This Is the Song that Never Ends
Or would you like to
Swing on a star
Carry moonbeams
Home in a jar
And be better off than you are
Or would you rather be a—
(verses for blanks)
Which is a kind of song
That loops
So easily
After the movie
Then throughout the day
And we might wake with it
The next day
I just checked
Jimmy and Johnny
Made the song
(called Jimmy and Johnny
as James and Jonathan
tended to be
back then
like Johnny Williams
in the sixties
before Jaws
and Star Wars)
I think
I heard it once
On Captain Kangaroo
It really is a pleasant song
Existential animals
Notwithstanding
And I think they might excuse us
For our foibles
Symbolized
And what is a song for you
That goes ‘round
In what you wonder
Might become
An attitude
Frustrated
Though for now
As you go through it
It goes through you
(and it might be a long song)
Inciting joy
To go with something else
A chore
Or bigger thought
That occupies
Reminding
Or informing
You are better than you are
Swing on a star
C L Couch
Photo by Oleg Sergeichik on Unsplash
(out of) Gomel, Belarus
“Swinging on a Star”
Writers: Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke
Publisher: Kanjian Music, Music Sales Corporation
https://songfacts.com/lyrics/bing-crosby/swinging-on-a-star
"The Song That Doesn't End" (also referred to as "The Song That Never Ends")
written by Bernard Rothman
for Shari Lewis
(1988)
Wikipedia
In the Day of the Lord
Well
God
What shall you give
Today
There is the day
There will be daylight
Well-
Insinuated
In an hour or so
There will be more
Time
In hours
Time to choose
For those
Who may choose
Who aren’t
Conscripted otherwise
Drafting
Oneself
For cause
But then
The cause
Might be a wonder
How about family
About
The partner
Who works out
In
Intimacy
As well as
What is profound
When about one’s nation
Call it people
Call it country
Group
Tribe
State
Region
Everything that has a name
Maybe a living
Constitution
For a document
For walks
The simple
And sublime
Which faces our distraction
And decisions
All the time
And certainly
Today
And God
There is more than patriotism
There is the reason for it
And the rest
That is
Well
You
And what you say
You make
What you say and make
That is creation
Whose pages form
A scripture
Every day
And then the book itself
Shelved
We take down
Perhaps
We hear someone else
Reading
And from which
Some teaching
Though the hour
Is a sermon
Too
This hour
Then the next
Should we have the next
Odds say
We’ll have
Inside our complex bodies
Have a day that’s plain
Landing here or there
Pleine aire
Or chez lui
And should one
Ask oneself
About salvation
Or get the question
From another
Answer
We hope so
C L Couch
Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash
[photographer’s caption] In New York, in a little shop, those watches where there, hanging in front of me!
(x = space)
x
x
Looking Out from Earth
(considering)
x
Inside wars
We’re living inside wars
And it’s a hate-able
Life
Explosions all around
We feel the blood
And everything
Left over
That had been
Our families
Our better nation
x
And I’m not there
Most of us
Are not there
We hear the counts
We see the numbers
And they’re
Too often
In the courts of numbers
Not outside
Where we
Suburban breathe
And have our way
With local stresses
Only
x
Take thou
Our breath
Away
Let us be like those
Having only dust
Inhaling
And nothing for a meal
With no electricity
To see nothing by
x
It can be like this
On all sides
Who live in darkness
Really
Who think
Like Sneetches
Adding fangs
And cells
That they have the light
x
And after all the irony
The hatred
That is
Sibling
It’s all over
While it’s never over
Too many names shall stand
We could not stamp them
Out
Or their recollection
As Ukraine
Palestine
Russia
Or Israel
Tibet
Burma
The Rohingya there
Maybe Ceylon
Rhodesia
See
Some things should change
x
While other things
Remain the same
People as people
Breathing
Pulsing
Moving
Having life
Allowably
x
Whom to indict
Why
I don’t know
I’m sure
My country fights the war
On terror
And on drugs
How are these going
x
Bless the advances
Harbor the retreats
x
The war
Inside the war
The war
To end all wars
The war of heart to heart
Chamber to chamber
Fluid all around
When sick
Ready to squeeze
Ready to say
I’m sorry that I made you
I’m going to try another world
Now
I mean it
This time
x
War is hell
So maybe hell is war
Forever conflict
Always killing
One thing or another
Nothing qualified
To escape
That is
Live after
Lest we
Let some chiefing of our making
Some cabal
With secret knowledge
Take over
And perhaps
We never know
x
So count our organs
Count our limbs
Count every hope
Still shelved somewhere
And in daylight
Bring it out
You have to sometime
That’s the risk
In living
Anywhere
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Richard Gatley on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Partly inspired by “There Will Come Soft Rains,” a chapter in The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. This part of the story speaks to what is left of us. The chapter’s sad. Nonetheless I often think upon it.
