On Stairs
I’m lost
Today
Pent up
Stressed
In pain
Depressed
The mental pain
That has expressions
Elsewhere
From neurons
To cells
And how about
Emotions
Where was I
I was sure I was around
Somewhere
Before
Am I meeting the man
Who wasn’t there
An old
And existential rhyme
In time
With time
Maybe I’ll find myself again
Even to know
A thing to you that
I could
Rhymed
Unrhyming share with you
Only my best upon
Request
C L Couch
(something like)
When
I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
I didn’t see him on the stair
Today
I wish
I wish he’d go away
(man or woman may apply)
Photo by Atanas Teodosiev on Unsplash
(maybe I should call an existential Tuesday)
poppies for soldiers
fields of poppies
fields of gravestones
all traditions
and maybe
nonbelief
should leave a blank stone
with name and
service
on an even shape
I wish that poppies were
non-soporific
although
I guess the sleep effect
is good
in what the poppies mean
for
those who sleep beneath
the flowers
and the stones
and those who sleep elsewhere
for the same reason
after service
after sacrifice
should sleep
each
should sleep
until the final call
that would be
a gentle and firm word to say
wake now
you’re well
and all
now
shall be well
c l couch
photo by Laura M Goodsell on Unsplash
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
(from) “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae
Binary Opposition
‘Levendy-‘leven
A children’s number
Yet
Everything too grown-up
Was waiting
For the papers on the tables
To be signed to
End
The awful
Too grown-up
Thing
Eleven eleven
Eleven eleven
And then
The terrible ritual
Was done and we could say
The war
Is over
Over there
Over here
The horror
Of a heart of darkness
Goes back under for
A season
Inside the shell of all the mortals
And the devils
Who let the horror out for
Four years
And now
To reckon all such times
And all such people
Knowing also
Innocent
To serve
Knowing by country
And by honor
And that was nearly all
Except
The names that each one
Might have known
To bear inside the pockets
And the packs
Before
Each battle
And on the field
After
Until games
As in the most harrowing
Of contests
Call
In-free
Come to base
The dark is on
Go home
C L Couch
Photo by Georgi Kalaydzhiev on Unsplash
2 poems about thoughts and feelings post-election
About Electing Lies
Well
I am disappointed
So I guess
If I’m convicted of
Many crimes
And I’ve committed fraud
And broken promises
In marriage
And other relationships
So that
In fact
I break faith with everyone
And if I do not pay my bills
And if I want
To accuse people I’m afraid of
Of everything that isn’t
True
If I make a style
In fact
Of lying
And don’t pay my bills
And
By the way
I take everything that’s wrong with me
And say it is another’s
And not me
Though
It is
All I have to do
To get away with
All of it
Is to run for President
And get billionaires
To buy my way
For
Their own
Agendas
The same folk who
By the way
Won’t welcome
Me at
Table
Otherwise
It’s 17 June 1972
Another
Day the music died
And what we learned but that
We cannot
Trust the government
And should stay away from
All such things
And have
So much easier living
Through
Indifference
The Topsy-Turvy that Has No Playfulness in Topsy-Turvy
There are those
Who learn about the Holocaust
And take notes from
The evil side
So that the lie might be acknowledged
That some good things
Happened
Then
In Germany
Not
To say we can’t be academic
Though the filter must be moral
Or we are pursuing nothing
Human
Or has a place
On righteous Earth
We should be
Rhetorical
Understanding something of
Our honest discourse
With each other
And
We should study flaws in that
Tradition
You know
Straw people
Post hoc propter hoc
Gilding the lily
Though
Again
The point is not
To strategize to use the flaws
To dupe each other
Though
Some will
It’s
Sad to know
And one more thing
That should be
And that isn’t
Is that
Politics
Means good government
You know
The pursuit of by the people
And yet
Like taking notes
From the wrong side
And
Going for the
Discourse flaws
Not
To mention
Spewing accusations
In
A puerile attempt
To escape one’s
Own
The codes we could live by
Like good governance
And topsy-
Turvy
Fun on Ferris wheels
But good and evil upside-
Down to try
For ways to live
Simply act against
The deeper
And the shallower things we
Really know
Those presuming leadership who
Act against all virtue
And all wisdom
Though
Might
Try hollowly
Merely to use the worlds
Invite the citizenries
And
Congregations
To subscribe to indifference
To endure
C L Couch
(sorry should there be any ranting parts but not sorry for any easier-living-wisdom parts)
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
Whether Report
(3 November)
Early dusk
Because the hour changed
And did I have the hour
Last night
I couldn’t say
For lack of sleep
Regardless
An hour more
Of lack of sleep
That
Is falling back
The sky is pale
But then
I’m looking north
Little doubt
There’s yellow to the west
And lines of who knows what
More like autumn
Color
Maybe
It’s turning colder
We inside
Have been told
C L Couch
Photo by Mateusz Butkiewicz on Unsplash
Este Día y Esta Noche
All Souls
The family dining at
The gravesites of
Family
The veil even thinner
Than the evening
Before
That was
Hallowe'en
As
The three with
All Saints
Become
For us
Para nosotros
Its own kind
Of
An intimate
Triduum
C L Couch
Photo by Roger Ce on Unsplash
The aroma of marigolds specifically serves as a guide to bring los muertos to their families on All Souls Day (El Día de los Muertos).
