(x = space)
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The Magician’s Children
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Lately,
I’ve been seeing my face
In other faces
I look for a few moments
Sometimes stare
Then realize
I’m looking for
More signs of me
In you
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C L Couch
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Photo by Guillaume Bleyer on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Narrative for Veteran’s Day
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I hope the veterans
Have a good day today
They served
Time to be serving them
Certain restaurants
Will do that literally
(track the ads)
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There was a draft
I was in school
A war for oil fomenting
As if primordial
Muck were heating
In the gulf
(not that war
in the gulf
or the next one)
There was an energy crisis
Hiding profits
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I didn’t want to fight
For companies’ oil
But when on the application
I was asked
If there were anything I would fight for
I had to answer yes
And so ruin the deal for c-o
And the draft board changed
My status
(they won’t admit to punishment)
From 1-H to 1-A
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Well, that war didn’t start
There were numbers
But no draft
I finished school
And then the next one
And with Watergate
Had reasons to feel bitter
Toward my government,
Which since then
Has become increasingly
Stupid and useless
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But love of country
All the stickers
All the posters
The Bicentennial
If we forget who is in charge
There are superlative reasons
To be serving
And they have served
Time to be serving them
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My brother
And my father
And my grandfathers
Came back
My friend Patricia
Returned, retired
A full colonel
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There are those
The many, many those
Who did not return
And have their days
And who cannot remember them?
Anytime and every time
We should?
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Red poppies will festoon
And sides of buildings carry
Words of verses
“In Flanders Fields”
And that is London today
Here there will be flowers, too,
And flags
And I hope everywhere
That she has served
And he
And they
And all the fields
Nourished by remembrance
With all the hopes
And wishful strategies
To change
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C L Couch
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carrying the burden of a nation
Photo by Joel Rivera-Camacho on Unsplash
U.S. Marines with Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, conduct vehicle recovery drills on Camp Pendleton, California, Apr. 6, 2021.The Marines of Motor Transportation Platoon pride themselves not only on their vehicles, but on each Marines’ hard work, dedication, and drive to excel in all they do.
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Fallbrook, United States
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(x = space)
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Nicole
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Hammering the east side
(no hyperbole)
Working its way over now
To wreak havoc
Like the dogs of war
On the panhandle,
Then move north
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We’ll get remnants
No one seems to care
Up here for here
(good)
But six hundred thousand people
Without power
How shall they do?
How shall they cook
And read
And watch TV
Manipulate keyboards and screens
And stay cool?
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It’s still Florida, after all
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What can we say
To habitual destruction
Only to build the same, again
And maybe many times?
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I’ve not been there enough
(not enough)
To understand the charm
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Their politics are weird
But I wish for them
Electricity,
Dry days
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I could wish that
This would learn us all
Something of our neighbors,
Their catastrophes
That linger years
In loss and less than everything
In daily rise
And style
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For now,
Floridians
We pray for you
Really for now
For all the wreckage
You must live through
And as they come
For fair winds
And following seas
And maybe for
A long, long while
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C L Couch
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Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Our Turn
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What does God say
But something that
Could be without words,
Could be in a breath
Of moving air,
Could be something
In the quiet
Or in cacophony
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Order speaks,
Chaos works its way,
There’s miracle in timing
Though the measure isn’t ours
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Someone else is keeping time
For music we can’t hear
But moves us
Like vibration through the floor
When a band we know
Is playing
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The universe is a song
Whose senses are involved,
All of them
Measured out
To everyone
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With a constant invitation
To the dance
Whose steps we know
For having once been made
And being made again
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Yes, and fallenness
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Get up,
Step away
Into the dance
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C L Couch
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Photo by tabitha turner on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Sides
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If God is for us
Whom shall stand against us
Well, they will
They are they
They will
These are not shadows
Except in meaning,
Haunting for a while
Our better selves and motives
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They are there
They are ghosts
(with apologies to ghosts)
Who look as if
They are substantial
And their weapons
Somehow
Wound and even kill
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They (with those)
Tempt us from our fate
One by one
And altogether as
People loved by God
Who have a purpose covered
For the moment
Until the glass
Is clear
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The battle won
Life prefigures death,
Better shows the shape
Of life again
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C L Couch
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If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31
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Earth Is Ours
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Do you hate the sides?
