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Middle Age

(x = space)

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Middle Age

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I’ve been watching

The History Channel about

Medieval times

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I wonder how it was

How it might be

To work outside

The ruined Coliseum

Or another broken

Roman place,

Knowing that the time before

Was more advanced

Than ours

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We can look up

Look back

Behold the slowly falling

Structures

That we loot for stone,

For wood for fuel

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There was a golden age

And if we knew

A golden age before that

And another

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All better times than hours

We work

Cutting grass

Bearing water

Hoping that the overlords

Should they invade again

Should leave us something,

After

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C L Couch

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The Dark Ages on (by) the History Channel

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Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

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Death Toll in Kentucky

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Death Toll in Kentucky

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I am from there

I am from other places

Doesn’t matter

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I don’t need to know

The topography

The lay of the land

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The floods have happened

People have died

Many things are ruined

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The count continues

While the water rules

And there’s no good way through

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Forgotten parts of the world

Except in songs

Shows from NPR

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There are storms, I know

And people die

And land is ruined

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These people are one by one

Discovered

And remembered

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There are stories

There will be more

And we should be grateful

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Some places might rise

When dry

Some remain below

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In hollow places

In the Earth

Inhabited

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Uninhabited

For ages

The hollers

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Remembered

Unremembered

We can only hope

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All the counting

Numbers and greater meaning

And their stories

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C L Couch

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Kentucky Flooding Death Toll Rises to 37 as Governor Says Hundreds Remain Unaccounted for

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/01/weather/kentucky-appalachia-flooding-monday/index.html

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Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

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In an Anodyne Moment

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In an Anodyne Moment

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Before the heat returns

And the noise

Before senses assaulted

Once again,

Taking hits against reason

And the cool of insight

May I say

While I can see

That there are good things

Happening

There are good people

Everywhere

And I am glad to be on Earth

Part, party, and partner

To all this

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C L Couch

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Photo by Eskil Helgesen on Unsplash

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benedictus

(x = space)

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benedictus

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we could be pleased

with what we had

and sad for what is missed

we could love what there is

let go the hate for

what was taken

who took it

we could love with a love

not pure, because there’s always

imperfection

we could correct and sigh

sigh and correct over faults

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we could love

because alternatives shall drive us

into places where

no one really wants to go

or stay

more so, we could come home

to the dwelling of our hearts

and smarter thoughts

inside the land that God more fully made

that shall remain

when the rest

the doubt, the pain, even scorn

shall fall away

while love remain

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c l couch

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hoto by savvas kalimeris on unsplash

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Our Town

(x = space)

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Our Town

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If it were Our Town

Someone might say

Robb Elementary School

Uvalde

Texas

USA

The Earth

The mind of God

Who did not go in?

Everyone

Except those set there already

Children

Teachers

Targets

The few outside who wanted

To go in

Were kept away

An issue of control?

Of quieting bureaucracy?

It really wasn’t so bad

In there?

I know it’s unknown ‘til the time

What we would do

I’d be terrified

And I might count on those with

Uniforms and guns

To lead the way

Until they didn’t

We have to remember all of this

I’m sorry, but we do

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C L Couch

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More than 350 responding police officers took a “lackadaisical approach” to the Uvalde school massacre while accused gunman Salvador Ramos, who had never fired a gun before, killed 21 people, according to a preliminary report from the Texas House released Sunday.

Two teachers and 19 students were gunned down inside Robb Elementary School on May 24 while police, armed with weapons and protective material, lingered outside the school, then in the hallway for 77 minutes.

In that time, Ramos, 18, laid waste to joint classrooms, firing more than 100 times from a military style AR-15 rifle.

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“You know the old chestnut…all roads lead to Uvalde.”

(image and caption by) formulanone from Huntsville, United States – Uvalde! Uvalde!, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77144919

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Our Town, the play by Thornton Wilder

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The Impoverished

(x = space)

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The Impoverished

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It is another day

To wake up into misery

Sometimes a vivid

Dream

Takes me to

A place that is not

So spectacular but

I want to live there

And I wake up

And I’m here

I wake to the gray skies

Of war

Or my child is

Still sick

Or my child is gone

My children

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There is my own pathology

It hurts

And there is no promise

Of change for the better

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I wake into many

Who have problems

And they seep

Or crash into awareness

I have no money

Or my clothes are poor

My shoes don’t wrap around

My feet

So I have trouble moving

And I’m seen first

For the problems that I have

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I’m seen first

For the problems that I have

That’s how my friends know me

Or my family

Or anyone

First, I am the sad one

Or the needy one

The one with problems

I am an individual

Also a family

Or a nation

I grow to hate waking up

Like this

I grow to hate waking up

Can someone make

The day better?

Can I?

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A song could name this

But is no breath

For singing

There is no cause

Or there is

And I forget

It’s been too long

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I could say, Help me

But I don’t know how

Sometimes it’s

Antagonistic

The responses that I get

When I used to ask

Mostly it’s apathy

With closed pockets

I never get close to,

Which is fine

I don’t want your pockets

I want my own

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I want what I used to have

Or maybe never had

I want what I need

And a little more

So I am ready

When I hear of

Need

Someone

A family

Or a nation

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To give out of what I have

And a little more

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C L Couch

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Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

The Other Way

published 2 hours ago

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(leaves can testify)

(x = space)

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(leaves can testify)

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leaves can testify

an acceptable word tree

inherits earthly

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c l couch

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photo by guillaume bergaglia on unsplash

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The Violence

(x = space)

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The Violence

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I guess nowadays

It seems to me

Not to wax

Not in a rant but with

Cold observation

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A reader

And a hearer

And a watcher

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We go to

Wicked without order

(yes, we know it’s good

in New England)

No vision

No plan

Make war not love

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As if we’ve taken all the virtue

All the good things out of

Everything,

Which leaves us

(ask Oedipus

Creon

even Antigone)

Vanity

And hubris

A particular kind of cowardice

For bullying

An awful war

Frankly, an awful peace

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On the inside first

Then interpersonal

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Having arranged

For all of us

By all of us

Easy access to deadlier weapons

Lacking safeties

And restraints

And moderation

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Intentions once machined

To the center

Now lathed

At a slant

Until the work breaks

In the machine

Our better parts left

Ragged

Rough

Deadly points

Untreated

Left unsmoothed

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And then the other weapons

Too easy

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C L Couch

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Antigone. Ismene, dear sister,

You would think that we had already suffered enough

For the curse on Oedipus:

I cannot imagine any grief

That you and I have not gone through. And now—

Have they told you the new decree of our king Creon?

(Antigone by Sophocles)

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Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash

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The Wonder Dog

(x = space)

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The Wonder Dog

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I used to let

The dog go

In the creek

Taking off the leash

Once we were behind

The houses

What a happy dog

Upstream was all right

There was freedom in that,

Too

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Muscles got used

That needed using

The shaking of the chain

Hanging in the closet meant

That

All this could happen

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Once released

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C L Couch

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Water Flowing over Rocks

Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

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