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Machine Libation

(x = space)

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Machine Libation

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All the things released

On the page,

Admittedly a page of electrons

And in this

There is a soupcon of fright

Over outages

And lack of a printer

And greater thankfulness

Over an awful

Writer’s cramp

That only bends (now)

The typing hand

Now and then

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There are notebooks, too,

When away

Maybe simply outside

Sometimes they are remembered

With the pens

And releases in our minds

To work another way

While in the nothingness

Of expectation

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Keep writing, children

(painting

or reworking

the clay of Earth

or off our feet

or work in something else),

We hear her say

And all the sibling muses

With the gods of creativity

From other places

Other realms

Inside the moving circles

When they meet

And maybe grind

Like rims of

Metal upon metal

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These vie

For inspiration

When we are worth it

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Thank goodness,

We are worth it

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And for the media

The usefulness of anything

The service of technology

And pens and pencils

(paints, clay

things we find)

Crayons, when we have them,

With some paper

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What we keep

What we discard

Ashes in safety

Or simply as a metaphor

For muses

Or spirits from

Other places

Or, say,

Only the mind

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Thanks, any part

Or anyone

And everyone

Everything

Anything

That serves

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jahz Gonzalez on Unsplash

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courage

(x = space)

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courage

(compash)

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the brave leaves

are in fact

leaving;

the wind has done its work

there is inescapability

in the season passing

if I wrote useless things

upon electronic leaves

perhaps my season

will be passing, too

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it is a pledge, I guess

the old word tontine

a formal offering

to work

to put down

to express

to depict

to make my painting here,

unfit for a museum

maybe for local work

the verses in the subway

a slogan on a placard

should I reach

and arrive so far

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like glory in the sky

parochial sky

parochial of one

should I hear myself

out there

constructively

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c l couch

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photo by jeremy bishop on unsplash

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The Conditions of the Prophet

(x = space)

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The Conditions of the Prophet

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What shall God say today?

Not to me

I am not a vessel

Until God doesn’t mind the cracks

And grime

Under the rim

And maybe not:

Maybe God calls on us

To call

Who are not unblemished alabaster

Uncracked

Ancient yet young

To appreciate

x

Well, there are no museums here

Not inside the person

If there is a purpose

And I’m told

Rather explicitly,

I’ll follow

Though there are conditions

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I can’t be crazy

Or made crazy

There must be gentle tones allowed

Simplicity

Would be instructive

While dignity

Would be grand

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If these can be traits

In a manifesto

Then I’ll call it

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And if these traits

Cannot be followed, well,

I’ll follow

Share the word

With the same conviction

Sigh,

No conditions

And apologizing for

Conditions

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C L Couch

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Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

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Any Day Now

(space = x)

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Any Day Now

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Sigh,

It’s Friday, Lord

I exhale into the day

Sunlit

Upon the floor

A cat might be happy

There

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I can’t

Keep the news

In my head

I know it’s hard

Sometimes

There’s something good

To help the day

We’re breathing through

And gently taking from

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Our cats and dogs

Upon our floors

And all the strays

We made

An age ago

And should take in

As well

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All the causes

Everything that moves us

And should bind us,

The catastrophes

We should see each other

Through,

Which make us ready for

A triumph

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C L Couch

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Photo by Matheus Queiroz on Unsplash

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haiku (3) after Hallowtide

(x = space)

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haiku (3) after Hallowtide

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seasons ending in

new seasons beginning to

take hold then let go

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red leaves like children

bright and shiny always changing

into something else

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evergreen until

needles wither due to lack

of water and air

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C L Couch

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Red of Fall

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

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The Glass No Longer Darkly

(x = space)

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The Glass No Longer Darkly

(for All Souls’ Day)

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I’ve been too busy

With the living,

Not to praise that

Habit

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The dead have frightened me

When they are active

With the living

Like the Twilight Zone episode

That used to scare me,

The one with the telephone line

Fallen against the grave

And the dead calling

A living relative

Or the one in the Old West

With the peddler selling

Magic to bring back

The family members

To the living

In a town

And then charged more

To keep the dead, dead

And they return,

Anyway

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That sounds comic, I suppose

