every day

Give dogs a few

 

It could also be a time

For field mice

Chipmunks, squirrels

All creatures seem to know

The seasons,

When to bury food

When to look for it again

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jonnelle Yankovich on Unsplash

Chassell, MI, USA

instagram: @jey__photography

 

10

The Original Series

The Original Series

 

There will come a time

When I won’t know myself

The old one from the young

One that becomes

Maybe a mask for Hallowe’en

 

I wonder if I’ll put up

The barricade between me

And young (in years) people

Forget that I was one

And used to see me then and there

And here for a long time

 

And will I talk of them

As if they had just landed

From Spain or from

Another planet

And will I rail about

Their demon music

And wonder where their generation’s going

While mine was worse about direction

Or destination

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by shawn henry on Unsplash

 

5

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