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clcouch123

In conversation, I prefer Christopher. My mom named me after Christopher Robin, after all. In writing, I use “C L Couch” (or, more simply, “c l couch”) because the form is genderless and also frankly easier to use. I have awful writer’s cramp. I am an educator more or less retired, more or less due to disability. At present, I live in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania (USA). My writing here I mean to be occasional and also devotional. Either or both. The banner and profile photographs are by my friend and peer Debra Danielson. More of Debbie’s work to be enjoyed is at debradanielson.org. Thanks to each of you and both and all for coming to my blog.

Well, Go Upstairs and Write Something

Well, Go Upstairs and Write Something

 

I hope it’s true, this story

We were told by the poet:

There was a christening,

All the family there

They arrived, and it was only

Upon entry that these two understood

That everyone had brought

A gift but, sigh, them

They had nothing but attendance,

Which maybe should have

Been enough

But she leaned into him

And said, Well, go upstairs

And write something!

He did, a lyric for a child just

Entering the world with a

Name and little else

But the gifts and now some

Brand-new words

 

C L Couch

 

 

(Seamus Heaney in a talk at school, given in the late eighties)

 

Picture of the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney at the University College Dublin, February 11, 2009.

Sean O’Connor, cropped by Sabahrat – File:Seamus Heaney.jpg

 

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I Want to be a Real Boy

I Want to be a Real Boy

 

I want to be a real boy

For the telling of one story, then another

 

We were beautiful once

Then chips and lines

A crack

Evidence of erosion

The strings need replacing

There should be more paint

And maybe I could have more writing

For the show

 

We were lean

But then came dessication

We thought we knew better

Than Gepetto,

Went out on our own

For metamorphosis

 

With the final threads

Last ligaments

We crawl home

To beg the crafter use some skill

Toward our repentance

 

Being in the world

Has not made us real

The question presses into

All the places that were open,

Bleeding

To the sky

 

What might happen

Once I’m better

Tears would warp fine lines

Now fixed

 

But if I might split open

As lightning opens night,

I must do something

Maybe I could talk with the maker

For allowance

Then gather experience

And evidence more carefully

 

Little do I know

A shark, big enough for two or three

Or maybe more,

Is on the way

 

C L Couch

 

 

Escultura articulada de Pinotxo, Museu Internacional de Titelles d’Albaida (MITA).

Joanbanjo – Own work

 

The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi

(1883)

 

1

Corollary Written Late into the Magic Book

Corollary Written Late into the Magic Book

 

In an ancient chamber,

He was locked to a device

And made to drink a potion;

Then she began

An interrogation

 

His answers were halting,

Brief, and

Unsatisfying

She grew angry, threatened him

With turns of wheels to

Bring down spikes

 

He cried out

He could do no better—

For he had deceived himself so long

That the truth was not in him

To tell,

It having been tried and tried again

For such a time

That finally it fled

 

The eldritch liquid moved inside

As if it dripped into

Another empty vessel

 

She drew back

And thought about

The habitation of the tiger

 

C L Couch

 

 

un-perfekt / 179 images

https://pixabay.com/en/bottle-glass-bottle-old-root-tree-3942225/

 

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Mister Sanders Speaks

Mister Sanders Speaks

 

I may not know much

But I can wonder

Why the sky is blue

And my balloon is green

And will I reach the tree

With all the honey

 

Why there is a name on my home

Of someone I don’t know

Who counted out

The hundred acres of our wood

And why does Piglet

Help me in all the plans I make

Despite the fact that

I am of small brain

 

He is so good, my human friend

He could come by more often

Maybe find a way to keep

The tail on the donkey

So that we could

Hunt the Heffalump

And play

And find more honey

 

And better still,

Eat more honey

 

Christopher Robin Couch

 

 

EllenChan / 1110 images

(Pixabay)

 

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Evidence Unsee

Evidence Unsee

 

God

Our hope

Our refuge

We need to say

We need to sing

Because the world-storm rages

All about

And we believe ourselves adrift

So easily, so often

Every day

Because we are only, well, you know

 

And in the way we do

We must

Rely on what is, like perjured

Testimony, inadmissible

In human courts

 

