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Wounded Eagle

(x = space)

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Wounded Eagle

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Did Ben Franklin really want

The emblem of the nation

Be the wild turkey?

Maybe so,

Though it’s hard when

One sees eagles in flight

To pick something else

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In Cincinnati

At the zoo

Was an enclosure

For a bald eagle

Wounded and then rescued,

An enormous structure

For the one

Who would only fly

Partially again,

Such was the hurt

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Netted magnificence

Still magnificent

Worthy for a nation

That’s somehow wounded, too,

And still can fly

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C L Couch

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While living in Cincinnati, I used to visit this eagle at the zoo.  I trust I remember enough and am witnessing correctly.

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For one season, I was able to photograph eagles at a nest. They were not bothered by my presence and in the morning the light was reasonably good. Sadly, that winter the tree blew down, and I have yet to find such an ideal site for eagle photography.

Photo by Richard Lee on Unsplash

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An Appointment with God

(x = space)

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An Appointment with God

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I don’t’ have so many appointments

Lately,

For which I’m grateful

In a time of my kind of PTSD,

It’s the weight of stressors

I don’t have to bear

So much

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To get there

To show up on time

To be here when I’m called

To have everything I

Might be needing

Relieved of this

Makes for a better day

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I’d like to live easy

I don’t have much

But to have time

And on the flip side

Lack of bother

On the A side

Coffee and toast

And morning

And a day for you

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Someday will arrive

I keep forgetting

You will arrive

To take me to home

By then,

Maybe I shall be glad

Meanwhile, I keep my faith

With me and then I

Hope with

The Amish

Who say, one by one,

I hope so

When asked about assurance

Of salvation

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C L Couch

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I think it was the poet Julia Kasdorf, as I may have said before, who told me about the typical response when Amish are asked the salvific question.

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Waves

Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash

Frankreich

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Dreamscape

(x = space)

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Dreamscape

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I had a dream in which

I had

An argument

With someone close

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I hate those dreams

Even though I get

To yell

At people; and

Somehow that might be healthy,

Therapeutic

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But the power balance

Is all wrong

Since agendas are guesswork

At best,

Especially of others

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Not to mention everything’s

A construct;

I can’t even say

Reality is

Between the extremes

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And when I wake,

I feel tired

As if I had been arguing

With someone

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C L Couch

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Criollita

Photo by Soledad Lorieto on Unsplash

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Petition for Another Monday

(x = space)

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Petition for Another Monday

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God,

To be prosaic

We need help

Our stories need more chapters

To fill in for burned-up pages

We moved too fast

Precipitous

And greedy

With a friction

That burned up

Our other efforts

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Slow us down

Give us time

To think

Push us into

The clearings of the forests

Of the world

And by the oceans

In the desert

Surrounded by the mountains

And volcanos

Titans called back in service

Prometheus released

To decide again

About the gift of fire

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I’m sure the circle

Of the Earth

Is a lesson

We take, we use,

We throw it out

To find and fund

The use of the world

Again

We use

And we renew

Breathe out poison

That the plants take,

Gift us with oxygen again

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The circle is unbroken

For all the rich who try

And those with

Bent understanding

Of the power

That never was for our us

Without repairing

Turning back

What Earth can use again

And thus to our sustaining

And creating

Over ages

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C L Couch

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Quiet Voodoo Eye

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Wyoming, United States

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Signpost

(x = space)

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Signpost

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Let’s see

Let’s hear

Let’s smell

Let’s taste

Let’s touch

Let’s move in time

And between dimensions

Of the multiverse

How many senses do we know

How many are to come

Into our knowing

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The episodes are so ordinary

As to be in black and white

A visit

To a small town

An employee

Inside a bank

Peddlers

Sometimes alcoholics

Sometimes astronauts

Who are not ordinary

But take our attitudes

With them

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Something usual

Then everything must

Turn

Because under the sun

Or moon

Is not enough

Sometimes we must enter

The zone of twilight

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Mister Serling says so

And he writes so

He is right

To send us there

 Because what we know

Is not enough

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I just put down a piece of toast

And it stood on end

I might be going

Somewhere next

Be with you

There

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C L Couch

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The Twilight Zone, 1959 – 1964

156 episodes

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The Cocoon Nebula along with its trail of dark nebulosity. 11 hours of LRGB combined with 10 hours of hydrogen-alpha exposure.

