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Cenobite

(x = space)

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Cenobite

(last ice age or next one)

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I need food

I need drink

That’s primal

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Since the world has iced over,

I have nearly nothing now

She should have told the hermits

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I haven’t seen siblings for days

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We always pray

But without tools

And a bigger fire,

We shall dry like

Animal meat, which is

All we’ll leave behind

Surrounded by charcoaled pages

As a testament

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What shall I leave as last words?

That it was too thick,

That I could not break through?

That the storm ruined my fire,

Even inside the cave?

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That I still believe?

That my supplication

Is to receive my soul?

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I do believe

Yet wish I had a follower,

Someone come from town

To bring me coals and kindling,

Water and a pike whose metal tip

Could break through ice

To running water far below

Though I haven’t heard it

Seems for an age

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I might be addled

Or unfaithful,

But I could go for bread and

Cheese as well and wine,

Though I’ve tried to make the

Bitter ale I have last for a while

(nearly gone, now)

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And candlelight

I miss candlelight

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My head hurts,

My body weakens

I don’t know if I’ll die

In night or day

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It’s hard to tell

Anymore

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C L Couch

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Photo by Shannon McInnes on Unsplash

Northwest Territories, Canada

On an off chance we found ourselves needing to drive from Inuvik to Tuktoyuktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada, which was only accessible by ice road at the time. It took us about three hours driving on the ice to reach Tuktoyuktuk, which sits on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. This is what you see when you step out and look down. Taken during the last weeks of the ice road before it permanently closed. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-highway-challenges-1.4398726

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There was an ice age in the Middle Ages.  The next one might be caused by global warming.

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Clusters

(x = space)

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Clusters

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I sigh and sip

the morning is progressing

I have an artificial breeze

a measure for tinnitus

while outside, the tarn effect

persists

another day in more or less

a string of days

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I’m clustering my thoughts

until one group of them take over

travels on its own and further

a thesis for a theme

process and product

you know

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and hopefully approve

because I’ll be doing this tomorrow

until the cows come home

or other herded things

within which are groups of one

like thoughts

there you are in your thinking

hi

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C L Couch

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Photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash

Love Letters

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Neighborly

(x = space)

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Neighborly

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I’ve just read a story

About a neighbor,

No one I know,

Living in Florida

(I’m in Pennsylvania);

He was accosted

Just the other night;

Someone stood outside

His door, trying to

Bash it in; he broke

The door but did not get

Inside; the neighbor

Had a gun but did not

Want to use it, and

He didn’t; well, 911 was

Called, and here’s

The shameful part—police

Came and waited

Some distance away;

They didn’t get involved

Until the perpetrator

Came up to them,

Which seems to me

Lucky and convenient

Law enforcement;

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As you can imagine,

An official line is

Spun from the department

While the incident

Is under investigation;

My neighbor and his

Neighbors now

Live knowing nothing

Happened that was

Helpful, not by the

Police; and the first

Person, my neighbor

(I do not know him)

Must was his dog

While keeping pocketed

His gun, should inaction

Require shooting

On his part

The next time

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C L Couch

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‘Sheriff, hurry up please.’ Disabled man battles intruder as cops wait down the street

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/crime/fl-ne-police-response-intruder-ss-prem-20201128-ibp6eequqjf3lhgvowzcwlhaee-story.html

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Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Spotted

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Be Serious

(x = space)

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Be Serious

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I should say something about God,

because I like God

though I wonder how God likes me.

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Love and like,

like the basis

For a friendship.

And Jesus is our friend,

a revelation given when they met

for supper one last time.

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So if Jesus likes me,

which has been the implication

then somehow, in some way

I must be likable.

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I know God is all-giving

and all patience

with everything that’s perfect,

and my regard hardly necessary.

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And I suppose

friendship must be doctrine

in this tradition, anyway,

though we switch it to indifference

when we think we might,

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when we want to forget

until outside the booth

that God was there

in everything,

made complicit by us followers.

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We are reverse claustrophobes

on Earth—we want to tunnel in

where we might take the rocks

and build small tyrannies,

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which is not friendly action,

though if God is removed

by our convenience, how easily

each other?

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Friendship with God,

a treat by Christian doctrine, I

suppose,

while others don’t forget

the awesomeness of God

and that awe means fear;

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we could stand some friendly fear,

for it is God who loves

and calls us loves even from

prophets and lawgivers.

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Jesus as our pal?

Our buddy at the bar?

It’s fun to think that way

(I think so),

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though Jesus of creation

and of Sinai,

of Golgotha and victory

in hell—how trivially

is made up by us;

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but God is always God

who cries, who creates,

who sacrifices—maybe, then,

deserving of

an attitude of more.

