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Sunday Matinee

Sunday Matinee

 

A deep sigh is a good thing

Unplanned

It takes regret

Folds it into wings and lets it go

Not that it will leave

For good but

Might fly out of grasp

Maybe out of mind before

It re-alights

And I have to take it back

 

Exhalation causes other things

To leave

Molecules we’d rather do without

Maybe some toxic atoms

Elements of life that will work better

Somewhere else

Lead and mercury

Irradiated particles that come from

Life too near a glowing factory

These days

 

It’s all right

Nothing much more dangerous than

When the smoke rolled out

From Pittsburgh to

Its suburbs

Generations’ mischief

Doesn’t seem to change

 

Like parents to campsites, we should leave

The world a better place for

Children

We gave up on that

I’m not sure why

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Paper Plane” by Xavier Ríos

La fabrica de nubes – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68404545

 

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Fantasia

Fantasia

 

1

I dreamed a dream last night

In which my jacket or some such

Kept getting caught in thorns

I’d get free and then right away, it seemed,

Get caught up again

I don’t know how many times this happened

I was helped at least once by someone

Else, and someone said

To be kind

That thorns are like that

Then the dream went

Where dreams go

 

2

I was looking through the porch screens

This morning to whatever was outside

Everything was still—I don’t think

It ever was so still

And then under a tree, while still on

The tree, I saw some branches moving

Everything above was quiet

But some branches below, as if to be mischievous

Were circling ‘round

I saw one branch was twirling

Maybe there were squirrels on the branches

Though I didn’t see them

The dancing carried on for a while

And didn’t actually stop

 

It was that the entire tree, many stories

High, was moving, too

I guess the wind picked up

And maybe on those branches there were squirrels

Chipmunks, grinnies maybe

(as I’ve heard someone call them)

I’m not sure an explanation lessens

Magic

And really all I was saw were leaves dancing as

If to a flute

With one branch twirling

 

 

3

 

I was driving into town and saw

A billboard I’d not seen before

Announcing something medical, maybe

An urgency for testing

 

I could see the word BLOOD in all-caps

And also see that that it had been torn off

At the bottom, many times

As if something were clawing

Or something offering a review

And rejection of the word

 

As if in protest

As if in need

 

Blood for blood

I’ve heard of it

I’m not stupid

I don’t know what it means

 

C L Couch

 

 

Akazienstachel (eventuell Robinia pseudoacacia?), Standort Nähe Waldfriedhof in Leverkusen-Schlebusch, Landschaftsschutzgebiet „Unteres Dhünntal“.

TipFox – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49029195

 

grinny – Urban Dictionary

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grinny

The Pennsylvania, Ohio, or West Virginia term for a chipmunk.

 

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Coinage

Coinage

 

Love and fear

Two sides

Some would have it

Of the same

And if the toss should land it on

The edge,

Maybe it’s indecision

Or we get to choose the motivation

For our actions

 

What is the substance

Of the coin? I think it might be

Will

Something not for tossing

But for extracting from a pocket

When it’s time

Not for throwing

But for touching texture

Choosing what to live

Each time

Until instinct

Make imagination

And will

Habit

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Markus Lindner from Pixabay

 

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Nothing but Blue Skies

Nothing but Blue Skies

 

A lesson from The Lathe of Heaven

Once we lose the blue in sky

We do not get it back

No matter how we rework the world

 

My guess is

We get it gray

Not a fashion gray or gray painted for

Attractive shutters

 

But gray the color of pollution

(have it plain)

How our factories and cities make it

 

So we could find it now

The sullen gray

Somewhere a quotidian gray

Increasing

 

C L Couch

 

 

The Lathe of Heaven, a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin

Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash

 

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Ice Age

Ice Age

 

Nothing moving

All is frozen

There might be life in there

We won’t know until we

Excavate

 

I guess I’ve known people like this

I hope I don’t become one

Inside, that would be terrifying

(no fun for a claustrophobe)

I can do much with a illusion

Light, space, and motion

Eventually

 

It would all come through

What I’ve pretending

While the borders would come closer

And I’d need

More medication or something

 

Pray, let’s not be frozen

Keep it supple, keep it moving

Use whatever means

Short of murder

To chip through, if that’s all

There is to reach

The inner core

Not for samples but

(this is not clinician-speaking)

But for release

Of something real

 

Life through to the surface

And the light of day

Time and space to beckon

Once again

The living can respond

Then take back

And then move forward

In thawed time

 

C L Couch

 

 

An artist’s impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum.

