(x = space)
x
x
First Comes Love
x
What shall we say
For real
But that God loves us
And would rather
Love us
Even more than judge us
Though there’s judgment, too
x
Remember the first one?
It was
That this is good
x
C L Couch
x
x
4 God saw that the light was good, . . .
x
Photo by Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Dreaming the Mushroom Cloud
x
I suppose it’s because
I knew the movie
Would appear today
And got me thinking
Stirring something
Too
As a surprise
x
I dreamed I saw the cloud
The mushroom cloud
Rising above the horizon
Of the tress
Near the place where I was standing
And I knew
Inescapably
The effects would be upon us
x
I could be atomized
The irony of the name for the bomb
As a result
(in addition to the cause)
Or I could be set
In winter
The awful winter without food
Or safety
And were the people inside
In the building near me
(in the dream)
Ready for a new companionship
Survival from the blast
And all the blasts
And then I woke
x
It’s been a while
Since I had a dream like that
I don’t think
Since childhood
When I looked up on summer days
To wonder if a silver missile might
Arc out of the blue
And toward the ground
x
No matter what the season
Counting
It was the famous cold time
For a war
x
C L Couch
x
x
(I think it’s today that the film Oppenheimer premieres)
x
Photo by Alen Smola on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Greetings from Earth with All Things Earthly
x
So what’s new
The day is new
It’s re-creation
Isn’t it
x
Some would say
The day’s the day
It’s yesterday’s day
Redone
And nothing new
Same sets of compounds
To have earth and sea
And sky
And we are nothing new
x
But cells are sloughed
There is room for change
There is age
There might be new growth
From where our cells
Land
Like the sower’s seeds
Some on good soil
x
There is a thought
That built on yesterday’s
And does that count
As old or new
x
How shall we measure
Ongoing
Something old
Something new
Something borrowed
Something blue
Here meaning
Blue for calm
Thankful for
The return of sky
x
And as for borrowed
It’s all borrowed
After all
We own our souls
We should own our skins
On Earth
Our thoughts
And our discoveries
To have
To share
x
Should be no fear
Rather with impunity
Or the fear of loss
Unrecompensed
x
So here’s
To a new day
It is founded
It is its own
It is tomorrow realized
It archives yesterday
As for what’s new to argue
Let’s first be
Thankful for the having
Then appreciate the cells
That change
The thoughts that build
That what we thought as next
Is now
x
C L Couch
x
x
Dancers
x
(x = space)
x
x
Long-Distance Rates
(for Susan)
x
I live long distance
So must you
What with
E-mails
Texts
DMs
Chat rooms
And now the added layer
Of A-I
Bumfustication
x
Where are you
Where am I
We’re here
In our respective heres
We own our molecules
And due
The air we breathe
The ideal cycle of
Good air goes in
Bad air goes out
Oxygen
To carbon dioxide
x
We live with plants
They love us
For our air
And they make food possible
For us
x
Which makes me wonder if
Distance is
Migratory
After all
Driven by seasons
And circumstances
Dodge the volcano here
Fly around the first fire
Stay high
Over the earthquake
x
Closeness might be relative
With our relatives
(hah)
Or when we convene
From Mars
It will only work that way
In the irony of distance
Safe with colleagues in
The interplanetary room
Then
Even the distance
To the moon
Will seem as close
As Artemis
Hunting
Dancing
With her followers
x
But back
To you and me
Where it starts
And where it counts
God inside
They say
We say
And we believe
And let spirits
Manage that
x
Flesh is something else
We know
We zoom
And those are electrons
We hurry
But that’s style
x
We touch in the same place
And anymore
That’s miracle
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Resource Database on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
2 poems
x
x
at the h. f. clinic
x
to the doctor’s well
a doctor type at
the clinic where my
heart failure’s diagnosed
and worked on
blood pressure’s up due
to medication or
some other cause
there’s all the weight from
fluid that is uncomfortable
to feel but since it tends
to kill people by
some kind of drowning I
guess then I should be
grateful and you
know I am
x
x
tawny punks
x
today is
someone’s day
or something’s
thanks to
greeting cards
or causes that simply
want a day
and get authority
to say okay
x
pizza day
beagle day
greeting card day
with greeting cards
for greeting cards
a day for me
is groundhog day
because there
are no cards
so you can cross
out christmas
or new year’s
or presaged a dismal
valentine’s
and write greetings
from
Punxsutawney
over that
and so practice
spelling
Punxsutawney
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Ralph Katieb on Unsplash
Groundhog didn’t like the late April snow (she was in the middle of nest building when it hit).
