The Unforgiven
(over three hundred now)
Matthew kills
Two hundred eighty
In the place that Papa
Doc abused
Where the recent
Legacy of earthquake
Leaves homes
Waiting to rise
For five years’ passing
On toward Florida,
This is not
The succession of an
Apostle but the
Random naming of
A storm
That, anonymous,
Would rise and fall,
Slam and flood, beat and
And take the
Breathing from too
Many enfleshed
Fragile souls
Blue Ice
(realized)
Two words I’ve wanted
To put together,
Never thought I
Could
With real substance
In back of
The metaphor (though
Metaphor, I know, is
Power enough
Then I see the
Photograph,
The image
Of it resting on
The water
In a frozen
Clime where all my warm
Impressions of Earth
Are turned over,
Thankfully
There lies blue ice
Finally, something imagined
In my shuttered
Part
Of the solar garden
Has been released
A gift of surprise
And gratitude
For Edenic wonders
C L Couch
Last post from Iceland.
Glacial ice floating in the Jökulsárlón Lagoon. Showing up at this zone with nobody around and watching the 4 hr sunrise was definitely one of the highlights. No matter how blown up these spots are, photos will never do them justice.
Shot on Portra160NC. Always so fascinating to see how different film stocks capture different colors
Saruman Brings Down Trees
A duel is established between
The organic and the mechanical
It doesn’t have to be this way,
Only a demon-ridden wizard must
See it so:
The world exists in duality with
Room enough to have everything,
Mutuality in a multiverse
The Ashburn Old School “on the edge”
of Washington, D.C., Vandalized Last
Night
Might I apologize for an entire color?
I can’t—I didn’t make it, nor do I feel
intense affiliation. But whites (I figure
whites) have defaced an old school on
the cusp of finished restoration. An
old school that had been inhabited by
black students and, I guess, an all-black
staff. The problem in apologizing for
criminals is that I don’t know them. I
don’t know that kind of ugliness in hate.
I don’t get the relish manifest through
stupid, destructive action. I am sorry
though in a general, human way. I
apologize for all of us who are blind
when we can only see one color. I can
praise and thank you who are of color,
as all are, and who make strides by reaching
in and lifting up learning and the story,
however dismal certain chapters must
become. Learning is triumphant and,
we know, shall overcome.
Lysistrata Vote
(USA, elsewhere)
A comedy by Aristophanes
And a Spanish film
From 2002
(Thanks, Wiki-P)
The Lysistrata woman
Wages sex against men who
Rather
Want to go to war
She wins, averting
Armageddon
Between Sparta and Athens
And, as in all good comedies
(Classic, say),
The community is better,
Stronger for it
For her
Now
For all shes who must be obeyed,
Time for another laugh like this?
The Selkie Charmed
We offered love
And you took sex
We were wondrously
Outfitted, loving
Shapes and colors to
Show the world
My feeling
You removed every
Thing to get to flesh
And to the bones
Underneath:
Did you think this was
Affection?
It was abduction,
And we never again
Felt rescued or
Recovered
We left home
You took us instead
Into a somber place,
And in the way
That matters most
We are still locked
Away
The Lesson of Saint Francis
We are all animals in
Beauty, here:
And we need guide each
Other to
A pilgrim path
In walking with the saints
Who would eschew
The capital s
Service is ennobled
(As are all better things)
When we love
To give away
What we have
To share with
All other creatures of
The Earth—
The sky, what’s
Under the water,
And what dances upon
The surface
In the measures and the
Rhythms
Of creation
clcouch123 
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