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C L Couch

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Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Coney Island, United States

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Chocolate Milk

(x = space)

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Chocolate Milk

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I used to like

To mix in Nestle’s Quik

Sold by a rabbit

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It was powder then,

And I was not good

With the result

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Little globs of wet

Powder on the surface

Of the milk

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But I liked the process,

Spinning the Quik around

Making a maelstrom

In the center of it all

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I don’t know if

I had been in the southern world

Would I have stirred it

The other way

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I’m drinking coffee

From a glass just now

(it’s customized),

And everything is smoother

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I’m grown up

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But the stirring

Just this morning

Reminded me of

Turning galaxies

In my child’s glass

Of milk and Nestle’s Quik

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C L Couch

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Photo by Arnaud Mariat on Unsplash

universe

Far away Andromeda galaxy, or M31, in deep space.

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Reading Lists

(x = space)

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Reading Lists

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Adrienne Rich

Wrote about Aunt Jennifer’s

Rings and tigers on screens

And diving into a wreck

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These were the poems

We interns were assigned

To read and teach,

And that was all right

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But reading on one’s own

With no one’s rubric but

One’s own

Is so much better;

I’m sure we were supposed

To instill some kind of

Critical process regarding

Life and reading in it

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But I’m not sure

How well that worked,

What kind of processes

We might have instilled,

What seeds grown,

What personal

Allegiances to one’s own

Mind and heart

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So was a new generation of

New readers of poetry

Begun?  Has it flourished?

Are they among the ones who

Turn to poetry when there’s

A tragedy?

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(read up how we

took to verse after the

Towers fell)

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I like Rich, though that

Would not be enough

In that we were serving

A learning process

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It was a small, state school;

I never heard from anyone

Again, though nothing and

No one is due me

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A state away and many

Years, I wish us well

And to take up small books

Of miracles from time to time;

I do this, Mary Oliver’s

Most recently

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C L Couch

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Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

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“The Rape of the Lock”

(x = space)

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“The Rape of the Lock”

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Is a poem-story

About a theft of hair

(a basis for satire)

From times when

“Rape” meant abduction

(bad enough, though

if you know

The Fantastiks, then

you know)

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Even so, not a good

Word, made worse by

The way we use it

Now—given charge

And change

With reason

Words have power,

Don’t they?  Sometimes

More than action: try

Proclaiming “dictator”

Inside democracy

(listen to the only

speech in Chaplin’s

The Great Dictator)

Or cry “freedom” inside

Tyranny

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Then there’s

“Joy” in a

Cheerless place,

Challenging the time

Another way

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Have a gentle day

And mind (and mine)

Your choice of words, and

Take comfort from

The people with whom

You don’t have to

Fret so much

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C L Couch

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Photo by Kristian Strand on Unsplash

New York, United States

Type

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Ray Bradbury’s Writing Table

(x = space)

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Ray Bradbury’s Writing Table

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I hope it’s true

He showed it to us,

Talked us through it

Right before each

Episode;

So many toys and

Other things, reminders

Of this world

And other worlds;

There was a metal

Spaceship, the old kind

You wind up; and

There were toy dinosaurs

And many other things,

Curios and totems

Any of which

Might become

Dandelion Wine,

A Martian chronicle

Or Something Wicked

This Way Comes

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I hope it’s true

And not a set piece,

Though I suppose it doesn’t

Matter; the writing

Table, writing place

Has been lodged in

My brain, coming

Up as memory

Every now and then,

Evocation of

Evocation, and of course

I have my own symbols

Now around me, and

I trust that

You have yours

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C L Couch

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The Ray Bradbury Theatre was a show first broadcast in the 1980s.

Ray Bradbury was a writer who created many monumental works, among them Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

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Photo by Charl Folscher on Unsplash

Part of a series of concept photos I took during lockdown using drawing mannequins.

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Imposition of Immortality

(x = space)

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Imposition of Immortality

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The tree outside looked as if it were leaning toward the window.  I mean big parts, think branches and the bow.  Black against a gray sky, it all looked dramatic.  Worse, a little scary.  Trees have fallen down before.  In the back, a large one, bringing many wires with it.  In the backyard of the house I grew up in in Pittsburgh, a tall and wide willow.  Fell in the night, covering the backyard to be seen in the daylight.  The first big thing to fall in my nascent awareness.  Will the new tree fall?  I don’t know.  Who does?  The squirrels and dogs walked by?  Qué será, será, the Spanish say (and Doris Day).  It is what it is, we say these days.  All we are is dust in the wind.  I guess that goes for imposing trees as well.

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C L Couch

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Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

By William Wordsworth

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood

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Photo by Diane Helentjaris on Unsplash

Purcellville, Virginia

Old carved tombstone of a weeping willow tree in a cemetery in the countryside near Purcellville, Virginia in Loudoun County. The cemetery was integrated with the graves of African American and white Americans as was the nearby church.

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