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Alternatives

(x = space)

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Alternatives

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We get messages

From the front

It’s not our front

We read about Ebola outbreaks

That are not ours

Unsafe water

Not in our country

Well, there’s Flint

And all the systems that

Are going bad

But we have plastic bottles

And filters to shove under

Our faucets

Until our systems

Are repaired

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We hear of civil wars

In other countries

But they don’t happen here

Except for hate

Two parties at each other’s throats

And so much violence

On the streets

In schools

In homes

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We see, it happens everywhere

The devil’s stratagems

And our own

Inside us

Once we’ve stultified the good

And the alternatives

That the buzz inside our ears

Behind our eyes

Wherever

Telling us it’s too crazy

To imagine

To start

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C L Couch

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Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

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Earthy

(x = space)

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Earthy

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These are the scents,

what I smelled as I was

driving back from Pittsburgh:

coal and tar and asphalt

as if mixed together, a

smell I can recall from childhood when

in the city;

manure, may times, because

it’s planting time;

plant-life already grown and

emanating from blooms in trees,

perennials along the road;

whatever smell

a clear, cold sky possesses

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C L Couch

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City of Angles and Approaches

(x = space)

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City of Angles and Approaches

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Steel city

Iron city

City of bridges

Renaissance city

First gateway

To the west

City of immigrants

City of technology,

Once heavy manufacturing

Collapsed

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City of

Corporate headquarters

Three wide rivers merge

The Allegheny and the Monongahela

Meet to form

The Ohio

Cargo moves from Pittsburgh

Down the Ohio

To meet the Mississippi

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City of

Great universities

And hospitals

Expensive housing

While expanding

City of neighborhoods

Old

Entrenched in the best way

And changing

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City of

Triangular streets

(those three rivers)

Midwest

Meets Appalachia

Mines and mills

Mostly closed

With careers and lives

Changing or still

Like statues without hearts

As well as movement

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Life must move

This great city moves

My childhood home

I leave and return

Come back, it says

Drive through the tunnels

And behold me

Take the funiculars

Again

Gaze at me from

Mount Washington

I am here

For so many people

I’m here for you

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C L Couch

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(on the last day while visiting with family)

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Photo by Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash

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Demons in the Corners

(x = space)

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Demons in the Corners

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Sometimes

Sometimes it seems

Too hard

There is too much that’s

Jagged like or as

Broken glass

Pieces that penetrate

That draw bright blood

Of one kind

Or another

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The world hurts

Because some people

Want it to hurt,

The cost

Of doing business

Raking prophet

Winning war

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In these strategies,

Theology is far away

There is no discussion of

Depravity,

Nearly original sin

Or otherwise

This is not a point of doctrine

We are mean in every way

Because we want to be

We want to wield something

As if it’s ours

And if it’s yours

At cost and sacrifice

So much the better:

I keep my things

And don’t care

If I lose yours

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This is mining Earth

(of any kind

of any kind)

For money

For tremendous feeling

Mortal glory

Fame or infamy

Two sides of

A silver coin

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In judgment, counted with

The other coins that paid

For Earth

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Conviction, sentence from betrayal

But that is sometime

Not today

At least is doesn’t feel that way

And we have plans

Today

We the profiteers

Are winning

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

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The Second Day

(x = space)

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The Second Day

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The day

After resurrection

Jesus appears to many

There is work to do

After the great miracle,

It seems

Affirming what Mary

Has said

Showing marks of wounds

To Thomas

Teaching, still

Cooking fish beside a fire

Talking about metaphors

Of sheep

Hoping Peter understands

Then after many days

Of words and signs

A leavetaking

Leaving instructions

Until he should come back

Having left a promise, too,

Of help

Like his

In fact, him still

This person will indwell

Like blood, like bone,

Like organs

Like thoughts and feelings

That’s pretty close

Inside

A guide

Someone to speak to worth

 A presence, bearing

Through the times

Of pleasure and of pain

The ease of life

The things we never think

To get through

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It’s a busy time

After Easter Day

There will be letters

Words

Greetings, admonishments

Compassion

Affirming of directions

These all will last

In the book through Revelation

Until, in fact,

Parousia

And the obvious way to do it

Spirit inside, outside

All partners now

Treading the new fields

Of new Earth

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C L Couch

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Interested Bunny waiting for food.

photo by Stefan Fluck on Unsplash

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Breastplate of Not-Saint Christopher

(x = space)

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Breastplate of Not-Saint Christopher

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God of love,

Hear us

God of glory,

Call us

God of peace,

Correct us

God of provision,

Guide us

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God of heaven,

Bear us

God of story,

Teach us

God of origins,

Remind us

God of chemistry,

Shield us

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God of mercy,

Heal us

God of joy,

Thrill us

God of anger,

Love us

God of light,

Care for us

God of darkness,

Guide us

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C L Couch

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Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc by Paul Dubois, Saint-Augustin Square, Paris.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16872826

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heat shield

(x = space)

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heat shield

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the bottom part of spaceships

burning through the atmosphere

like the bush

without consumption

(hopeful)

saving those inside

to land

and tell the story

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frost over winter’s

sleeping seeds

the surface or the ocean’s

skin of condensation

human skin that

tries to keep intact

all that’s coursing beneath

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shields

under which

we live

and move

and have our being

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and faith in these

like faith in God

forgotten in the moments

of the living

calculating rescue

modulating pleasure

coming home

when tired

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created

put-up

somehow provided

the ozone that we shake

the atoms that we split

inside lead-and-concrete structures

while we are cognizant

and hopeful

for what’s happening inside

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we need these

we forget them

sometimes late

we recall the need

for maintenance

small

seasonal

or cosmic

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sometimes

like a cloud

to touch

should one be

unprepared

one thing covers another

a parent’s arm or

a friend’s for a friend’s

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whether cloud

or branch

or wing

or human flesh

don’t doubt

there’s love in there

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c l couch

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photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash

(caption presumably by Frank) This is the bottom of the space shuttle Endeavour, which currently sits at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. I noticed the patterning on the bottom of the shuttle, probably the heat shield.

(note by me—looks like its own via dolorosa)

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Anjali Mudra

(x = space)

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Anjali Mudra

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What does love say

On this or any other

Plain day?

The sun is out for now

Dust is settled

Here and there

Some of the folds

In the blankets have been

Smoothed out

It is a lonely day,

And that’s all right

Not as a concession

But as a source

For small peace

That could be broken

Should the phone

Be lifted

And knowing that,

There is no desperation

A quiet day

An ordinary day

A day between the holidays

As most of our days are

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Nothing to own

Gifted

Are the seconds and

The minutes, the hours

And the dust

Our scant possessions

No matter how tall

Or deep

They can’t defeat

The mountains

Or the trenches of the deep

We can coexist

There is no point

In conquest

When nature rolls everything

At last

Into the waiting ground

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Fight it

Or have

A knowing peace

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C L Couch

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Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

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Create in Me

(x = space)

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Create in Me

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The Spirit of God

Might not

Be inside the tree

But the Spirit

Might dance with the tree

And many trees

From time to time

I don’t know

How things are invested

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The Spirit of God

Might be in the tree

When exigency

Requires

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God is a rock

As a metaphor

But not the real thing

Having made the real thing

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There is that

Burning bush

That burned and didn’t burn

God used

And rearranged

The matter of

The bush in that encounter

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So maybe with the atoms

Of existence

The Lord loves to live beside

God or God’s agents

Asking for

Rearrangements

From time to time

To suit a miracle

A message for

Sixth-day creations

Who can have God inside

Intertwining

Spirits

When desired

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C L Couch

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Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

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