Undeferment
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
“Harlem,” Langston Hughes
I am poor
I guess
I have the words
And some temerity
(rubbed
with facts)
To say
And I wonder
If the poor
Can dream or
May
Because dreams require
Some funding
To live as vision
And idea
In the daytime
Or
After sleep whenever
Some apparatus
Finally
That might build something
Even with reason
And approval
Yet
After food
That is
And safe water
Shelter
And compulsory education
Voting
And some will say
We shouldn’t
Dream
Citing something like
Chains of being
Or in spirit
Shall have a realm
Not here
For sure
Rather
Then
To pass a rule to take
Those dreams
Our dreams
Away
Citing
Some might say
The classes as distinctions
Though we have only made them
Out of balsam
And so not in the realm
Of real
Lasting places
But only signs to keep
The oligarchy ready
And plutarchy
As well
Because
Oppression manufactured
By the way
Has begged our revolutions
But peace
Better ideas
Should prevail
From all
Of us
And all of us allowed
The dream
To have it
Work it
And to play
With
Only barricades
That any might encounter
While
Waking
So we may all
Dream dreams
Asleep
Alert
Without deferment
C L Couch
“’In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy . . .”
Peter talking to a crowd, citing Joel
Acts 2:17(a)
NIV
Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash
For Edwin
Evidently
It’s
Hubble’s birthday
Happy Birthday
Your gift
To us
Rendering so many things
More clearly
Maybe our gift
To you
Our continued faith
In the sky
World Children’s Day
Today
As well
If we remember taking boxes ‘round
With
Trick or Treat for UNICEF
Collecting quarters
Then millions of quarters for
The cause
The cause of
Children
Need we say it
Though we forget
We adults
Forget
Leaving children inside schools
Or not counting them at all
(beyond
certain
grids)
Until they’re grown up
Into rivals
For our power
For our love
In the mean time
They are forgotten fodder
Uncounted
In the strategies for
War
Women and children
We still say
Which
Didn’t work
On liners
Any more than battlefields
Inside
And in back of
Loss
Hunger
And
Disease
And worse on them
Than on
The older us
Which we older ones might not
Want
To believe
Even though
The wretched things attack
Hope
In the young
As well as young awareness
Okay
We’ll say
And even mean
They are precious
And
They are our future
And they are precious
And
They are our
Present
Last Work of the Day
I think
Not of life
But
To move on a little
Unzip the sweater
Change
The shoes
And leave the make-believe
Awhile
How about
As is supposed to happen
We take the feeling of the sweater
The softer shoes
And
Made-up imagination
With us
Then meet
With feathered insights
Muscled inspiration
On
As has been said
The morrow
C L Couch
Photo by Lawrence Chismorie on Unsplash
Alexander Calder, the sculptor/mobilist whose work is featured here (in Switzerland), constructed a mobile for the children of Pittsburgh, which floated near the entrance to the Carnegie Museum—a favorite thing for me, when a child, to behold
Pittsburgh references to Mister Rogers, too
Animals Fair
Sometimes
I think
I’d like to live
In the world of
Mole
Waiting on Toad
Or another of the animal
Fabulae
But then I’d have to become a
Beastie
I suppose
Something small
Like a civet
Still with
Tooth and claw
Or something that imposes
Like a
Heffalump
With girth
And myth
To help
C L Couch
Photo by Jorgen Hendriksen on Unsplash
Toad of Toad Hall drove a shiny red sportscar and wrecked it. He drove several more such cars and wrecked them all. (And faced jail time, kids.)
where is oh there it is
how shall we live
in such
a world
how shall we have faith
or even
energy
to start the day
at all aplomb
with hope
in the new day’s
potential
where is the joy
that can’t be suffuse
in the world
but must be out there
somewhere
well
in here
as a promise
then a stitched pledge
we think that evil melts
when we throw water
on it
no
we don’t
we think down deep
that evil never
ends
never steps down
instead
runs
too many of our companies
and
too often
maybe always
gets elected
Pangloss’s garden cannot
be the answer
though we should live parametered
we shouldn’t live
frankly
barricaded
discipline’s important
and we need
restraint
we own
but
we are made for light and air
and the better part of
freedom
we are made for will
which is the
problem
though
we might choose freely
something that delights and
also
emboldens
but what are such things
that are not
comprised
to death
except for understanding compromise
in peace treaties
or
the love we bear each other
sounding trite
and silly
we shouldn’t be surprised
but we’ll have to take the chance
in order to
be ideal
sometime
c l couch
photo by Tony Mucci on Unsplash
Trap
Lord
I could apologize
For asking you
But when the walls are high
And windows small
And light and air
Feel gone
When the need is big
My prison small
With no one
Else attending
So it seems
Whom may I talk to
Anytime
Who without fail with hear me
And regarding the biggest
Fails
And needs in life
Will hear me
And attend
Who will hear me
And respond
Even if the answer is
Endure
And I can question worthiness
With reason
Beyond the point that
No one is deserving
Which moves us
To the place of grace and miracle
That some
Believe they market
By possessing
First
When it is only you
Makes and dispenses
These
And we should honor that
And honor you
With our humility
Brought
To the front
From where we hid it
Last
So without vanity
Even from challenged hope
I ask
Without apology
I guess
For your response
To my exigent situation
The honest need
Take care of
Leaving my vanity
Alone
Please
Thank you
With love
Amen
C L Couch
