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Homers

(x = space)

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Homers

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A brother gone

Another brother going

Like homers from the park

What’s on the other side

Of the stadium,

We wonder

Though we know

The town outside

The city of disorganized noise

With the ritual

Inside the designed

Space

With bases and a plate

Clean lines

Maintained swarths of green

This is what we know

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On the other side

Is chaos

And unknown

There are streets in heaven

There might be traffic patterns

Something to guide

The hit,

The sail home

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C L Couch

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Photo by Andrew Jephson on Unsplash

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Ranger Rick

(x = space)

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Ranger Rick

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Last I dreamed about

My brother Rick

And about raccoons

Raccoons probably because

I saw images of red pandas

And understand

That red pandas are not bears

But more like raccoons

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My brother Rick because

We’re talking about

His last months

And hospice

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Raccoon Rick

Wasn’t there a Ranger Rick

And was he, if he, not a raccoon?

Or was the raccoon

A sidekick or an animated

Symbol generally

Like Smokey the Bear?

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Telling us

To live safely

Preventing forest fires

By keeping our own

Fires inside the ring

And dousing them completely,

After

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Safety toward

Cancer, metastasized

Keep everyone comfortable,

I suppose

Deal palliatively

Everyone on all sides

Of the cancer

Fighting, still

As much as they can

Capability

Will

The fight

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C L Couch

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Photo by Michael Payne on Unsplash

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by National Wildlife Federation, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10929789

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Thessaloniki

(x = space)

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Thessaloniki

(from a skeptic maybe unknowing, maybe envious)

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To the Thessalonians,

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God wrote you twice

Once was not enough

Why not?

All the other cities

Jerusalem

New York

That did not get a postcard

Or a phone call

A telegram to say with urgency,

Wake up

And smell the western Asian coffee

You got two letters

It could be said you’re twice as bad

Or that the urgency was dear

Are you better now?

I should come to see you

How you’re doing

But I don’t have a camel or a burro

And Land Rovers are expensive

I have to see the wall

Through video eyes

Though I hope my prayers

Are real enough

I write my petitions

And read your letters

(I see you’re actually

pretty good)

Hope for the best

And signing off

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C L Couch

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Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

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Photo by Elena Theodoridou on Unsplash

Thessaloniki, Greece

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Piecemeal

(x = space)

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Piecemeal

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I wish there were no war

I wish peace could abound

And not forestall

I wish we made enough

And a little more

For neighbors, strangers,

Celebrations

I wish the world were not a mess

Unless it could come out

Cookies on the other side

And a centerpiece

For a long, long table

Levels and heights to accommodate

With chairs of many sizes

Everyone invited

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C L Couch

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Photo by Obi – @pixel6propix on Unsplash

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How We Ate

(x = space)

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How We Ate

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Somehow,

We had turkey

On Thanksgiving and on

Christmas though not at any

Other time of year,

Not even from the deli

We had ham at Easter

Corned beef and cabbage on

Saint Patrick’s Day

Pork and sauerkraut for New Year’s

Cheeseburgers and fries,

Holiday cookies on

Christmas Eve

On Valentine’s my mother would make

And serve a two-later, pink

Heart-shaped cake

Speaking of cake, the Easter cake

Was made into the shape of

A bunny with coconut

For fur

With cardboard ears

The insides colored pink

With the carnation crayon,

Then all laid upon a grass of green-

Dyed coconut with jelly beans

Scattered in the grass

My brother Rick taking black jelly-beans

To place behind the bunny’s butt,

Which aggravated my mother

Every year

That was family holiday food

I could be missing something

We ate well

Better and better,

I’m thinking each year

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C L Couch

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Photo by Maddy Hunt on Unsplash

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(no, we didn’t eat bunnies—we were bunnies)

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The War at Home

(x = space)

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The War at Home

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I’m tired

Too much stress

Has weighed me down

Who knows

What’s heredity

What’s conditioned

By a lifetime of

Pressed down?

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Everyone has a reason

An excuse

For being rude

And mean

In both ways,

Unkind and miserly

My money

Yes, I earned it

Is taken

And I get poor

Products in return

And services

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Does anyone else

Feel cheated

By life?

Does anyone else

Go to sleep

And wake up this way?

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And maybe

It’s not so bad

A friend

Has called and been

Generally sympathetic

And I generally

Feel better

x

Still stressed

Still weighed down

I don’t know what

To do

But keep writing

About it all

During which

I was interrupted

By my friend

x

And worry about

The news

I’ll find today

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I’d like to find

Me and nature

For a while

The sun, the wind

Some clarity

Of sky

Blue thinking

For a while

Wispy thoughts

That don’t have to stick

Like white dandelion

Seeds

Blown onto thistles

A day of

Unpressed thinking

For a while

x

3

The war at home

Funding on trial

Some money passes

Thankfully

Aid for Ukraine

Rebuilding bridges here

That have

Fallen

Down

Rebuilding, anyway

x

I guess we need

To keep moving

Throw off

That Mayberry feeling

That sitting outside

Floyd’s

On a hot day

Is a good thing

Taken down the long,

Front porch

Relegate its place

Build something

Whose plans

Whose generation lies

Around the corner

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C L Couch

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Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

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The Boy Who Knew Something

(x = space)

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The Boy Who Knew Something

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A spark of something

Blown on through the breeze

Of time

What did he know?

Something about dreams, perhaps

That dreams try

To work out something

And something about wandering

That loneliness

Is good

That reactive loneliness is hard

But being on one’s own

As a decision for oneself

Is not so bad

Bicycle

Riding across an empty schoolyard

Creeking

Climbing rocks

Falling

There’s a bruise

One survives

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The working out of dreams

When dreams are ridiculed

That’s when it gets hard

Harder than the stones

One fell upon

Growing up will help

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If only there could be an arc

So many things

Could be worked out

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Call it memory

Call it inspiration

Allowed to last

Let it last

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C L Couch

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Photo by Hugo L. Casanova on Unsplash

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Born Again in the USA

(x = space)

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Born Again in the USA

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A sabbath time

To stop

To breathe

To wait for it

To be over

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Counting the minutes

Of the homily

Or sermon

The teaching of the word

Waiting for communion

To be over

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Now, where is the car?

How long will it take

To leave?

Thinking about

Food and rest and TV

After

The holy time

Set apart

Once a week if that

x

Bigger deal

Maybe wireless

For those who could

Be there

At Christmas and at Easter

What is wrong with

All these things

Is nothing

But set apart is set apart

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Then the chance

To splice it

Graft it all together

Stronger, faster

Like the cyborg hybrid

Only real

Sacred and prophane

With blessings

Rain from an aspergillum

The scent of flowers

From a thurible

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Sensations

Only God

Can bestow

In the world

And the world

Can respond

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C L Couch

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Photo by Bas de Korte on Unsplash

“Storm in a few minutes.”

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Who Slew 3G?

(x = space)

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Who Slew 3G?

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Phone’s dead

As in a horror movie

When the characters

Feel progressively

Closed in

And the killer starts

To take them,

One by one

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It’s a sad day

It’s a widespread problem

For the company

And the old people’s plans

Like my plan

Time to pay one way

Or the other for

The lack of service

All the promises

Smiling gray faces

Provided

x

Bakelite phones

With wires

Newspapers

Made of paper

Talking with each other

On the street

Sending the urgent telegram

These might be making

Returns

Should we need to share

In an analog world

Again

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A horror movie

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ilinca Roman on Unsplash

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