x
x
Sci-Fied
x
Should the bombs fall
And I am atomized
And you
And the insects shall find
Nourishment
Not through flesh
(I’m atomized
so are you)
But through bits of trash
I had not the time
To take our back
x
And shall the Earth survive
To have another age
x
I remember
In the days of Strontium
We said we could
Destroy the planet’s crust
And so leave
The molten mass
The could heave
Or be
Settled down
x
Nostalgia
For a future guess
x
The Earth might have
Its own
As it once held us
There could be bees
And flowers for the bees
Or something
For pollen
So that something could
Pollenate
And there be land
With flora
Feeding
And softening
What’s left of our platforms
For another age
Of Earth
x
Arthropodic
Or could it be with feathers
Things that move
And have their being
Avoiding shadows
Form which
There used to be
Something in charge
Though now
The lesson’s different
This time
The arthropods
And feathered things
Have sentience
And speak gospel
x
While the Earth
In its own way
We never got
Though it was there
Shall smile
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
extension
x
hostages for days
days for hostages
and let the buses in
that have fuel
for hospitals
and food for everyone
and will there be selection
in the heart
and maybe by practice
who knows
the news and books might
tell us
but for now this
cessation means
there’s life again
without the breaths between
explosions
x
let the math run
the refugees
the witnesses
wear black
as they can
when talking
with the rest of us
a message to the west
of us
who might see black
in our own way
in understanding theirs
ours
all
x
emphasis mine
x
black for mourning
to be clear
black for normalcy
as well
in understanding ours
theirs
(decide who they are)
all
then
all of us
x
who need the chance
by the way
and maybe often
to exchange our stones
for bread
to trade what has been bestowed
for grace
or simple decency
on all sides
of the Earth
x
c l couch
x
x
Matthew 7:9-11
x
photo by Matthias Speicher on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Talking and Walking
x
Now talk to God
At last
Waiting
With all respect
Withholding judgment
‘Til we’ve had a word
x
This is right
And this is wrong
And I guess
I knew that
Though not always
The particulars
x
Who can see
All consequences
x
And I have other questions
That I mean
Less rhetorical
x
How do I do it all
How do I bring it home
Really
How do I live free will
And obey things
All together
x
How do I think
And love
How do I formulate
A plan for life
Then wait for its
Dissolution
x
How do I say
This is good
And this is not
When complex understanding
Mixes everything
x
How do I live
In this old world
The human part
That has such hate
And hides its greed
Inside an
Annihilative plan
That is at work
So far from me
With those who have
Stolen the riches
Of the planet
And seek to dupe
All malleable
And thinking people
x
Where is the love
Inside the hate
And how do I live
With both
x
That is
How do I live with who I am
Who I was made
Like everyone
To be
And to be
Well
Me
x
How I live
Lord
I do not know
Too many exits
Or rest stops on the way
They are inviting
Too many paths
It seems
Narrow and wide
And in-between
x
Which way
x
The world is too complex
For the simplicity of love
And faith
Maybe of hope
As well
x
I clang my cymbal
Except I don’t
I live in quiet
Desperation
Sometimes
With the age
Also frustration
Remaking tiny parts
Of my world
To say
That’s better
There is hope for the rest
x
And is there
x
The world made by you
We are in your image
To look like
Dare I ask
To act like you
x
Are our actions
Part of our likeness
In your image
x
We make things
I guess
We destroy them
Too
And you have ordered things
Destroyed
x
Nothing lasts that we make
And is it practice
Then
As in
This all being a rehearsal
For the real show
That is
The real experience
To come
x
I should add question marks
For grammar
Though there are so many
Plus implied
And beyond me
And I think you know
Where are the pauses
Where I do take a breath
Before the next
Thing
That I wonder
You are patient
Except when you’re impatient
x
Well
Maybe love is complex
Too
Or maybe its simplicity
Weaves through the complex
Showing a tapestry
In wisdom
Or in time
Your time
For all to know
x
Who knows
While we live
And wait on Earth