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash
On Waking
How do I wake through prayer
Or other measure
How do I know that you are there
Providing
Yes
Providing
In the pit of pain
Along an indifferent street
Or here
Surrounded by the stress of other people
While my own seems
Toppling enough
Be with me
Lord
And all of us
I must ask you to give
I guess the daily bread
Knowing
The cross should be enough
When I think on that
And sorry
I must ask for more
C L Couch
Photo by Syed Ali on Unsplash
time and not again
a breath into the weekend
I am thinking
for those approximate
to 9 to 5
Monday
through Friday
too
or are you one of those
who does not stop
either by
someone else’s will
or
your own compelling
which
is not
to say you’re wrong
we do
have work
to do
and I served in this way
too
until the first
of heart attacks
then tried to do things differently
and
my supervisor didn’t like it
so I left
and found
the world isn’t ready
for slower people
any
sort
I’m afraid
which is
too bad
because
24
4
365
(366)
is what we get
on Earth
and for our
earthly lives
and how these change so much
through circumstances
though not
to lengthen measures
but
sadly
to truncate
and only in that way
does mortal time
change
sigh
life on Mars
might go differently
or
more likely
could we go like Albert Einstein
over the bridge
FTL-fashion then
return
to find the world futurely changed
and yet again
as the travelers our time
has not
changed a
classic jot
so time is time
and how
to spend it
inside
human parameters
and not that
everything’s our choice
though it is in
our given
nature
and maybe we can or may
choose the time
or even
how to spend it
c l couch
photo by Oliver Hale on Unsplash
Giftings
So let’s
Discover
On the Thursday
Between first and second
Cups of coffee
Near Main
And Walnut
By
The way
With a light changing
From emerald to ruby
Via amber
You know
Through the day and night
What is it
That we want
And shall we have it
I don’t know
What do you want
And may I help you
With that
Do you want something intimate
In which case
I do not know
But if it’s thinking
Over
Something
Which can be intimate
I think
I could help you
By listening
To begin with
And you might find
That’s all you need
Of me
It’s a cheat
I know
Over electronic distance
Though I did not
Invent the thing that both
Makes things possible
And
Gets in the way
Let’s do the best we can
With what we have
And it might be Friday
Where you are
Or maybe finishing the last hour
Of Wednesday
Way west
Of here
Even in Oz
Or Valinor
And if you live such myth
Then I shall listen to you
Frankly
For the betterment
Of me
In storyhearing
Storytelling
Then
With those to whom
To say
Don’t stop me
If you’ve heard this
Because you never have
Heard this
C L Couch
Photo by Izuddin Helmi Adnan on Unsplash
Emerald City? No, Kuala Lumpur. Both places, fictive and real, for stories (fictive and real).
the better reign in hell
(the devil says)
I exhale
you exhale
too
you better
unless it’s your time
in which case
breathe in peace in heaven
where there might be no breath
no need for it
or perfect air
in which to take one breath
or many breaths
forever
and water
such water
drink
wash
whatever
simply walk by
and feel the drops escaping from
the movements toward the
temple of the savior
and the monarch
one of the three
with three in one
and we might be three in one as well
each one of us
flesh
spirit
divine affiliation
life in heaven
noisy
quiet
safe except there were those hints of war
a ruin here and there
perhaps
not because the crafters couldn’t fix them
but because even in heaven
we should learn something
and there was rebellion
after all
or will be
and I don’t know who choses
maybe only angels
and
maybe we’re fodder on the Earth
the middle Earth
while in heaven we mortals-immortals now
much make our choices
too
renew our vows
toward one way or the other
cheering our side on
toward Armageddon
here
and so it seems
by prophecy
on the Earth we’ve known
and might know best
for a while
at least
new to our citizenship in heaven
closer to the leaders
Jesus with his love
Michael with his sword
the Spirit issues strategy
the rows of heaven
know
while God commands it all
and weeps
within a quiet hour in heaven
and maybe all eternity
cosmic
and ethereal
a time for tears
before the onslaught that’s been called
since Eden
or before
when the devil became serpentine
and with all fauna
was given a place there
and something honest
of its nature
but now
there is new gleaming
for the fight
that only one side wants
with one agenda for it
and on two plains
the ranks line up
for the first
and only battle
ever
to determine who shall win
heaven
with eternity
itself
and the reward
of breaking self from all
affiliation
to determine free
without direction
code
or morality to guide
no restrictions
or parameters
only
self
that shall lead to self-destruction
though the devil doesn’t care
for being lord of everything
that’s wrecked
against sub-lordship
subordinate if to only one
in heaven
the lordship
is what sells the angels on its
side
each one a monarch
to its own
and on the full-dimensional plane
that angels have inhabited
in all ages
in the ageless way
and that’s what is withheld
that everyone shall be a lord
of nothing
material
abstract
but over a lack of existence
more and more
in victory
so-called
lords of nothing in particular
having lost all matter
of all kinds
perspective the last thing
to go
perhaps
but something
and then nothing
which shall be the reign of hell
after
exhausting love
until only judgment
must remain
c l couch
photo by Sergio Capuzzimati on Unsplash
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