I often do
Jerusalem and Antioch
East and west
(Istanbul and Rome
as part of that)
China and Taiwan
Town and gown
City and countryside
North and south
And much, much worse
Cain and Abel
So that only Seth remains
For legacy
One without three
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We need our groups
We don’t need the borders
In between
We should have the joy
To have our own
The strength in defending
Everyone
The Earth
Our own
Everyone’s Earth
To own
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What does this mean?
It’s right to ask
Since we ask
And everything is lent
And legacy is life that
We cannot gift ourselves
But there’s a promise
Prophecy
Assurance in or as
What we believe
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What we shall own
Though frankly we must share
The bigger parts
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C L Couch
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Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Machine Libation
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All the things released
On the page,
Admittedly a page of electrons
And in this
There is a soupcon of fright
Over outages
And lack of a printer
And greater thankfulness
Over an awful
Writer’s cramp
That only bends (now)
The typing hand
Now and then
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There are notebooks, too,
When away
Maybe simply outside
Sometimes they are remembered
With the pens
And releases in our minds
To work another way
While in the nothingness
Of expectation
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Keep writing, children
(painting
or reworking
the clay of Earth
or off our feet
or work in something else),
We hear her say
And all the sibling muses
With the gods of creativity
From other places
Other realms
Inside the moving circles
When they meet
And maybe grind
Like rims of
Metal upon metal
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These vie
For inspiration
When we are worth it
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Thank goodness,
We are worth it
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And for the media
The usefulness of anything
The service of technology
And pens and pencils
(paints, clay
things we find)
Crayons, when we have them,
With some paper
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What we keep
What we discard
Ashes in safety
Or simply as a metaphor
For muses
Or spirits from
Other places
Or, say,
Only the mind
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Thanks, any part
Or anyone
And everyone
Everything
Anything
That serves
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C L Couch
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Photo by Jahz Gonzalez on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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courage
(compash)
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the brave leaves
are in fact
leaving;
the wind has done its work
there is inescapability
in the season passing
if I wrote useless things
upon electronic leaves
perhaps my season
will be passing, too
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it is a pledge, I guess
the old word tontine
a formal offering
to work
to put down
to express
to depict
to make my painting here,
unfit for a museum
maybe for local work
the verses in the subway
a slogan on a placard
should I reach
and arrive so far
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like glory in the sky
parochial sky
parochial of one
should I hear myself
out there
constructively
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c l couch
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photo by jeremy bishop on unsplash
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(x = space)
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The Conditions of the Prophet
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What shall God say today?
Not to me
I am not a vessel
Until God doesn’t mind the cracks
And grime
Under the rim
And maybe not:
Maybe God calls on us
To call
Who are not unblemished alabaster
Uncracked
Ancient yet young
To appreciate
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Well, there are no museums here
Not inside the person
If there is a purpose
And I’m told
Rather explicitly,
I’ll follow
Though there are conditions
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I can’t be crazy
Or made crazy
There must be gentle tones allowed
Simplicity
Would be instructive
While dignity
Would be grand
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If these can be traits
In a manifesto
Then I’ll call it
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And if these traits
Cannot be followed, well,
I’ll follow
Share the word
With the same conviction
Sigh,
No conditions
And apologizing for
Conditions
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C L Couch
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Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash
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(space = x)
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Any Day Now
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Sigh,
It’s Friday, Lord
I exhale into the day
Sunlit
Upon the floor
A cat might be happy
There
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I can’t
Keep the news
In my head
I know it’s hard
Sometimes
There’s something good
To help the day
We’re breathing through
And gently taking from
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Our cats and dogs
Upon our floors
And all the strays
We made
An age ago
And should take in
As well
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All the causes
Everything that moves us
And should bind us,
The catastrophes
We should see each other
Through,
Which make us ready for
A triumph
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C L Couch
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Photo by Matheus Queiroz on Unsplash
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