Photo by Aldebaran S on Unsplash

Spain

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Killing a Bee

(x = space)

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Killing a Bee

(that’s all)

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Last night something happened

That hasn’t happened in a while

I was stung by a bee

It hurt

I blobbed on some ointment

On the spot,

Loosely wrapped it all,

Waited to find out what happened

Next

The last time I was stung didn’t go so well

The site swelled, and soon there was

A shot

(another

kind of sting)

I know, it is November

We weren’t outside

The finding of a bee (alive

the bee alive

I was alive)

Was a surprise

I discovered it while touching it

Picking it up, in fact,

Not knowing what it was

At first

(it was dark)

I doubt it was happy

And let me know

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This morning, I found the bee

Where I had dropped it

When I touched it, well, it moved

And I killed it

Was it dying, anyway?

Did it let out a bee kind of scream?

Have I angered all its cousins, now?

Will they find me?

It’s an old place

There could be a colony, somewhere

I’d rather not have killed the bee

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Now I think about

Going to church

Because it’s Sunday,

Church meeting day

As I type, the stinger still

Bites back,

A bit of pain from poison

And the barb

That I can’t see

Even though

It’s in my index finger

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C L Couch

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Was you ever bit by a dead bee?

I haven’t been

(all the bees so far

have been live)

I could be

Dead bees can hurt you

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To Have and Have Not

(and my response)

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Photo by Monica Valls on Unsplash

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Dust Bunnies at Play

(x = space)

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Dust Bunnies at Play

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When the winter sun is low

And everything on the floor

Is illuminated,

I spy

The dust bunnies come out to play

I say,

Hey, dust bunnies

Go back under things and behind things

Where I don’t know you’re there

They say,

No,

And don’t think to play with us

Your games are too tall and too hard

And I think they glare at me

And in their hearts

Have already gone back to play

Without me

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C L Couch

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(my, this could be done with children and with gestures—low, lit up, bunnies, under, behind, play, tall, hard, glare, hearts, play (again), without me)

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Story of little bunny Peter that came across whole Italy:)

I don’t know this story

Do you?

I don’t recommend having a bunny

On the dashboard

Unless you’re parked

Or it’s navigating

Photo by okeykat on Unsplash

Rome, Italy

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Anyone want to illustrate this story?

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two poems, again I’m not sure why

(x = space)

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Sci-Fi Goats

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Goats eat anything

I am reminded

As do pigs

I don’t think goats eat tin cans

As cartoons and other stories

Tell

But maybe

Maybe in the multiverse

Anything is possible

A metal-eating goat

On a world of lead

Might be

Just the thing

While justice of materials

Is worked out on other worlds

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Not that we’re excused here

We have what we have

To use

To keep

Or we lose ourselves

Without a possibility

Of portals—

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Maybe goats

They might be traversing

And we never know

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Poeming

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It’s not hard

But it should be honest

In challenging to write

About anything

(say, sci-fi goats, above)

What is the real story?

In not in fact,

Than in judicious metaphor

And maybe both—yes,

Both would be better

So choose the topic

Or let the topic choose

Get to work with

Heart and head,

All the muscles,

All the organs,

All the aspects

(I mean senses),

All the parts

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Breathe through it all

Let the apparatus work

Once something is set down,

Go over it

And over it again

(not too many times)

Then release it like

Letting go of healed birds

Into the wild sky

Then let the work

Make sense of the world

For a while

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C L Couch

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Hello, Friends

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel at Unsplash

https://unsplash.com/@rgaleria

Glattalpsee, Muotathal, Suiza

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two poems, I don’t know why

(x = space)

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Lost World

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Dumb means mute

Kids are small goats

Am I becoming

That old person?

A semicolon’s

Better than a comma splice

President of the United States

Is always capitalized

Unlike another mention

Of a president

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Defensive driving

Is a good thing

People should know

The lyrics of the first verse

Of the national anthem

And the lyrics to

One Christmas carol

(take your pick)

All is not lost in lost traditions,

I suppose;

I made that last one up

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No re-creating the world

In my image,

Thank the Lord

(thank you)

It took me a while

To learn “whom” from “who”

So I’m going to use it

But I don’t mind

If you don’t,

Which is mostly true

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The Lost World is a story first by Arthur Conan Doyle, then by Michael Crichton who used the title as a tribute and allusion, as I am using the title here.

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Supplicant

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Well, it’s early and I’m up

What shall you have for me,

Dear Lord?

What might I do for you?

Nothing, I think, that’s

Worthwhile

All right, that’s worthy

What do I have to contribute to a

God?

No gold, no blood-letting

(sorry)

Nothing awful

That might have been awesome

Only me and the wretched qualities

I have—

That grace has saved

For a wretch like me—

Can offer

Most of the time, I don’t know

What these are

Help me, Lord,

To understand

What I have that could ever

Please, if not

Satisfy

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“Amazing Grace,” a song by John Newton

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Photo by AJITH S on Unsplash

Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India

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C L Couch

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