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Conversation with a Pop Star

Conversation with a Pop Star

 

You don’t like pop music?

Not so much

What do you like?

I like jazz

I like the symphony, too

But jazz brings music to life

So you don’t like new things?

No, I like them

 

Experiments in jazz are cool

As long as they aren’t atonal

Jazz already masters

Notes, half-notes, and dissonance

Not to mention syncopation

 

Jazz accepts chaos in the world

To wonder why

In saddest beauty

Do you have a favorite?

The one I heard last night

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Sash Margrie Hunt on Unsplash

New York, USA

New York Subway Jazz Musician

 

14

Loving Cup

Loving Cup

 

Is there more to say?

Certainly, every day

Let’s keep on talking

And let the silence speak as well

All the moments in between

Grace for punctuation

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Thanuj Mathew on Unsplash

Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, India

Tea makes everything better. This photo is from a trip to Tamilnadu during November of 2017. The cup always used to fascinate me, as an object that keeps the liquid and helps us consume it.

 

6

Only Wednesday

Only Wednesday

(in pandemic time)

 

I think we need a good day

And being sensible

About it

Try to avoid the stupid world

And wrap around the smart one

Our friends, I think, are

Counting on us

Not to build a platform

From which to sell whatever

Made wherever

 

I think they want to count on

Honesty

While in politics none is expected

Maybe because cheating

There

For too many is like breathing,

Reaching for a wallet

To spend

Someone else’s money

 

The rest of us

Can be smart

In real daytime life,

We can take precautions

We wash our hands in life

Every day

Masks are hot to wear

But we can breathe through them

If we can’t,

Then that’s an exception

 

We can still drive and ride

We’re fortunate not to be stopped

At borders,

Locally

As and if we’re well,

We can get out of cutaneous shells

To make or remake ourselves

Aware of those who will take help

With the means

For

All the troubled places

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mélissa Jeanty on Unsplash

Haiti

 

2

The News

The News

 

There’s a vicious edge

On everything

Jobs, relationships

Jokes, games

Living in our neighborhoods

 

Like adding blades to shoes

Not for skating

But for slicing into Earth when

We walk or run,

Until the planet bleeds

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Isi Parente on Unsplash

Banff, AB, Canada

 

12

To the One Who’s Typing Now

To the One Who’s Typing Now

(regarding futures)

 

I mistype a number

And it’s 2029

I mistype again

It’s 3029

Maybe 3129

Let’s make it 3159

So each number’s new

Now let’s consider our world

Should we still have it

Should we be here

 

A thousand years to get it right

Maybe we’ve refined

Profit at last

A personal fruition of one’s

Skills

The happiness of that

Is a profitable life

Each one contributes out of joy

Not that we won’t make mistakes

We will

And I’m not sure where

Ego’s gone

 

We’ll need more materials

Stop wrecking Earth to have them

We might be digging into Mars

And asteroids

Still needing to learn

The cosmos is not for digging

And for slicing up

Maybe other leaseholders

Will have shown by then

To live that

For us

 

Despotism might be a deserved

Anachronism by then

Democracy gain such momentum

That we will have it

And no other way

Maybe there was

A final fight for freedom

Last and only monuments

Only to us

And worth remembering

 

The state of the human soul

Might not have changed at all

We might have evolved so that

Ancillary things such as those

At the ends of fingers

And of toes

Might have grown off

Nature evolving, too

Harder trees and rocks

Like crystal steel

Water that will no longer

Be prodded

Nature’s having learned as well

That living with us

Is inimical

We will be peers

If never really allies

We might have learned that

Nature’s soul deserves

Respecting, too

 

As for God

No need for changing there

Immutability required

Maybe Armageddon,

Maybe no one came to play

Maybe God will have reason

To smile a little

All the time

Weep less for Earth and us

Maybe show up, now and then

Because divine invisibility

Will have lost some

Of its doctrine

With its need

 

Will we be happy,

Feel fulfilled?

