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What Sigmund Freud, Erma Bombeck, and Jean Shepherd Knew

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What Sigmund Freud, Erma Bombeck, and Jean Shepherd Knew

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Some memories

Are childish

Because they come

From children

We might cringe

From the foolishness

More so from

Childish behavior

From adults

From the adult

Inside

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Well, I’m not sure

If memory can cleanse

Embarrassment

Though it could teach

Humility

Or another understanding

So that’s why

I said or did

The thing

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Otherwise, we cringe

Again

When something no one else

Can see

Because it’s in

The mind,

A symbol of regret

Passing by

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jisun Han on Unsplash

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The Game of Life

(x = space)

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The Game of Life

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I’m not ready

I wasn’t ready for my

Comprehensives

I did fine

I wasn’t ready

For my mother to be sick

I did what I could

I contributed

She rallied

I won’t be ready

For the next big thing,

I think in children’s media called

The NBT

I doubt we’re ready

For most things,

You know?

They happen anyway

And we respond

We do well

We don’t

We try

We retreat

We come out again

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We are changed

For the next time

Though it might not be

In kind

But we pick up things

They get tucked away

Consequently,

And whether consciously or not,

We can reach into the drawer

Of the file cabinet

Pull open the door

Of the mind palace

At a little more

Since in the keep

As in the world

There are treasures

Set from the beginning

And we’re always

On the hunt

Solving the riddle

Finding other puzzles

Finding keys

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Life, folks

That’s what we got

In all this

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C L Couch

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A Game of Concordia

Photo by Karthik Balakrishnan on Unsplash

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Old

(x = space)

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Old

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We get old

Forgetting we were young

No one would believe us

White hair

No hair

Everything takes longer

We wonder what to do with our day

An irony

On irony

We know more

Unless we gave that up

Stopping in our heads

Sometime ago

We could grow

We have things to say

Who wants to listen?

The gray become unseen

Unheard

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C L Couch

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Photo by Alice on Unsplash

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Let Angel Minds Inquire More (two poems)

(x = space)

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Let Angel Minds Inquire More

(two poems)

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And Can It Be

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The stakes are doomsday,

The life of the world

There are sides

There is disbelief

There is, as people have,

Denial

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What comes next

Is mystery

The greedy hope to outlive everyone

At the cost of everyone (else)

There is delusion

All around

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Maybe we’ve given up

On bomb shelters

Except the big ones no one knows

The war is still blue

With cold

There are madmen all around

Maybe madwomen

Maybe not

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That They Should Gain

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There are those who gain from this

While the bombs are kept at bay

(in bays)

Accruing

At the cost of someone else

Reducing supply,

Raising prices

Getting us used to

Three dollars a gallon

Against the early day

When it was thirty-five cents

Or the day

A while before

To fill the tank on two dollars

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Should we lose it all

Maybe not in war

Maybe in destroying Earth

In other ways

(we know these, too)

We won’t believe

It is that bad

Or we shall gain it all

Back again

And more

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In less

We think there’s more

A trickster’s game

The raven sometimes has a plan

To teach us

Something

There is hope

In its cry

It cannot be

Too late

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C L Couch

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with thanks to Charles Wesley, brother of John

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By © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48615973

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Kieran Levi

(x = space)

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Kieran Levi

(petition)

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He has been wonderfully named

Kieran for his Irish father

Levi for his Jewish mother

But he has gotten sick

With a respiratory disease we are told

Is severe and contagious

Over the weekend, his temperature dropped

From 102 to 99,

Which is something

My brother, his grandfather

Sent us a message with a photograph of

An infant surrounded by machines

If you have a moment and don’t mind,

Please pray for Kieran Levi

Birth might be traumatic

And three months is just a start

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C L Couch

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Photo by Yoksel 🌿 Zok on Unsplash

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Proximate

(x = space)

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Proximate

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Shall we travel to the sun

Turn left,

Pass over Mercury

Wave toward our opposites

And move toward

Truly unknown

Unguessed worlds

Planets X

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In other systems,

We embrace Goldilocks

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We relish watery worlds

Turning around

Maybe blue suns

Maybe green

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With what resources

Might we land

And explore

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None for now

Except our senses at

Light years of distance

Through optimistic telescopes

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And bright machines

With energy in cells

Plus and finally

Inertia,

Which will get there first

Meaning to say hello

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Hello

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We keep our guns

And other interests

Home for now

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We hope you understand

While we offer

This agenda

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We hope you signal back

With whatever math

Might pass for your hello

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C L Couch

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Photo by Diana Deaver on Unsplash

Gradual

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We Prayed Today

(x = space)

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We Prayed Today

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“Today is a privilege” she said she’d

Embroider on a pillow

And on the other side, “I’m still

Breathing”

Because for all the despondence,

The despair we take to prayer

In our group,

There is beauty and joy

And so much to love

In fact, it’s what we love that turns

That often

Leads us to prayer

Compels us

We pray for the good things, too,

Wanting the goodness

We pray over cherishing the messed-up

World we have

And the messed-up lives we care for

And our own

We say amen

Knowing it’s never

The end

And we say thank you

With intention

We mean it

We are grateful

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C L Couch

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Photo by KARTIK GADA on Unsplash

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In My Father’s Now-and-Then Kitchen

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In My Father’s Now-and-Then Kitchen

(and backyard)

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My father could cook many things

Well, six things

The rest were disasters

Like shipwrecks on rocks

On waiting shores

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He could make—combine,

Stir, apply, bake—apple pie

He taught me how to have

Cheddar cheese with that

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He could make blackberry cobbler

Blackberries, maybe, because of

Growing up

In Olympia

Where there were

Berry trees and bushes in abundance

Real crust (back to the cobbler)

Made from many ingredients

The right amount of sweet and salt

To savor

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He could make bean soup

Ham and bone kept from another meal

Beans soaked for days

It seems

He might have made the cornbread

That came with it

Maybe my mom made that

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Have I got to six?

Well, he could grill adept

If maybe nothing challenging

The usual suburban fare

Meat and vegetables

I’m a plebe

I like hamburgers

I was satisfied

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My mother cooked everything else

Too bad you can’t taste

Her corned beef with cabbage

Carrots and potatoes

With the cornbread

(Southern)

That she made

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I can’t taste it anymore

For many years

Except to remember

I’ve found nothing close to hers

In waking time,

Since

Sigh

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What else my father cooked

Was awful

(shapeless shapes

on plates)

He was the only one

To eat those things

He made

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C L Couch

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Photo by Daniel Gamez on Unsplash

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Contemplatives Are Due on Maple Street

(x = space)

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Contemplatives Are Due on Maple Street

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God speaks to me each day, though

I must admit

II don’t know what that means

I mean

Sometimes I hear the words

Sometimes it’s a nudge

I suppose a shove would be too much

I’d lose the love in that

And think it

Something else with chagrin

(and from the gravel)

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I’d like to be an everyday sort of mystic

The kind a hobbit might accept

Have food,

A glass of wine,

Smoke a pipe

Then listen for the words that the

Spirit dictates

And hope I’m not sent to Mordor

On assignment

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A contemplative with wide windows

Sunlight, nighttime

Time for clouds

All through which to contemplate

World enough and time

As the saying goes

From Andrew Marvell’s poem

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This would do for a style

It would keep me in the suburbs

Or small towns,

In cities or on farms or

Or in other places near

Or far away

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ali Inay on Unsplash

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