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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

(x = space)

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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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After Rain

(x = space)

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After Rain

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I don’t what to say

There are so many things

I do not know

Movements and people

The inside health of the world

Or the root of evil

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I could depict a scene

Go to a local park

Or look outside

It’s cooler now, less hazy

A clarity of all the scenes in town

For good or ill

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Maybe I want

To say something more

Without pedantry

Though to moralize is human

I can only hope for reason

And some fairness to all sides

To win out

In me

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You

Them

Us

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Well, it’s the weekend

The heatwave has receded for a while

I have nothing planned

Maybe I’ll take a drive to nowhere

And come back

Richer in at least one way

Than when I left

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I should walk

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And you should have your time

I hope it’s good

You need something good

And are so worthwhile

And so deserving

There, moralizing after all

But I’m on your side

A fan

Larger (wider),

An advocate for peace

(smart, not stupid)

Planetwide

For us

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Understanding venial

Praying for mortal

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Maybe there’s something

Pursuable,

What is reasonable

With an ingredient of wonderful

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C L Couch

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Forest ↟

Photo by Filip Zrnzević on Unsplash

Goč, Serbia

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Good Medicine

(x = space)

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Good Medicine

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Ukraine

Gaza

Indifferent use of the Fifth Amendment

Shots fired

People pushed in subways

Toward the tracks

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Pollution

Bhopal

Valdez

Sins of the fathers

And the mothers

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Greed

Envy

Sloth

Get someone else to do

The awful work

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We’ll get high

Easy to drug

Our lives away

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Bestsellers

Out of certain patent-medicine truths

Snake oil so to say

Sorry, snakes

We use you for good medicine

After all

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There’s hope in this,

Good medicine

(though we can go easy on the snakes)

Finding it

Making it right

In all its forms

For all the ills

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This is hard

Hard hope

We’ll take it

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C L Couch

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By Przemek P – https://szarada.net/okreslenie-z-krzyzowki/np-waz-eskulapa/, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71246119

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A Simple Love then Complicates in Fear

(x = space)

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A Simple Love then Complicates in Fear

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A simple love then complicates in fear

A lust begins a hot surrendering

We think we have it all when love is near

T’ward deeper feeling’s ember tendering

And we believe a faithful person true

We’re human, after all, possessing flaws

And may decide what is for fondness due

Those fails incumbent not unto our laws

The question is what flaws will each abide?

We fear to change, though poems say we must

‘Cause perfect love won’t find us on this side

Thus alter will or no or aging just

New and anew, decide for you and me

Then we shall be and Hamlet’s not not be

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C L Couch

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Photo by Leo Fosdal on Unsplash

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