cooking lessons
the patterns in
the sky
the stories
and the messages
Orion hunts
forever
while
the Pleiades escape
forever
that do not
change
that do
but we don’t notice
any more than
noticing
the hands upon the clock
on the wall
or by the bed
or in
the kitchen while
we cook
thinking on results
though maybe
all the stories
that
returns us here
this day
stories in the sky
we have to have them
even as
an anonymous umbrella
‘til we’re told
what this group is
and what
it means
though we have
parochial in
the mean time
what the family members
tell us
what the world
teaches us
somehow or
rather through
indifference
told with care
the stories
we might own
that even
heal
maybe with laughter
first
and then
the learning kind
reminding us
that family lore
might matter most
to have us
rising
working
cooking maybe
in the morning
come
the evening
then maybe going for
the holidays
feeding
even more
more
story time
c l couch
photo by Gaku Suyama on Unsplash
(one is looking up at
me
and-or to
the sky)
When the Lord Must Be Angry
And how does a loving God
Do this
Even
Separate us
From itself
(while the wrong people
hear this
heed the warning)
The anger of the Lord
So far as
Saul
In Endor
Is extreme
Saved for despots
Those who try to re-invent the world
Starting
With
Perspective
That is
Having left reality
A golden ball for acquisition
With
So many things upon it
We can move with
Impunity
To own
It isn’t real
None of it is real
And judgment will catch up
Before the end
Placing
Where
Even waiting
To get better might no longer be
Allowed
(I do not know
I’m not an agent
of
afterlife-
contracting)
As the surrender
Of humanity
Is understood
Here
And beyond the gates
With too much evidence
To miss
While
The rest leave
Dictatorship alone
In gross choices
We eschew
For the sake
(we must)
Of
Our own souls
So that
What is left
In the despotic head
(new
storied clothes over
the rest)
Is only at
Last
A devilish kind of loneliness
With a push
From the ghosts of futures
Into a dark and emptied place
Filled
Only with
The company
By the regretting
Perfect magistrate
Of
Condemnation
C L Couch
Photo by Dmitry Bukhantsov on Unsplash
cool be cool
and it’s a lovely day
(to
love)
an irony
of gray
though we can remember blue
while we enjoy the cool
the low dewpoint
mid-August
while we’ve been keeping
record heat
until
today
and thank you
to
the God of gray
(to
love)
who brings
the clouds
and maybe spritzes of rain
to shine the leaves
that have
been looking up
and out
with us
for some relief
(to
love)
from all reliance
on machines
for cool
now
let’s
be cool
(to
love)
c l couch
photo by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash
A Little Monday-Morning Catechism
(from having the History Channel on)
warming up—
Did God make the rock?
Yes
Is God the rock?
No
now the heart of it—
Is the Bible real?
Yes
Is the Bible true?
Yes
Is the Bible story?
Is it myth?
Yes and Yes
Did the things in it happen
(ark and ark and such)?
Why, yes
Is the Bible also metaphor?