Goodness, I don’t know

Once everyone is fed

And money doesn’t mean

Withholding shelter

Banks off our backs

Having failed at climbing on us

To deceive with interest

(not only banks—the corporations

so this way and politics)

Maybe when we understand

That lunacy means not providing

Water safe to drink

And we don’t want to be lunatics

Anymore,

The world will, what do you know,

Be a better place

Commercials and song lyrics

Have it right

We’ll still be dying,

Actuarily

But letting go will be done

In a circle

With fewer things to worry over,

After

 

We’ll be a thousand years ahead

Human nature adapting

One can hope

Yes, I know, everything could go

The other way

The devil be in charge, at last

Though that be madness, too

Over non-corporeality

We might have even learned through games

That the body is important

(learned sadly by the wrecking of it)

That matter is

A crucial count of atoms

That heavenward means substance

Hell has none of

Not even an electron

No covalence there

 

Both abstract and solid mean something

Something wonderful

We’ll have our fears

To face

Maybe at last we’ll face them

Some challenges might be greater

Maybe you wouldn’t

(I don’t know)

But I’d like to see, to hear, to touch

To taste, to smell

To sense the future

Maybe it will be part of the tour

An astral orientation

For what truly happens next

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash

Rågeleje, Denmark

 

2

Christmas in July

(for the editor of a local newspaper)

 

I think it was largely a retail invention

I think it still is

There was a movement

For a while this year

To display Christmas

Or holiday lights,

But I don’t think it took on

Maybe was subsumed

By a trenchant desire

To be normal,

Which evidently has to be

A retrograde feeling

Too bad, since lights on houses

In July would be cool without,

You know, being cold

At least in these parts

I’d be up for Aussies and

Kiwis joining the movement,

Too

Lights and music

Maybe a sensation or two

We wouldn’t have to call it

Christmas—how much does the

Birth of Christ resonate, anyway?

We could be respecting of

All the good traditions

(there are many)

Frankly, nodding toward

Colors, maybe music

Gift-giving could take a pass

Let’s use what we already

Have

For fun, adding a toy penguin,

Maybe a dinosaur (also

stuffed, not stuffing us)

Or two

Not to make it chaos

But, to borrow from another

Celebration, a cornucopia

Inclusive, somewhat organized

Revelry without the stress

The other days have had

A campaign, then,

For all the senses in community

Unseasonal holidays in July

 

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Sandra Grünewald on Unsplash

 

12

July

July

(pandemic time)

 

Just is going by so quickly

Soon will be the ides

And yet how can that be?

We’re inside in pandemic time

The days are blurred

The hours should be slow

As if marked

By a Gothic clock

That ticks without relenting

In a ruined house

But here it is, half the month

Is nearly done

Maybe the problem is

Each day is rushing by,

Losing pieces

As an airplane hull in a comic book

Crashing craft before the superhero

Comes,

Lifting up the plane

Restoring those of us inside

To safe living on the ground

 

What we’re used to

Isn’t happening

All the things we’re told need doing

In each hour

So the hour slides

Collecting in a bin, somewhere

Maybe we think the hours

Will be called back into service,

Though really I think we know they’re gone

And with them,

All our former expectations

 

We want time to wait

So we might catch up what has gone

Bring it back into our time

That it might rush again

But we’ve heard the occasional

Voices

Like soft-spoken prophets

Telling us that normal will have to be

Redefined,

And then

It’s all right

We will have it

Back and for the first time

Hello, I must be going (Captain Spaulding)

Time will be back

To fill more as we wish

Though there is a call

In the air

Or on the tables with our alarm clocks

Inviting us to be more woke,

As we’re saying,

For the day

 

A day of work

A day of home

A day of work at home

School out there

Jobs out there

Keeping them inside, too

Inside us

The Earth is a busy place,

Though not so much in nanoseconds

As in seasons

Seasons of life

And letting go of life

 

When we return,

We’ll have the chance to keep some things

Old things and new

Making a fuller way to live

A fuller way to understand

Ourselves, our families, our friends

The world we’ve been given

And still have, for now

 

