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You before Me

(x = space)

x

x

You before Me

(for everyone)

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You’re in line

In front of me for friendship

x

We’ve been here

For an age

And hear the hits,

One hit at a time,

Behind us

x

To feel the hit

Anonymous

Then know by instinct

Now

(it’s how the world works)

To strike the person

Back of the head in front

Anonymous (we’ll

get away with it)

And then receive

The things,

What people say

We’re due

x

In a line of greed

Even for an age,

Someone must turn first

To receive the slap

Looking into the face

x

Then the forward movement

Stops and painless

Possibilities considered

x

It’s risky

Being hit so hard

(regulations say each

must hit hard),

But all good things are chances;

x

Life might end for me

Or in part,

Begin for you

And everyone

Ahead of you

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Srivatsa Sreenivasarao on Unsplash

Four Birds and Reflections

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0

Me before You

(x = space)

x

x

Me before You

(for youth)

x

Peace in our time,

Which implied more strongly

Than the message

That there would be no peace

In their time,

The coming generation’s

x

We bargain with our children’s

Lives and should

Know better,

Abrogating wisdom

And the sacrifice of us

So that they have a world

Better than we found it

x

There used to be a message,

Parents investing

So that children should have

Better lives than theirs,

A message that had stopped

Variably in the seventies

And eighties,

Not to mention attitudes

Toward annihilation

From the war that was so cold

x

Sorry about all that,

All this

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

Freedom

x

1

During Great Pain

(x = space)

x

x

During Great Pain

(preempting Ms. Dickinson)

x

In the ‘midst of pain

There is no formal feeling

It hurts is not a great pronouncement

One could, when it’s bad,

Wish to call up the carriage

That Death provides,

Though that arrival should be way,

Way off

And when it’s time

Will call up itself

x

No, this is pain

That ends with mortal life ahead

But now the middle time’s invested

Having begun some time ago

Has an ending to which to look forward

And now

Is now

The beginning and the ending

That don’t matter

As this moment

When we wish it  had

Never happened

If there’s awareness

x

Or we simply want it

To go away

x

C L Couch

x

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Sobieszewo, Gdańsk, Polska

Remaining.

x

2

Catechesis, Parts 1 and 2

(x = space)

x

x

Catechesis, Part 1

x

questions

x

I got up in time,

Sort of

How did you do?

Is it a good day?

Are things going well?

x

I missed my turn at prayer

The group went on

And I hope the quiet praying

Counted

I don’t know the protocols

On Earth, in heaven

So well

x

I fact,

When I feel my tether pulled,

So to speak,

On Earth or heaven,

I ask, existentially

What do you want of me?

And Who are you?

Asking anything of me

x

Not that I take it amiss

I have time

Enough lack of direction

That I may respond happily,

Given

Something good to do

x

x

Catechesis, Part 2

x

answers

x

You are God,

I think,

Maker of all things

That must mean good and bad

Downright evil

Or so frustrating that

Some of us

Might want

To scream and do

So you are the God

Of good things and bad things

And evil things

Supposing the delightful things as well

Spring and picnics in good weather,

Cool water, wine,

And sex

Beside still waters

(metaphorically at least)

You are with us

In all things,

Somehow excused of voyeurism,

Which might be why

The seraphim have so many eyes apiece

So that one eye or another

Might be closed

With no loss to function, overall

x

Anyway,

You want of us to love

To love you

To accept love from you,

Which isn’t a done deal

You know, during

Those awful times

When so much has been lost

To the dark

Forever night

Without night’s comforts

‘Til a white sun rises over day,

All our empty landscapes

x

You are there

Maybe we’ll excuse this

One way or the other

x

x

C L Couch

x

x

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Photo by Avery D’Alessandro on Unsplash

Brugge, Belgium

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0

Ghosts

(x = space)

x

x

Ghosts

x

I don’t mean

The kind that haunt

In stories

You know what I mean

That haunt for different

Reasons, sometimes

Only memory

Without any fright

A different kind of pain

In remembering

x

Have I lived too long?

I can’t count

The number who have died

I used to know them well

And they are,

You know,

Gone

Holes in my life remain

Small ones that expand

On certain days

x

I think the question might

Have to do with

How to keep them all

How to bear mortality

As well

So much by default

Makes it happen

All mortality,

And I won’t say I’m ungrateful

I am satisfied to be here

And for you

x

Some things will come in memory

And when everything wakes up

Greeting begins again

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Nolan Issac on Unsplash

Upstate New York Chapter, Rochester, United States

My best friend and I got some great shots in this abandoned place….I miss her.

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2

Istanbul

(x = space)

x

x

Istanbul

(Yankee perspective)

x

How colorful the lamps

For sale in the bazaar

I’m not sure how their talents

Transliterate back home

Where so much

Is right-angled

And pastel

x

One lamp of these lamps

Could shine over

Our obligatory book of a thousand tales

If not a treatise on the origin

Of mathematics

Or astronomy,

Right knowledge

That made protraction possible

Right angles

As well as acute, obtuse

x

A world worked out

Until the rough-edged stories

Like the roc that swallows interlopers

In the lore

Come to roost

x

C L Couch

(Yankee)

x

x

0

While in Mariana’s Grange

(x = space)

x

x

While in Mariana’s Grange

x

Hello, day

It’s been a night of wakefulness

Then I drifted off

Onto waters of forgetfulness

Except for dreams

That now I’m here

I am forgetting, too

x

But here’s remembrance:

I’m waking up

To what I left

And whom

There is no ignorance

Everything returns

I must learn again

How to contain

In flesh

Everything I bear

And had left

Only for a while

For angels lifting up

And demons bearing down

x

C L Couch

x

x

Mariana in the Moated Grange

John Everett Millais

painting dated 1851

the image is in the Public Domain

the painting hangs in the Tate in London

x

1

Folding Expectations

(x = space)

x

x

Folding Expectations

(thanks to Meg and Madeleine L’Engle)

x

There’s a physics

In the characters

Who wake up late

And join each other

In the kitchen

x

Eating liverwurst-and-onion

Sandwiches

And discussing tesseract,

Other functions and ideas,

The day,

The world,

And each other

x

I can’t pardon their menu

But I applaud the way

They spend secret,

Winking time

x

Wrinkling it,

To say,

Slipping a dynamo

Inside hours that pass

Most of us as

Static

x

I long to sit

At Meg’s table

Then join her

Sometimes with siblings

On the seeing rock

Out back

x

C L Couch

x

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photo by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash

gym ceiling in sao paulo, brasil

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0

Writing Us

(x = space)

x

x

Writing Us

x

I suppose

We have to talk about ourselves

Each utterance an unwilling

Biography

I want to hear your story

And in the electron universe I do,

And I am thankful

x

I hope that you are well

I hope that God protects you

Via angels

Or the arrival of a cathartic,

Gentler day

Then when inner wind’s inhaled

Back to the fray

That is the rest of today

Into tomorrow

x

So I might hear,

Inshallah,

And you tell me

Tell us all

So we might breathe

For sharing

And consider this community

With certain anonymities

Withstanding

x

Talk to me

I can talk back

Unless listening

In the quiet space between us

Is better

For the call

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Drops

x

0

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