You bet
And fable (fabula), allegory,
song, and liturgy
It’s all these things
and more
It’s also real and true
a storybook
a manual for life
by first prescribing faith
Mostly, the Bible is
a story about God and us
How God moved
How everything was made
(and was good
work)
The morally static
cosmos
and then us
and then the sabbath
When God rested
showing us
that we should do the same
It is a special book
A series of books
A book of life
Truth or consequences
A book not without humor
too
(ask Balaam’s ass)
A book that saves
though
like most books
only through engagement
Meaning
read the thing
hear it
try to own it
even with all of its absurdities
that one might think
a holy book
should not have
but this one does
As it is
a book of faith
and love
C L Couch
Photo by Daniel Morton on Unsplash
Squatter’s Right
Sometimes
I am tired
Of being inside me
And I wish
I could be inside
Someone else
Which is a wish
I guess
In fact
To be
Someone else
Someone with fewer troubles
Or another set
At least
For interest
And maybe with resources
Inner and outer
Better to deal
From
Both places
Someone who’s with others
More
Who doesn’t have a solitary
Occupation
At least
Not so much
Who’s maybe traveled some
Beyond the Thoreauvian way
Who’s maybe
Been to Spain
Or the Bahamas
Maybe
To Ireland
I don’t know
And there are continents
Besides
Someone
Who’s much more comfortable
With the world
Than I’ve ever been
Who’s
Comfortable with clothes
And cars
And such
Who doesn’t mind technology
And doesn’t question everything
And there it is
The rub
The prick
The thing that brings up conscience
With the issue of
Allowance
Shucks
Back to where I am
Go through the eyeholes
Back inside
Deal with whatever
Through whatever senses
For
I cannot
Take the place of another
(theirs is due)
And I have to ask into
Everything I’ve listed
For a better life
And at what cost
Than what
I’ve had
Sigh
And there we are
And I am here
C L Couch
Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash
Gospel according to for good or ill ourselves
a summer’s day
what is there for us
now
it is too hot
the rain too helter-skelter
flood or famine
for the ground
the seeds
the shoots
the corn that reaches
in both ways
we are
uncomfortable
the heat
too much
the night whose only solace
is the dark
but not cool temperatures
that are not
happening
hottest on record
set the year before
the year
before
and thank goodness
there’s no climate change
and that it has
(thereby)
nothing to do with us
we’ll keep
burning things
beyond what is
suitable
for Earth
sending ersatz smoke into the sky
and the chemical equivalents
dump in water
chemicals aren’t evil
as we know
they have no moral value
as we know
we do this on our own
discover poison
then we use it
to make products
to make money
for the products
and the jobs
that making all the poison
does provide
we need the jobs
we know this
we could
do something else
I mean both
searchers and
providers
we could
do something else
for Earth
and on our way to other worlds
we could launch
in all directions
a fleet of possibilities
against the poison
in favor or
the sanctity of everything
organic
and how about
ourselves
bless the Earth
and pray for it
we humans can
and ask the help of heaven
should that be
our wont
and bless each other
too
as far as humans may
without the sponsorship
indeed the surrogacy
from the Lord
who blesses first
and blest
and should bless or curse
our efforts
as they are
and
(Quijote)
as they should be
it isn’t hard
and it’s hard
goodness
we know it’s hard
to change a world
and severer
in a subatomic way
to change ourselves
the knights are out
(they’re Artemis
and Ares)
while corsairs with full sails
assail the edge of us
while we are sieged
from monsters in the hall
that came
from deeper parts
the deepest parts
of us
yet deeper still
there are solutions
like a treasure
to unearth
and bring to the Earth
starting with the skin
of us
and all our will beneath
new will
(if we will)
not
to recall the knights
but let them quest beyond
to share
their discoveries
there
while we hobbit-heroes
have our work
to do
and bless the work
in turn
O Earth
and Earth’s lord
that has been waiting for us
blessing only in small ways
while waiting for
the rise
of each of us
our families
and the world of us
quietly
yet firmly to say
we know at last
whose house this is
and whom
to serve
which is
the layers of creation
so serve the core
the mantle
and the surface
all the water
all the land
all the creeping
and the soaring things
that we may use
(with water
land
and air)
with apology
(both kinds)
in order to explain
excuse
and also
to define
and thrive
the Earth
is not one
and doesn’t have to be
so many parts
to allow
expressed
yet from the outside
(and the inside
on occasion)
see compressed
as of a jewel
in and of
the cosmos
joining with other lights
both
light and dark
that make the sky
and give us all we need
to dance
beneath
c l couch
photo by Man from Forest on Unsplash
Birch Grove on a Summer Day
gospel according to excess
the White Queen
cried
