Montage
(well, a little one)
[haiku]
a blossomed morning
so many beautiful things
Juneteenth celebrates
Time Like
An ever-rolling stream
That
If we’re walking
We cannot step in
Twice
The same experience
Same water
But a new thing
Every time
So said
The pre-Socratic
For a thing
To teach
A lesson in
Immutability
And that there is none
While the water
Rolls
And we approach it
For whatever reason
Not for
The same thing
Every time
Change is natural
Therefore
Whether by the
Evolution water
We prepare
To swim
Or hand up our lyres
We might know
And like the health
Of a source
That’s moving
And meaning
Altogether
Change
With unchange
C L Couch
(Heraclitus and a hymn and a psalm and, you know, hopefully some inspiration)
Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash
Forest River & Waterfall
shall we gather
Deep and
Wide
(the call
and then the gathering)
Tomorrow’s
Juneteenth
Remembering
The
unrelenting drive toward freedom
After war
After the
smaller wars
That
Take us
One by one
Even
together
For a cause
To have a
life
That daily
speaks to
Choice in
where we go
No one to
intervene
Direction
Or allowance
●
To be free
Of that
ridiculousness
That is
itself
Free of ethics
Free of consideration
For the freedom
of the flesh
Itself
Herself
Or himself
Or in the
people
All my
people
As ways
The right to
be unchained
As in each
birthing
In each
house
●
How sad
Tragic
To have to
make the case
For liberty
To use up
energy
Needed for
So many
other
Needful things
In life
For enough
acquisition
Self-esteem
in work
And play
In laughing
with the children
Of our
legacy
●
These and
other lines
Established and
maintained
As on a ship
Where working
lines
Is vital
To the journey
●
Knowing when
to keep them taut
When to let
go
Of everything
To pause
within the wind
Maybe the
wind
That tricks
the journey
Of misdirected
Doctrine
Or information
Then agendas
Without evidence
Or conviction
of
Truth inside
●
Goodness
We go far
For only a
day
But if we
don’t remember
It seems we
repeat
Not the
better parts
But the
things
That bring
us down
Into a
whirlpool
Of unknown
ending
Though without
the likelihood
To brins us
Home
●
Juneteenth
Something to
do with Texas
Though the
nation
Wholly free
Should ring
throughout all states
And to the
world
New liberty
bells
From the
same carillons
That have
been sounding since
From Independence
Hall
And are not
we owed
All of us
Some room
inside that place
That forum
From the
start
When each
one aimed
First pled to
Europe
Then
Campaigned
Consciously
●
While pushing
on
Indigenous
From the
start
And the gross
Wrongheaded
And wrong
hearted
Soiled
Spoiled
Impractical sin
In presuming
to own
People
To work a
place
In which
Nothing was
avowed
For these
●
And by the
way
Of our
family
Traded for
And purchased
In the way
of hell
Against
Disgrace from
heaven
●
Then begin
Inside one’s
own
And all our
own
Words and
moves
Toward freedom
Centuries
Ago
Throughout
A woeful
Backward aga
Into the
struggle
Even for
this hour
Certainly
for this day
●
Juneteenth
A new day
For triumphant
calendars
For the
meaning
And the pleasuring
Owning for
Instead
Flesh
And home
And fear
only of God
In this
brightened hour
Followed by
another
In arriving
To the
lit-up day
Illustrious
And carried
to tomorrow
For a legacy
●
But in this
time
We have
Please own
it
The idea
The discretion
Humility
Restraint in
Knowing
And having
This second
Freely
Then with
hope
That anyone
might
Freely have
Into another
And another
Toward that
better age
To which we
add
In quiet
ways
Of love
And this
Our proclamation
Of the same
●
Amen?
