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Cold, Concrete Poem, Anaphora/Epistrophe (Symploce)

above is a link to a .doc filed in my WordPress library; as far as I know, if you have MS Word, you can open this just fine; if not, please let me know; you see, I wrote the text and then tried to re-cast it, as it were, into a sidewalk shape using text-box blocks (not that clever, I know–and they wouldn’t transfer to WordPress); then I embellished the original text with a second conversation within about sidewalks; for just the original words, look below (no shape, though, and no second conversation)

Walking in Autumnal Days Away by C L Couch

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
Past the library that is across
The street from the haunted house
Really, with tall and iron spikes
With arrow points along the tops
That make the rail, well, rail

[everything smushed into a sidewalk square, a new box opened, and so on]

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
Past the brick place with a roof
That we could huddle under
Waiting for the bus to school
Or town—the fumes from passing
Trucks and cars also huddled with us

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
Back then, I used to like the crunch the leaves
Even the chores to come that
Crunching would remind me
The dogs would need some care
And everything raked up and packed

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk
We’re told this winter will be milder
Which is fine with me, since I
Recall the season when the bridge
Fell down across the city river
But I’ll take a cold autumn, thanks

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk

The walk I have is broken through
With roots of tree, but so am I
Broken bricks and not-so-smooth
Concrete: am I not made of the
Same stuff, I think—but I do like
The fall and the unevenness of life
The walk, even upended, invites

And I simply like the fall and
Cold-autumnal days; the shorter
Nights are sad through there is
Good thought in the melancholy
And I like the walk and walking
It’s an easier exercise to do
Which is why, however wet or uneven

And I simply like the fall is all
And walking down the walk

And so let’s talk

October 16, 2015 6

taste, elegy, enumeratio

Christmas Elegy at the Mall

a red wagon and video games and a baby brother and another puppy (the one I have’s grown up and harder to carry) and snow on Christmas and the day after (so maybe we won’t have to go shopping) and a snow day tomorrow and a big TV that will fill up a wall in my room and Legos for Star Wars and Harry Potter and enough left over so I can make a Bat-Cave and a cell phone I can look at ‘cause I know my folks won’t let me use it and the part I want in the Christmas play and a tree that hits the ceiling (which is what my father usually gets) and lights on the tree and the paper-mache ornament I made to look like a pear (you know, from the song—and it sorta looks like a pear) and lights outside the house and around the window in my room so I can look at the lights at night and for my sister to be good (I’m already good) and lots of the cookies I like (the kind with icing and Red-Hots—you know, what I leave for you) and just one big candy cane for me and anybody else who wants one

and

and—you know what, big guy, forget all that

just bring my mom home safe from the war

October 14, 2015 16

neighborhood, ballad, assonance

The Ballad of the Assonant Neighborhood

Consonants are confident
We use them all the time
But in small places assonance
Comes through to make a rhyme

The vowel sounds beg for listening
They make great sounds, you know
The “aw” in haunt and such a think
As needful sounds will show

I wouldn’t want to go without
The assonance of day
How could I moan throughout the town
On Hallows’ Eve, so say

A ballad this is not, my friend
For the hero is a vowel
And greater deeds are truly meant
For banners hung on dowel

But still I’ll sing of assonants
Though consonants are fine as well
But “O” and “oo” and other rants
Must true be used to tell

The better stories with full sounds
Come through from friends who bid
That songs be sung of “Ay!” and “Ouch!”
And other heroes’ laments in mid

Of larger things that ballads sing
In towns both grand and small
And so I say good night and sweep
My presence from this hall

October 13, 2015 15

Face(s), Found Poetry, Chiasmus

2x day, doctors’ faces’ notes
(facing doctors’ notes)

2x day
noon
bedtime

coffee
Coca-Cola
caffeine
alcohol
walking

what else?
tuna mayo milk chicken soup
green banana

what else?
coordinate
pain
follow-up
inspection
don’t drink
long-term
intake
water

what else?
2x day
hook

else what?
retreat
reflection
heart cave

what else?
else what?

October 13, 2015 0

poem I love

This is a poem that I love.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

(published many times by Houghton Mifflin; this quotation is from the first volume—typically, the series is published in three volumes—The Fellowship of the Ring)

I could think of many poems that have meaning: “Church-Going” by Philip Larkin; “Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson; “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich; any dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. And so on. But a poem I love?

I love this one. Parts of it are often quoted, so I guess there are others who love the poem, too. It has no title, but it’s in the voice of Aragorn and is sometimes published as “Strider.” And, yes, Tolkien is a favorite writer of mine; and his works have been meaningful to me since I was an adolescent.

I love the poem because it’s wise. It speaks of what’s true and what is good. And what goodness there is to come when things are renewed.

And it’s a song.

October 11, 2015 8

Ode with an O by CLC for Writing 201

O, quiet steps to take—or maybe
kicking rocks to reach the top—to change
it all, once I am over.

Moving, taking steps toward what is next,
for now unseen. The future matters; so does
now: plan, prepare; celebrate, go

But the steps that climb, I climb,
and what they mean. To make the steps
real, ideas must turn with

questions made into commitment: Who
am I? And you? What do we want?
What might we have now, and

what must wait? Here, the steps are life as is,
relenting to what’s raw and incomplete—life
beyond the metaphor, though the metaphor of

steps inspires. And so, dear steps, I talk with you
and thank you. Then turn to the actual one
close by to ask: Will you plan with me? Will

you help me draw the lines of steps to make
a path and then to fill them in?
Will you help me, metaphor in life?

Please do.
I’ll step up or down
for you.

October 10, 2015 5

imperfect, enjambed limerick

There is a fine service, WordPress
that causes me no end of stress.
It will not make tabs
or accept other jabs,
which makes me revise in duress.

October 8, 2015 13

prose poem about skin with internal rhyme

In Skin
The skin I’m in is thin. Veins of red and blue reign through. Freckles heckle purity. Nails take in so much dirt, I don’t know why. I wail; I cry. The spire of this is amiss but for this. What I have, I have. I shave, I clip, I cleanse, I comb. The skin over leg and lip, the hurts I cut on the earth I roam. But this, this, is always home.
C L Couch

October 7, 2015 2