C L Couch

 

 

(image from Pixabay)

12019 / 10266 images

 

(in the title, I left off the n to make a new word in the Old-English, English way)

 

2

A (Classic) Comedy Tonight

(congratulations to the groundhog Phil from Punxsutawney, who did not see his shadow today, auguring an early spring)

 

 

A (Classic) Comedy Tonight

 

It’s a cinematic day

When I will look too closely

At items on the corner of

The table

Or on the kitchen counter

As a cut

A camera angle

A quick shot in a movie

A montage

Of textures, surfaces, light

And shadow:

 

Of orange peelings in a paper towel

A clear, squat square canister of cottonballs

By the bathroom sink

Winter sunshine slanting over the tabletop

Illuminating piles of books

I mean to read

 

There’s a setting

And a set

And how it’s dressed

 

Maybe I’ll find something

On television

Maybe in a book

I mean to read

 

Something with good guys, maybe

Bad guys

Characters

Easily identified

So that I know who’s who

Whom to cheer on

To celebrate

(could be everyone)

When the final conflicts are resolved

Cue catharsis

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://shakespeare.emory.edu/as-you-like-it/

https://shakespeare.emory.edu/

caption: Miss Lily Brayton./As “Rosalind” in “As You Like It.” [sic]

 

0

The Artist of the Beautiful

The Artist of the Beautiful

 

When I was a child

My oldest brother gave me a plastic car

He had a model kit

And applied blue and paint

And his ingenuity

To make it beautiful

Why he gave it to me, I don’t know

I was not known for being careful

And he told to take care with it

To keep it whole and as it was

 

I did not

Maybe if he hadn’t said anything

I’d have done better

But in a while, not so little while, it

Was ruined

And now five decades later

I still feel badly

It’s possible, though I doubt I will inquire,

He doesn’t remember any

Of this

 

C L Couch

 

 

notes

title a title of a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne

http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/124/, one place to find it

(image)

Bill Abbott – Beautiful 1/24 Ford Thunderbird above, port quarter fancy paint

 

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Early-Morning Nightmare

Early-Morning Nightmare

(journal, 31 January 2019)

 

I had a dream this morning that was difficult.

I was at a school I’ve been before.

There were people there,

but the overall feeling was impersonal and unfriendly.

I had finished with my errand there, and was looking for the car.

 

I was in an open staircase next,

up several stories and not enjoying the height.

Nearly down, I came upon a starving child.

 

The child was is real,

there were yellow sores,

the child looked at me.  I had nothing,

I walked by.

Then there were more children to see, near me and off toward the building.

All were seated cross-legged,

dark, small, open mouths, eyes—irises—covered over in viscera.

Gaping need.

Too weak for crying or much movement at all.

The children

sat and, as I neared,

looked at me.

I guess it was a nightmare.  Except

that there is such need in the world.

I am having breakfast now, continental-style.

Croissants and coffee.

How guilty should I feel?

I need to eat.  I need to drink and

for now can afford to have and make coffee.  Maybe

the children would like me to be starving, too, for company.

But I think the focus is on getting fed.

 

(now, drafting)

Their focus, tragically hard to say because they could not see, is on getting fed.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo: FMSC, Creative Commons BY 2.0

(at) https://unu.edu/publications/articles/taking-hunger-out-of-equation.html

Taking Hunger Out of the Poverty Equation

2015•09•10

Rachel Ahrens

 

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Space Station

Space Station

 

It isn’t 2001

I wonder if music is played

There

There is no gravity

I keep forgetting

Doubtless, they don’t

The denizens in their seasons

We might say, they are the ones

Closest to God

They’ve nearly slipped those surly bonds

This presumes that height

Is the criterion

And that Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins

Were even closer for a time

I would not fault them for nearness

Or for an early audience

I can only contemplate privation

In their metal skins

And everything that must move

In everything

 

It is no loss to the rest of us

Should God say

In the way that God has spoken

I’m happy you came by

The nearest of creation to date

To seek my face

 

C L Couch

 

 

NASA – STS-135 Shuttle Mission Imagery direct link, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15942935

modular International Space Station, the largest human-made body in Earth orbit

 

“High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Junior

 

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