Intertwining life

With more threads for the loom

More strands in the weaving

Valuing some things

We always said

We’d get around to

Such as lifelong learning

Family really matters

Well, it’s turning into a banner over town

Relax, enjoy the day

Fill it with what you will

Or let it go

But here is a chance

For an awful reason

To repack our lives,

Leaving what’s no longer needed

Along an existential road

Backing into what we’ll call

Another time

That now is past

We’ll walk straighter in the now

(straighter however we go)

With vision, other senses for today

And some toward the future

 

Tomorrow hopefully will grow

And then a little more

But have today

A first day in July,

All the hours in a day and season

Count them slowly, count them fast

Count them not at all

Let time be a blanket

Rest or play or work upon it

Savor

Breathe fully

A gift of air from the sky

And the host above, below

The maker it works for

Who will, as we will,

Keep the time for us in

What happens

And what happens next

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Ian Macharia on Unsplash

Kargi, Kenya

Took this on a trip to Kargi, a remote nomadic settlement in Kenya. It’s been a while since I got to experience a people so constantly happy and full of joy as the people of here.

 

4

Joy Harjo Is Ready for You, Now

Joy Harjo Is Ready for You, Now

 

Next I’d like to meet the Dalai Lama

And Bishop Desmond Tutu

They’re working together these days,

You know

I don’t recall who is the Secretary-General

Of the U.N. just now

I still have U Thant and Boutros Boutros-Ghali

On the brain

But whoever she is

I think it’s a she

I’d be delighted if she’d let me in

For a hello and a salute

I’d like to meet my favorite writers

Everywhere,

If they’d behave

The Poet Laureate, perhaps

If she’d have time

Of course, she wouldn’t

But if we could pirate a few minutes

Then I’d to meet some other laureates

In states and other nations

The Presbyterian church

Made me one for a little while

It was informal, really

Just a bunch of pastors

Who thought it a good idea,

After I gave a reading,

Though if I met the Presbyterians now

I’d have to scold them

And the other Protestants

For what they did to me

By proxy, many others, too

 

So I should say I’d like to meet Jesus

The God of Abraham and Sarah

As well

The God of Muhammad

But these are here

A bodily encounter

Would be fine and fearful

But not necessary

If it were, we’d have them that way

All the time

 

No, I’m looking for people

Mortal people

I haven’t mentioned scientists

I’d have to ask my sister for

Recommendations

Since Stephen Gould,

Carl Sagan,

Marie Curie are no longer

Around

People who living

And through vision’s mighty efforts

Are trying to improve the world,

The only way to save it

Save us in it

Without invitation but a mandate

To survive ourselves

In bestowing riches

To the future

And today

 

Did I mention I’d like to meet Dolly Parton?

What she does for children

And for books,

My!

 

C L Couch

 

 

photo by Rabie Madaci on Unsplash

library, Annaba, Algeria

 

10

Satisfaction

Satisfaction

 

Maybe we’ve done enough

For now

There is an artificial virtue

Made of busyness

It’s plastic in the worst way,

Unmalleable

 

Activity in, paycheck out

As if that were enough

So we make new virtues

Out of ennui,

What passes for

The watercooler

Probably online

 

There should be joy in work

In accomplishment

What to say if the jobs

Were never ours

By art or temperament

But we took them, anyway

Because need honestly drives

 

What we have, we have

And if it’s not satisfaction,

Then we’ll have to

Add it in

Sorry perhaps

But for each there’s a life that’s calling

It isn’t busy

But it can be filled

With oxygen and all kinds

Of proper acquisition

Not to mention better

Satisfaction

Self-defined

Tempered by others

 

A community whose circle

Is kept porous

For something new

Maybe in companionship

To keep

Or with kindness

To let go

 

Which is to say

Caprice is never warranted

We are allowed to want

We don’t have to seek

Or keep

In avarice

Protection notwithstanding

(we protect each other),

A life of want and keep

Should be just fine

 

There’s room for everyone

And everyone deserves a turn

The invitation to speak

Should go all around

The planet

The planet’s big; there are

Resources for it

 

If a message, aimed at anyone

Because no one is particular,

Says be afraid

Be angry

When there’s no reason

And we have our better things to do

 

Let’s put it away

Walk on

Find friends

And whatever we have made

And are making

Of homes

Of home,

The better urge for work

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

 

6

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