[photographer’s caption]
x
(x = space)
x
x
Faith and the General
x
And did Moses
God as the ally
Part
The Red Sea
As a miracle
More importantly
As rescue
x
General Wallace
Wanted all of it
A story
For unlearned people
Awash in ignorance
Wanting
To stay that way
Away
Wet with lies
x
Red Sea
Or Sea of Reeds
The miracle diminished
By sponges
That is
Absorbents
Of reality
x
Or is the miracle
A normal thing
(the parting
of a sea
by wind
in certain
seasons)
Nonetheless
Miraculously timed
x
General Wallace wanted
All of it
A lie
At best an illusion
And delusion
Most of all
The notion that a God
Should want to be with us
Even through
A civil war
And send to us
Something
God and us
To save us
From the monstrous
The despicable
We make
And must be
x
And so what happened
(let the Red Sea
and the
Sea of Reeds
debate go on)
Well
He wrote Ben-Hur
As a fictive response
To how he had
Changed
x
And maybe
A divine hope
In and
For the rest of us
To marshal all the parts
And
Once assembled
Find out what there is
By
The revulsive
And the hopeful
For ourselves
For faith
x
C L Couch
x
x
After extensive studies of the Bible and the Holy Land, and well before he had completed the novel, Wallace became a believer in God and Christ.
Wikipedia (citing sources)
x
Photo by Evan Brockett on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Certain Psalm
x
Songs to God
Confess
Mourn
Celebrate
Some ask where the Lord
Even while addressing
The Lord
x
Which is the way of doubt
Spiced with pain
Salt and bitter herbs
For the wilderness
Inside
The heart a desert
Reason wandering
Where is God but here
But we must
Over hills
And under earth
Search as if
Not to find
Or find in a new way
That answers doubt for all
And always
On this side
Through what we know
Has been dark glass
x
Sing
With a single voice
Or ask an orchestra to play
By composing
All the parts
And a message from humanity
Over the ground
And to the sky
To say
If anything might bless the Lord
Then bless the Lord
If any offering
Might be good for many voices
And an intention
Of authenticity
Received
Then receive the large psalm
Attempting to be thunderous
From us
x
To recognize
To thank
To let everyone have voice
In song or silence
Whatever might senses allow
Or to participate
By turning pages
Or only
Dutifully
Showing up
x
Locusts are a host
The killer bees
We can be a host
Though our precedents
Are angels in the sky
Nonetheless a human host
To try
x
Presenting such a psalm to you
From many people
A human host
Before the court
Of the Lord
x
C L Couch
x
x
recollecting themes and purposes of ancient psalms for the here and now
x
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Jazz Singer
(for Paul)
x
The jazz singer
Being Jewish in a
Family
x
Wanting to be famous
Have a talent
To be
Tested
And a wish to be excused
From doctrinaire
Behaviors
While accepted
For the seder
Or when showing up
As the schedule
In being famous
Might allow
x
A public
Served
Entertained
Inspired
Is that enough
Is that acceptable
Against
Acceptable
Through generations
x
And the ones
Unprodigal
Who keep it all
And might remember
Those
Who do return
x
Remember whom
The empty chair
Is for
And would
In turn
Be welcoming
From the prophet
Of the one
Who reconfigures things
To save
With pleasure
Inside notes and rhythms
For a larger
Needful
World
x
So keep the second chair
Upon
Returning
Leant against the wall
And ready
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Excelling
x
Sigh
Jesus said
And thereby says
To love
And not
To worry
To know the hairs
And sparrows
Are all counted
And caught
In providential hands
x
To love
Even though there might be
Swords
And thorns
Pierced souls
And persecuted spirits
While the world
Takes our offerings
Jeering
At how much
While taking it
Away
x
But love
Bread and stones
Gall for wine
Yet plenty in the teaching
And the largesse
When it matters
The giving of the Lord
Who slakes the thirst
Of Samaritans
While those Samaritans
Help their neighbors
On the road
x
The strangeness in giving
What we have
What we don’t
The offer
And the follow-through
The love
All loves
Excelling
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Art Institute of Chicago on Unsplash
x
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