I am trying with no images except, I guess, the banner image. No billboards should appear.
—CLC
well, I’m out of space, folks—I’m not sure what comes next
c l couch
Week
God
We would love you
But it’s Monday
And it’s
Hard
Enough to wake and then
Wake others
Wash
Dress
And breakfast
Leave for work or school
And then do well enough to
Have earned enough
For food
And
Bills and such
Plus maybe earned
A sense of
(enough)
Satisfaction from
The day
And there’s God
Well
Maybe
On Tuesday
C L Couch
Photo by Lerone Pieters on Unsplash
2 poems about, I don’t know, the extraordinary ordinary
don’t unappreciate the day
the trees are gray
now
no longer black
the sky even paler than
it was
and hazy
both being a gift
if dull
a dull gift
and not that there’s evil
so we know the good
so as
a gray so we know the cheering
colors
on
arrival
better
the dullness forms the shadows
after all
and we have need
for three
dimensions
(if
not more)
gray trends sometimes
and do these other
neutral
shades or call
them natural
either way
to call the season
then
to sell
and there is more
for real
in having so much that is
available on
Earth
and to the hearing
smelling
tasting
touching of
you know
(phatically)
so much
please hurry up
(the practical Eliot)*
shall I have more coffee
or
do I dare
to eat
a peach
I could talk about the part
for the hair
though it always seems to go
to the
center
after trials over
years
and did I hear the mermaids song
then from land perhaps
the answer of
another
siren song
and if I walk along the shore
will the competing songs
from land
from ocean
through the air
lead
me to the cave in which
the extra treasure
that
Aladdin couldn’t use
might reside and just for me as if
a spirit said
this is yours
and it’s your time
c l couch
*dealing (over years) with T. S. Eliot, the writer of “The Wasteland,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” as well as the famous book about practical cats; citations are paraphrased (the layout paraphrased from the part about the peach)
photo by Ahmed on Unsplash
safety patrol
I’m not sure if I ever
got
the white sash or silver
badge
and I’m not sure the office ever
worked
to make us
safer
crossing the driveway at
the edge
of
the school
but I wanted these
‘cause they
were
cool
the folk
that is
who wore them
sometimes I clapped erasers outside
into
the air
you know
and not against the red bricks
of
the walls
but there was no cachet
in that
no creeping up the gradients
of
cool
like the rising numbers
on the hopscotch
that
I tried
sometimes
but for lack of balance
rarely
like
the cool quantity
ever won
c l couch
photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash
Eve
I miss you
You know
In deeper times
When only visions carry me
From one side
Of concern
In an
Hour to
The other
When age is less an issue
More
Of distance
Not
To mention possibility
We got along
Had
Dinner
Watched a movie
Talke with each other
Easily
And these might have been enough
For understanding showing
There was
Something held
Here
Even a diamond-kind of promise
Precious
Lasting
Maybe a depth
Like nothing in the Earth
Mined
Or unmined
But what hearts
Must expose
With words that could
Have
Followed
If
Simply
Sadly
Not this time
C L Couch
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The First for Promise
(1 January 2025)
I
It’s a cold
Gray day
No promise of winter
Say
In the form of
Romantic snow
Not the fearful kind
The same
The foreboding of the same
That for me
Is a bad heart
And
Bad neighbors in
A chilly town
And an existential thinking
About how
To have and read
The next
Passage
Of
Things
And may I ask
What shape and content
Yours
Toward a sound structure
With
The broken beams that
Get majorly
In the way
While you are building
And yet
(for
me
for us)
The pressure’s on
As in
The stultified quality
Of things that never change
And yet
Should
In fact
They must
For the things that should not change
But must
How about in
The promise of new
And then
New years
II
Sigh
It sounds like
Resolutions’
Trope
The things we say
We sell things over
And yet
Will
In the popular
Way
Give up
Say
In a month or so
If that
Sigh
What now
What new way to say it
What way to say
We really mean
It
This time
What counts
What reifies
Well
We have this
The versicle way
To say old things to keep
And new
To alter
Songs
Novels
All sorts of declarations
Maybe and
Maybe which is why
We have these
We grew
And grow these
When
Needed
A new way can and
Does change
And so
What shall our new ways be
And so
Answer in
Your own ways and
Our ways together
Please
III
I guess I think
This needs to be
A year
Of change
Or else we’ll have
The same old thing
Dissatisfying everyone
Some
More if not
Forever
C L Couch
Photo by Wilmer Martinez on Unsplash
Times Square, New York, United States
Beautiful city lights looked like something straight out of the movies. The colors were inspired by the Tron: Legacy film. [What Wilmer has to say.]