Where We Live
(on 1 November)
Diwali
Illuminating light
Victorious
Over
Obfuscating darkness
All Saints
The living church that
Loves
And serves
In the here and now
The days
Are the same this year
And
I’m not sure how
But they should
Share
In that
There should be respect
All around
For what celebrates
The good
Even the godly
In our codes
Our
Healthy notions of winning
How about
Through service
And through love
Approaches
With respect
Then
Decisions
Considering human
Mutuality
Regarding wonderful
Uniquenesses
And then
Where we go
From here
C L Couch
Photo by Devang Punia on Unsplash
we are informed by all these lights
New Calling
(sci-fi)
She had quit the complex
A while ago
A lay sister
“Mother” to the order
And the last one
Left
She had found a robe
Left by someone
Who had doubted
And she took
It
Wrapped it around her frame
Tightened the rope from which
Knots dangled
Then
Began her wandering
She needed shelter
Now and then
Sometimes finding a cave
Or what was
Left
Of a town
Sometimes hunched behind
A piece of wall that stood
While around
Hot wind or cold wind
Depending on the mood of Earth
Blew by
There was food
Mostly she tried to find
In
Nature
But would go with preserved things
If she must
She was no
Diogenes
She had no lantern
Though now and then
There was
A flashlight
She could use while the charge
Held out
And then the tube was
Useless
Unless she should need an abnormal
Straw
Now and then
Which she didn’t
She could make fire
She wasn’t looking for
The honest man
Another
Woman
Maybe
Other sister
From an order like her own
Another refugee
From ancient sanctity
In modern
Costume
Though regarding habits
And pardoning the pun unto
Herself
She practiced
None
No daily prayer
No minding
Of the liturgies of the hours
That she had often
Missed
Anyway
Due to exigency while
Mothering
The abbey
And now
She chose to
Ignore such things become
Anachronistic in
A planetary
Moment
In terms of humans gone
Mostly
She blamed men
Women wouldn’t do this
She had concluded
She didn’t look for God
For God must be
Allowing
Having let the world
If the human part alone
Go so far as to
Ruin
Nearly everything
And remove all company
Meaning
Companionship
So far
C L Couch
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
notes
lay brothers and lay sisters could and can take over practical concerns within monastic communities, while maintaining faithful identities avowed of their own
“none” would be another pun, regarding prayers at hours
of course, this isn’t real and isn’t prophecy (the future-telling kind)—rather Happy Hallowe’en!
Sable Invitation
My niece marries tomorrow
In Memphis
Yes
At Graceland
And
Yes
It’s Hallowe’en
Not only by occasion
But by theme
Her dress
Is black
And might be fitting
For a movie from the forties
That has a
Draping scene
With Barbara Stanwick
Or
Bacall
Or even earlier
With
Garbo
All of which to say
The dress is dark
Elegance
A masque after
For a reception
And there
Should
Be
Costumes
Watch out
Anna
That there are not
Seven chambers
The last room
Red
Really
Though I should be wishing
And I do
Wish
Happy wedding
And happier days of
Marriage
From your uncle
Too sick to move these days
From near
To far
Except
Like Thoreau
Perhaps
To wander in the mind
Farther than
Concord
Though more important
I do
Wish
Happy wedding
Happier days
Of
Marriage
C L Couch
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
(apologies to dogs—though my niece has a little dog, smaller than Toto, who’s named Éponine for the character in Les Misérables)
clcouch123 
Recent Comments