What secrets
You might keep
Or is there a real truth
That you keep none
x
Love and faith and hope
There are precedents
And these might be lasting
One link into another
Through the ages
And tomorrow
And in next moments
After this
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
King Ralph
x
Bittersweet remembrance
As we have
Of all
Remembrance
This of my dog
Our dog
The family dog
From years ago
I used to take him
To the creek
Way out back
Behind the neighborhood
I’d let him run
Through rocks and water
(all was shallow)
He was free
And yet he stayed
With me
There was an incident
With some cows
Imagine the same patched colors
On the bovines
And himself
But came back
Under the fence
And through the water
And the rocks
Once again
But tempers reigned
Among the humans
And I left
I did not see Ralph again
Getting old and sick
As we do
Weighed down by disappointments
Maybe
As we have
Yet I remember liveliness
The chain leash upon the hook
(irony
for freedom)
That I pulled
Only a little
And from wherever
Ralph came running
Knowing it was time
To go out
And run some more
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Alvan Nee on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
in a glorious church
x
look at you
Jesus
on such an ornate cross
we don’t truck
with indignity
or even
execution
you’re still alive
up there
though as you die
you die for us
x
rude cross
more like it
wooden beams
thick branches
off the trees
of the Earth
we say the nails were iron
ongoing execution business
for a smith
with earthly metals
coal to burn
or pieces of wood
cut off
shaved off
something like the matter
of a cross
x
c l couch
x
x
Photo by Michael Newcomb on Unsplash
x
I don’t mean to be a spoilsport about faith and faith art; I do think spiritual simplicity might be important
x
Since we built the church, there were pewter candlesticks upon the altar; Francis Nurse made them, y’know, and a sweeter hand never touched the metal. But Parris came, and for twenty weeks he preached nothin’ but golden candlesticks until he had them. I labor the earth from dawn of day to blink of night, and I tell you true, when I look to heaven and see my money glaring at his elbows – it hurt my prayer, sir, it hurt my prayer. I think, sometimes, the man dreams cathedrals, not clapboard meetin’ houses.
John Proctor
The Crucible
Act 2
x
(x = space)
x
x
Plain
x
Sigh
It’s Friday morning
We’re told
The heat is crested
So low 90s today
Which still is hard
For those of us
From here
Above equators
(there are two
you know
tell Ecuador)
And the tropic lines
x
We’ll breathe into Saturday
Be grateful
When it rains
Maybe too much
But they will break
The drought
As well
x
And these are
My
And our
Issues
Over here
How is it where you are
How is your health
And your family
How is your neighborhood
And any community wider
You are
Or must be part of
x
I am perforce
American
Though America is huge
And we tend to take the name
And then apply it
To one part
x
You are French
Or Nigerian
Or Indian
Chinese
From idealized Tibet
From Ukraine
From Russia
x
You might be from the South
Or the Northwest
Or the Northeast
Maybe all the way up
(we say)
To Maine
Maybe you know
Or encounter at the supermarket
Stephen King
x
These are places
In the USA
In France
You have
The Côte d’Azur
In Greece
Santorini for an island
(that might have been the home
of Atlantis)
In Egypt
The upper Nile
Into Ethiopia
That was Nubia
In China
There’s the Gobi
The severest place on Earth
x
And there are the people
We are people
There
x
Inhabitants of the world
The team of Earth
One people
Now we’re leaving it
And shall need identity
x
Should we live in peace
Appreciating our diversity
All
The shapes and sizes
In our making
And our choosing
The lives we have
That is
The lives we make
x
And we should make them well
And have the freedom
To do so
Too direct
Too easy
Maybe
x
But too bad to be good
Sometimes it’s easy
Put it down
The weapons
And the prejudice
Evil conditioning
Perhaps
Somewhere inside
Take up something better
Food to share
Safe water
The love of life
You know
That someone else
A group perhaps
Might need
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Yuriy Bogdanov on Unsplash
x
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