Photo by Florencia Potter on Unsplash
I searched for “life,” and this is one of the images I got. A contemporary still life, perhaps? Here’s what the artist has to say: “I tried to shoot some ‘set design’ photos just for fun with a friend and this is the result.” Added is “Hope you like it!” I rather do. Maybe the meaning, if a meaning is required, is that before death when in life we have lemons, we should make, you know, some lemonade. If so, best depiction of a saying I’ve ever beheld. Good day and good life, all!
Por la Vida
I’m tired
And my arm hurts
My neck hurts
Too
I’m stressed
Over several
Maybe many things
Some
More or less
Uniquely mine
Some
Cosmic
Though most of these
Mostly
In-between
And this is how I feel
More than
Emotions
But spread throughout
My body
As I suppose generally
Stress goes
And even body-pains
Are signaled to the rest
To rally
There’s
Depression
And there’s anxiety
They been identified
Anyway
In the way such challenges
Are analyzed
And explained
And often
And with me
Medicated
And that’s all right
Except
I feel the way I feel
Companionship
Might help
Though not always
While
Of course
There’s God
And I shouldn’t minimize
The almighty
Although I do
Don’t I
And all the time
Except
I also wonder
Why there’s evidence in
Nature
And in reason
But otherwise
The act and presence
Of divinity
Well
Denies both in sometimes
Storylike invisibility
But then
I’m on about companionship
Good company
Healthy
Relationship
That is
And shall I have that
Please
Maybe with Irish in a pub
(beyond the stereotype
I am half-Irish
by the way)
Maybe with Germans
(while I
type)
In a haus of hof
For what did Luther say
Of beer
But that it proves the love
And happiness
By God
Though I imagine
More than anodyne
Is needed for full
Living
And life is what I mean
And mean
For you
And quandaries
(I don’t think I’ve used that word
before)
Questions about remedies
Or simply how to answer
All the requirements
In a day
C L Couch
(with apologies to Irish and to Germans, though I think we/they can take it if not live it)
a study in ambition
(working on it)
a study
in ambition
because I think it is
a one-by-one thing
and not a group
thing
except by change
now and then
the space race
a national ambition
and was it
I was a child
I don’t recall contributing
except with attitude
and I was
child
someone spent a bunch of money
making things
sacrificing
lives
so we could
go to the moon
and I was there
before the television
for the launch
then on the day
to see
the landing
then the steps
and would say
that was great
and was it
even then
as
I wondered
about people starving
wherever
trick-or-treating
for UNICEF
and all
the smaller things
good for the economy
the space race
microwaves
ballpoint pens
tin foil
(well
aluminum)
okay
and now it’s easier to see
that vanity
is pushing us
back to the moon
and higher
on to Mars
wanting
to respect that
and then wondering
again
about the starving people
and maybe we won’t have
any safe water
or a safe Earth
with no space on the moon
or Mars
for all of us
I do think
Pangloss is wrong
and that it’s good when we
consider things
together
but the dreams must be owned
and we must have them
one by one
and study us
each one
learning
growing
getting
each thing owned
by one
and then we can think about
negotiation
and a kind
of communion
maybe
if we
simply had a planet
whole
each one satisfied
to live
and to consider
as it is
we will go
we will do anything
beyond the one
for money
for politics to win
for
another one
claiming to be a party
let alone a nation
or a national
ambition
ambition is good
not the way
that fictively we say
that greed
is good
because it’s not
but in the way
that use of us
by one
by one
and then we’ll see
is good
that energy is good
and its
expenditure
even a joy
sometimes
that use is good
and better when
compelled by good
dreams
virtues
and such
but that what is Earth
is finite
and each one
in our systems
and so there’s saving
even caution
to employ
so feed us
end our thirst
let each one work
and also
dream
envision something real
for a dream
c l couch
energy is eternal delight (William Blake)
who also wrote of embracing contradictions
photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
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