Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Month

April 2021

Easter Saturday

(x = space)

x

x

Easter Saturday

x

I think it might be

Easter Saturday

On someone’s calendar,

The week having begun,

You know,

With Easter Sunday

x

But now the bunnies

That lay eggs

Must return to their

Warrens of marvels

While the quotidian battle over

How much chocolate

Resumes

x

Many-colored eggshells

Will be swept away

With plastic grass

Found throughout the house

‘Til Christmas

x

As for Easter in our hearts

I’m not sure what

To say:

I hope we have it

As a feeling and an impulse

That doesn’t have to be

The Christian way

But simply good

Like contentment sighs

At the end of day

x

Before then,

Worn out from trafficking

In virtue—

Yes, I said it

x

It exists

In certain texts of the past,

I know

x

Better still, inside-outside

Now,

Which works out because

Now is what we have

And all we have

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

x

1

Shopping

(x = space)

x

x

Shopping

x

I’m getting food,

And I am thankful

Being useless on the farm

Or in the forest

x

I’d poison myself

Over mushrooms,

Love the animals too much

To kill;

I do murder houseplants

And so doubt I could

Raise a crop of anything

But turned earth

And weeds

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Dorothea OLDANI on Unsplash

Alikon, Sins, Switzerland

Mushrooms in the Forest

x

1

from yesterday’s journal

(x = space)

x

x

from yesterday’s journal

x

(later)

I’ve just finished watching and listening to the third episode of a three-episode film by Ken Burns about the life of Ernest Hemingway.  I watched all three episodes though maybe could have done without the final episode.  My father looked like Hemingway, especially late in life.  Besides looks, something they shared was paranoia.  Or is it schizophrenia?  Both men were sure they were dogged by agents of the federal government.  Hemingway talked about the FBI.  My father about the CIA.

My dad died, and what killed him?  Organ dysfunction due to poisoning from alcohol?  Pneumonia?  I think pneumonia might have been the official cause.  He’d had melanoma and evidently beat it.  He had diabetes and beat that, too.  How an alcoholic can win out over diabetes is unclear to me.  He didn’t need to take the diabetes medication after a while.  There was a cancer on or in the brain that was being treated, evidently with success.

Hemingway we know, we believe we know—I mean no one else was there in the room—died by suicide.  By pressing the gun against his forehead and pushing the trigger.

I got the diabetes diagnosis recently.  I’m not sure what I should be doing about it, though I’m trying, well, to take in less sugar, not so much, that is, at least.  I’m not sure what else I should do.  Taking walks would be good, I’m sure.

I could end up diabetic, fat, grizzled, paranoic with delusions—and too weak to want to live.  I could die as these men died, one man all at once and the other by some arrangement of stages.  Both men declined physically, inwardly.  I’m struggling physically but trying to create.  To send something out.  I don’t know if I’m trying to stave off death by legacy.  To have and have not.  I started writing every day—and it wasn’t every day at first—simply to have something to do while recovering from surgery.  How the blog came to mind I do not know.  But it did, and I am thankful.

x

C L Couch

x

Hemingway, a film by Ken Burns

x

By unattributed – Photograph by Mary Hemingway, in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11539931

Ernest Hemingway at “La Consula”, Bill Davis’ estate in Spain, 1959.

x

2

The Devil in the Middle

(x = space)

x

x

The Devil in the Middle

x

What is in

The center of it all?

A devil laughing?

Why should a devil

Laugh?  Why should

A devil care?

x

Devil-may-care,

What does that mean?

It means cavalier

In this instance;

Cavalier meaning gallant,

Gallant meaning piquant

Small matters

To the devil

x

Some imply a drama:

The devil made an angel,

Risen through the rank

To be chief angel

Even over arches

The prince of light

In the maker’s eye

x

Then came ambition

There must be more

(there isn’t

there is),

A form of pride

Borrowed from the will

The maker gave

The last things made,

Before resting

x

Pride made or given,

The angel rises

Now to have something

Of its own,

The will to chase the universe

To know

And thus have

Everything that moves—

Better yet, motion itself

And heat

And all reactions,

The moving in everything

That moves

x

The universe is not

Statuary;

I will own dynamos

All that makes possible

All else—this

Is ambition

x

And the maker,

The maker said no

x

Other than the tree,

The first time

That was said

More so imposed,

And the devil knew

The maker meant it

x

And there was howling,

The first kind

Ever heard in heaven

And rebellion

And rejection

As decreed

In the moment before

And in between

Anything beyond the host

Was made

x

The devil thought

Nothing like this could apply

To an angel

Better than archangels—

But this was meant,

It knew and so

It and its own followers

Must leave,

The devil

And the devil’s own

Sliding onto Earth

In a compromise, it hoped,

Of creation’s creating,

Maker’s binding law

Not to destroy in victory

Anything that was made,

Even with

Accounting the defeated

x

Earth the great place

In between,

Where battles might be fought

Until the last engagement;