Maybe we
could say
Syllables for
striving
An
Amen
C L
Couch
Photo by Pawel
Czerwinski on Unsplash
(haiku for Father's Day)
happy Father's Day
to the father I don't have
once or anymore
c l couch
photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash
(it isn’t, but this could be my father with my younger brother way back when)
thy faithfulness and 14 June
(two poems)
thy faithfulness
and now for God
though maybe
God has been with me
from the start
because if not my own
it’s in
God’s nature
and certainly God’s
skill
and also
desire
the same desire
that made everything
and more
the wish
the will
to love the everything
and above all
and with the will of
unfallen angels
to love most
ourselves
we are that important
not for demons
whose interest in consumption
is not the healthy use of
creation
but frankly
to suck us dry
of flesh and spirit
and then display the husks
eagerly
in hell
but we have God
and willful angels
elected
on our side
and in the room
though will leave us quiet
when quiet
is soulfully
or physically demanded
quiet
time
and should we wish
some company
divine
with less than a word
shall be here
to cheer
and to guide
to love
and to show
how love
begins and ends
with presence
one form
or
another
14 June
(2024)
happy
Flag Day
Mitzi’s birthday
the puppy
(not the flag)
who crawled up
on the porch
the day our family
moved
into Pittsburgh
northern suburbs
and remained with us
the next
seventeen years
and was
extraordinary
patient with
several
growing children
as for the flag
you know
we flew it
very day
I recall
there are some things it seems I wrote about most years; today is a thing
c l couch
photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
The Pastor’s Last Sunday
I will miss him
Miss his preaching
Frankly
Which is affirming
Reasonable
And good
Though she will be arriving
Actually
Has been her for a while
So they could consult
Past and present
Which is good
As well
Things change
They must
We have some count of
Three score and ten
After all
And we age
And there’s a time decided
When we step away
Into what might be
A formless new
Retire
Or Retry
And some part of the present
Must reform
As in
Add something new
C L Couch
For “Pastor Denny” (Reverend Doctor Dennis Keller)
Photo by David Weber on Unsplash
gesture
the sound of one hand clapping
is one hand
near another
without
touching
no sound
no affirmation
it could be mine
it could be yours
it could mean a broken pledge
or something
like air-kissing
that probably means little
(except
preserve the make-up)
but we make the gesture
anyway
c l couch
based on an illustration that was really of something else—I made new gaps then filled them in
photo by Isabel Lee on Unsplash
Breakages
(for D-Day)
Monuments
Stand
This is the day
They reach
And many of us
Reach with them
Which was
A multinational effort
You know
North Americans
Europeans
Against their own
Our own
A sibling conflict as
Such conflicts are
Each
And every
Tragic time
And can you imagine
The ranks included
Homosexuals
Bisexuals
How many immigrants
And refugees
Those whose English
Or a native language
Wasn’t easy
Even the homeless
Even the criminal
Maybe the left-handed
Too
Also the atheist
Agnostic
Muslim
Hindu
Shinto
All other codes
With those
Who had nothing official
To adhere to
The young
The beautiful
The misformed
Too
All those who hearts
Were broken
On the beaches
And what happened to their bodies
And their minds
And maybe touched
Their patriotism
Though the
Preponderance
Moved forward
I’m sorry
You want
To think
Of everyone
Involved
Of all the same
The same
But what we know
For sure
Is all were one
Were one
That day
And in the days
Succeeding
As the world was taken
Back into its own
And
By the end
Of the year
The human race
Could after years
More freely
Run its own
C L Couch
“I’d never seen so many dead men”
voice of a D-Day veteran
Photo by David Hohl on Unsplash
Red Sky at Morning
(today is World Environment Day)
We acknowledge
That we breathe
And
Do we breathe
That there is water we may treat
To drink
Because most of it’s unsafe
We could catalogue
The plant and animal
Species
We will have killed
Today
In the name of consumer
Consumption and
Development
And how large is the ozone layer
It’s been decades of
Awareness
And it could be better
The layer
Our awareness
How blue the sky
And shall we keep its blueness
Or trade
The blue of Earth for
Scarlet
Mars
Once we have finished
Here
And with what is left
Go there
C L Couch
Photo by Ryan Arnst on Unsplash
The Exchange
A gray day
A featureless sky
No help there
For interest
Or advice
So what shall I say to you
You know
I ask this
On most days
And sometimes
Write into an answer
Or write
Many things
And one thing turns out
Acceptably
I know the first
Judge
Of things
Is me
And I could be sorry
For that
But this is what I have
I have (or have) to write
You read
You respond
If only to react
And there you are
Writing
Photographing
Painting
All the colors at your beck
(for the words
as well)
And you’ll share something
And I’ll
Read
Or look
And if I’m smart
I’ll
Listen
As we listen
And be changed
Life in the blogosphere
Though actually
Life in art
And honestly
In business
Too
We have to find
Something attractive
To buy in
And there are laws of
I understand
Attraction
So there is exchange
And a go-around
Of growth
And opportunity
Back to art
Well
All of it is art
The theory and the vision
Adding the science of
Application
To expression
(expression
crossing
any boundaries between
the schools)
And I guess the part about business
Is a way of saying
The abstract
Is practical
While where
It seems not
It is necessary
As in vital
As in vita
That is life
C L Couch
Photo by Caryn Sandoval on Unsplash
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