what is this waste
that was
the Christmas
celebration
reminding me of
Fezziwig
and the few pounds it
took to make
a merry Christmas
for so many
people
and
Christmas is fine
and sad without it
but the point
is the excess
I guess
and all there it about it
what a waste
this Christmas is
and all
that is about it
and
do you keep the wrapping
paper pristine
or
relish
in the tearing of it
into useless parts
and then
with the trash bag
to go ‘round the tree
after
all the opening
is done
and it has been
a merry Christmas
so far
or a happy
birthday
or a Hanukkah
an Eid
or other celebration
of the wonder
in the living
and
if this is
waste
well
waste on
we need such
excesses
for tearing up the lines
the margins for our crayons
time to time
so
merry
anytime
and feel free to rip apart
(with some
small civility
perhaps)
bright paper
even the bag
it all
came in
c l couch
(English teacher notes)
The Chronicles of Narnia, "A Christmas Carol"
sweet-dreaming
why don’t we want
to sleep at
night
why do we ask instead
for one more story
one more sip of water
even a longer prayer
a bit of
conversation
with a grown-up
before
the lights are out
and we invest ourselves
inside
a blanket
and the sheet beneath
but here’s a wish
good night
good night
good night
clc
photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash
(like a metal lion on the door, freed of its metal ring)
the pursuit of (someone’s) happiness
how shall we
album all our finds
as in
what are the pages made of
nowadays
there’s something like the NFT
(as in
“choose something
like a star”
or an “obscurity
of cloud”)
somehow owning
electrons
in a pleasing form
worth paying for
there are or were
the pages made of paper
though we should remember trees
before what remains
is in memoriam
only
we could try metal
though we’d have to make that
too
from the finite things
of Earth
even though
it seems
we don’t mind making metal
anyway
I remember learning
(being shown)
headlines made by water
for a newspaper
a daily
meaning that
I guess
we change the water
with the stories
making
(as well)
the water a fair metaphor
for the transitory nature
of what means
something to us
for the day
also the nature of the substance
to take
the shape of its container
like the audience who
once bought
newspapers
but it is
a finite planet
its molecules
like its days
(to say)
are numbered
I guess the easy answer
is we need more
and so we mine the moon
(mere
rocks were not
enough)
then reach out
toward Ares
maybe taking Demos
and Phobos
with us
on the way
on the way
of exploitation
that is
we mean
exploration
then there are asteroids
of which
the heavens can afford
to lose a few
there being
so many
(how many)
after all
c l couch
an exploration coda
I think we are allowed
to use this
stuff
the stuff of Earth
and as we find what rings
within
the bands beyond
but there are rules
and there should
be rules
and they should tie us
there
to here
by radio
and ethics
both worked into
the speed
of light
and light
clc
photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash
Frost
two poems of blessings
make me a world
the combination
old and new
forget the wineskins
(use them)
we’ll have inconsistency
in what we have
and use
old things for nostalgia
or because we say
some good left in them
then
something breaks
beyond repair
falling in with our national attitude of
disposability
moving the economy
and then
perforce
there’s new
or new because
and likely
we want something new
believing there is virtue
in a shininess
that someone else has made
that new-car smell
say
new food
certainly
from the garden that we know
so well
and count on
year by year
in the propriety
of seasons
so with age and youth
let something new
be built on
something old
and old foundation
like the Earth
itself
and there’s enough amelioration
treaty-making
for a day
having agreement that
again
bring in extremes
to love all forms
uneschewing norms averse
and plans
to build a city
or wherever
we might live in
with
and naturally
reasonably
needed diversity
the old
and new
for love
God bless and sing America
(which might mean north or south for jazz or all the rest)
I rhapsodize
without the blue
without the cool
of jazz
or jazzy notes
that Gershwin found
even
frenetically applied
so that we have
some music
for the nation
having co-invented gospel
then bringing home
with marching saints
New Orleans
then Memphis
and
Detroit
we need some music
for a country
as countries have
their own
and share
Olympically
also for normal moments
who should last a day
without some
music
and who should want
to
play on
having composed
and also improvised
then crazy-legs it
song and
dance
for all
outside with hats on ground
inside in
the ticketed way
but must be for democracy
music
free
and even
freedom-ringing
yet the gospel
emphasize
the freeing part
the part that plays
release
from tyranny
refrained
only
in freedom
composition’s
notes
we play on
c l couch
photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash
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