The devil knew it all

And didn’t care—there

Were its own skirmishes to win,

A campaign of turning

And, turned enough,

To ruin Eden’s darlings

Even turn the animals

x

Twisting the good

In molecules

And lightning

And all forces remade

Into viscous virtue,

Easy to remake

And redirect,

Blurring the vision of the end

Even in its sight—

Maybe the devil and an army

Of the Earth

Will split the maker’s love

And all will overthrown,

New laws

With everything its own

With what might be taken

From each other

x

All anarchies,

All chaos

Water will not fill the shape

Of its container

For physics overthrown

With anything agreed-upon

Undone

x

Undo it all,

The devil owning energy

Would win

And have its own,

More than any other

x

Enough of a plan

To ruin Eden’s promises

Then go from there

x

C L Couch

x

x

there is more

x

Photo by Jonathan Bean on Unsplash

x

1

No Woman Is an Island

(x = space)

x

x

No Woman Is an Island

x

I exhale a puff of air

Carbon dioxide

And yet that’s all right for kissing

And for lifting the lungs

Of someone who’s in trouble

And not breathing

The kiss of life, we call it

And it is

Both sides of air being good

The oxygen, the CO-2

Both give life all around

Our daily allies on the planet

Are the plants in our

Inhale-exhale

Symbiosis

All is relationship

No one goes alone

x

C L Couch

x

x

No Man Is an Island, a poem, a contemplation, a movie, a song

x

Photo by Kyle Wagner on Unsplash

Allan Gardens Children’s Conservatory, Toronto, Canada

the greenhouse

x

0

Tontines

(x = space)

x

x

Tontines

x

Good morning, Monday

And to all of you

I hope the weekend brought some pleasure

Some enjoyment

That lives inside

Your living, now

I hope that Tuesday’s grand as well

But today is today

I’d like the present moment

The next present moment

To be good for you

As if there were a promise kept

By forces unseen

Or heard

But sometimes felt like

Two-way touches in the wind,

Smelled and tasted, too

Like Sabbath-keeping

Or peace in

An hour of prayer

A walk inside a forest

Or the palace of the mind

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

302002, Jaipur, India

While visiting the Gaitor site in India’s pink city (known for its pink mud walls), we came to a temple with beautiful, carved figures. Noticing the birds, I took my camera and all of sudden a whole group of them leapt into the sky.

x

0

Saga

(x = space)

x

x

Saga

x

How could one approach the tomb

The great stone pushed aside,

The guards dispersed

And not think

Something awful

Maybe tactical

Has happened?

x

To carry spices for another chance

To see the body that

Once housed the spirit

Loved in life

To hope the guards would help

Them get inside

x

Stories vary

As they do,

But what is known by all

Is that he was not there

And did an angel

Or himself

Appear to tell

The first page

Of another story,

A new following

An invitation

To believe

To love, again

Once and forever?

x

Angel or gardener

Or Christ himself appeared

The first day of a new week

After the Jewish sabbath

Followed by the faithful

x

And what should happen next

But ages of crimes

For the new religion

Egos and errors

Chastising opinions,

Doctrinal matters?

x

The movement thankfully

Still moves

With time to get it right

No universal way

Except for universal fondness

Of each other

And the stranger

x

Still pondering

With too much inaction

Over the debate

Who is my neighbor?

x

Good Christians, all, rejoice

Love this day

And each other

And the stranger

Love because

God tells us to

And in God’s perfection

Translated to mortality

For a while,

Our hope is in an Easter morning

Quiet, dark, bearing

An opportunity for faith

x

Rejoicing, cries

Reasons to have faith

And celebrate

An Easter morning, day,

And night when it will once again

Be quiet

For our souls

And into Monday morning

When

Secular time takes over

And we live in faith

Inside a spirit

All our spirits

Breathing in the air

Of thanksgiving and

Holy opportunity

x

A life of faith

And love

In all imperfect, broken

Forms and functions,

A life in which to say

Thank you

I love you

To God and then each other,

Easter morning inspired

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Oumaima Ben Chebtit on Unsplash

Chefchaouen The Blue Pearl شفشاون الجوهرة الزرقاء, Chefchaouen, Morocco

old door

x

0

Who Wins

(x = space)

x

x

Who Wins

x

An empty room

Where there might have been a meal

Smell the hope and then the fear

And here’s a garden

Pretty

There was violence here

Now the plot is done,

Everything realized

x

Another foe

Who sought to shift the blame

From Rome to us

Our need to have an enemy

To stoke our places

In tradition

x

The others should be caught

The followers

No hurry

The serpent is now headless

Only nerves remain

x

The world has won

And we are glad

Our own strategy to overthrow

Goes back into a box

In which there is less silver

To count

x

An easy price

To pay

For indolence

Now back to lethargy

We have time

And everything is scheduled quiet

Scheduled noise

Again

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Daniel Katz on Unsplash

Masada

Lookout through ancient Masada building.

x

0

Good for Someone

(x = space)

x

x

Good for Someone

x

He cried out,

Then death was quiet

Silencing everything

At last

x

And was there keening,

I think so

For a time

Then silence imposed

By Jerusalem,

By Rome

x

The Earth exhausted,

Unknowing  silence

That was a matter of salvation:

Now we say not dead

But sleeping

x

Sin is quiet

For a time

(for three days)

Waiting

Wondering about

What will happen next,

What it should

Do

x

Sin awaits

A guideline

Now that

God is dead

x

Should there be smirking

Or a party by

The gates of hell

While Earth

And all humanity must wait,

Though we must think it’s over

Why might we think

Something new

Should happen now?

x

We forget our stories

Let go all prophecy

We had our

King for a day

The welcome of a hero

Who has died with open wounds

Somehow bleeding

For the rest of us

New ritual

Or sacrifice of old

x

A burial is proper,

If hurried

To be done by sunset,

Sunset all;

Wounded and sleeping

Earth is covered over

With a stone,

Setting a guard to

Keep it all that way

x

Cruelty is tired

Everything must sleep

For a while, now

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by kyle larivee on Unsplash

New England, USA

it seemed like mother nature wanted to spotlight this fellow

x

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