Ittiz – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9237442

 

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And Now a Word

And Now a Word

 

And now for something spiritual

I wrote about the rain

And something about poets’ politics

But what about ethereal

Ephemeral

The gossamer wings that haunt

My nether vision because I want

To see them now

I want to meet my guardian

And any other sponsors

I want to have Jesus or any of his

Colleagues to visit me

I can make some coffee

And serve toast

 

I want the cross to mean something to me

Or any other totem

Should I have it wrong

Not an item blank against the wall

I bought on sale somewhere

 

I want it to be over

I want it to begin

If only it were only about me

Because what I want is solid

 

No more of a story without ending

One chapter more, one chapter more

Bring on Armageddon but

Only if it’s civil

We know it’s only been a metaphor

All along

 

I’ll call up a gentle apocalypse, thank you

Deliver it on time

Draw up ranks on either side

There are those who will never believe

Too bad

Really

 

I’ll conjure up new places

And activities for the faithful

What, there’s more to do in heaven?

I don’t think so

 

And so apostacy is earned

For simply being stupid

For calling on God

When God’s not ready

When official victory

With concomitant defeats

Must be held off now

Until a better ruler says so

She’ll have the better prophet with her

Who will know what’s what

And how to say it, really

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash

 

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Homey Epiphany

Homey Epiphany

 

I never really had anything

I mean, who does

But really, one must have something

To offer someone else

A life that can go day by day

An investment building toward

What have you

A life together, home

I’ve heard it said

Maybe some earthly satisfaction

A way to say, some happened here

And it is good

Not an altar, not a sign of worship

Simply devotion to the daily

To the chores, to the grind

Toward conversation and the smallest

Of accomplishments

A life together, home

Amid the wilds of the planet’s

Depredations and

The word inside the mind that

All too easily says no

Here is a yes

A vote for community

Mortal sanctity

Moral sanctity

But mostly love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by monicore from Pixabay

 

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Reach

Reach

 

I’ve been drafting

I’ll try one more time to get it right

It’s not that I’m miffed

Far from it

(and how much would that matter)

I simply want to pierce a little

Just a little

A slice of shard

Of the dark glass

I don’t have a method, really

An art or a science

Theory of a skill

But I have a desire

Not to prove a staff can be a snake

A stone turned into bread

Angels dancing on a pin

(it’s not merely an exercise)

 

It’s not merely an exercise

I want enough

To tell another

That faith might be unseen

Unheard, untouched, and so on

But that it’s evidence enough

Understood, felt, guessed-at

So that we might

Talk about it

Or simply live

In having it

 

But here’s a thing:

The process is at best

A matter of unseeing

Untouching, untasting

That if, really, our senses

Could be quieted enough

(just some—I’m not recommending

deprivation tanks)

We might know

Through the intimacy of knowing

That our senses have

An ally

 

That we have an ally

It might be an angel or

A second guess

It might be real enough

For jazz or maybe

A hit toward the backfield wall

 

It isn’t only us

Not one by one

There’s something to cooperate

In us

That can reach out

And understand the other

Not so alien

I evangelize, excuse me

Take me or leave me

And I’ll understand

(either way)

 

You are beyond me

Yet there is something

Here

Call is a bond or simply

The pleasure of acquaintance

But if there is ineffability

To touch

(without hands)

Then there might be something

More

 

That’s all I’m saying

Now, I’ll listen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Vytalis Arnoldus from Pixabay

 

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Early Morning Half-Light

Early Morning Half-Light

 

I had a dream and in it

A love and I

With a friend were talking about

Seasons

I was asked if I liked the snow

At the time we were surrounded

By it

Nonetheless, I said I liked snow

Fine

And my dear one said so, too

Clearly, our friend at the time

Only wanted to hear

About warmth

So I waxed

(maybe that’s a mansplain)

 

I like four quarters to the year

With time for everything

I’m sure I had that when a child

In Pittsburgh

Though it’s not like that

Now

Global warning having moved

The even year up north

Somewhere in New York

 

I looked at the one and thought,

Maybe we’ll go there

And then dreams do what they do

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Vier Jahreszeiten” (Bernd Altenstein) am Holler See in Bremen

JeKr – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14692213

 

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