But the dead used to scare me

Not so much now

Experience, I guess

And a constructive belief

In afterlife

And the agenda of their own;

They will be busy,

After

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The sacred and the secular

All Saints’ comes ‘round

It doesn’t have to be so somber

In fact, there will be picnics

By the graves

In Mexico

And elsewhere

Commemoration

Remembrance

By the families

Who know how to love

On either side

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C L Couch

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Fotografía de una calavera de azúcar, típica en México.

By Pedro Moga – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22536159

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The Storyist

(x = space)

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The Storyist

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Today is

After Hallowe’en

Liturgically, it’s All Saints’

And we sang a song

About the saints

At church,

Which is pretty much

What I knew

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Tomorrow is the liturgy

For those who died

To this life

And that is what I know

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But that for the intimately acquainted

There will be

Costumes and posadas

Special food

Meals in families

At gravesides,

The beauty of illumination

In the formal way we say it

An idiom

Half-euphemistic

The quick and the dead

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No, the dead

Are not so fast

And so we have to go to them

Except when they’re supernal—then

They’re the fastest

They might not heed

Friction,

They’re so fast

Faster than Earth turning

(a thousand miles an hour)

Or the thrumming of moth wings

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Who knows?

Maybe light speed

So fast, then,

As candlelight

And, too,

So easy

As wings

To those having wings

Now fast and easy

Visit us,

Love us

In older

And in newer ways

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The living and the dead

All mooshed together

In new minutes

In new ministries

Of grace and understanding

Could be without the understanding

For those who simply love

Who illuminate

The graveside

From all sides

With love

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And in the families

Of two or three or many more

Quick and dead

In all conditions

Hear and tell

Old and new stories

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C L Couch

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I came across a novel called The Last Cuentista.  It was only the cover—I don’t yet have the book.  And so I don’t know its own story (yet) but thought about an Anglo word in translation (for this Anglo) that might be Storyist.  Don’t worry, spell-check doesn’t like it.  (Or Cuentista.)

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The Last Cuentista by Donna  Barba Higuera, published by Piccadilly Press

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Photo by Camellia Yang on Unsplash

Edinburgh, 英国

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with apologies for what I do not understand but write about, anyway

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The Treat

(x = space)

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The Treat

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One time

And a few more times

There were

Doughnuts

By Dolly Madison

Advertised during It’s the

Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

And other specials

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There were eyeholes

We could barely see through

Well enough

But there were parents

And we did all right

And sometimes in other houses

There were scenes of

Evening parties we could see

(if not that well)

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And there are photographs

Of a me I do not know

Because

I was on the inside

Trying to look through

And my imagination

Took me other places

Through the night

And the cold air

As I ran

To the next house

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C L Couch

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Photo by Vino Li on Unsplash

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Cancerous

(x = space)

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Cancerous

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We’ve been five

Soon we will be four

That is the prognosis

Palliation

Hospice

These are discussed

And sought

For him

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Out of order

Since he’s not the oldest

In mere math of life

It could have been me

I’m the one with the machine

To keep me going

But I guess

(today’s not over)

It’s not me

(for now)

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The math doesn’t matter

Not important

Math matters elsewhere

In the dosage

Of his medication

In the number of his place

In the hospital

His apartment number

To which they say

He will not be returning

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It’s not me

It’s him

He is important now

But I have to say

It’s been a problem all along,

Frankly, with me

I don’t know how to lose

A brother

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And has he ever learned

To live with this

I’d say so

A mystery he did resolve

Through work

Through home

Maybe through old movies

He knows so well

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And one day

All shall be all

God bless everyone

Who tries

Who’s trying now

One by one

Who practices with grace,

Each fitness for heaven

That shall be judged

By perfect love intending

Hoping that

Full health to be restored

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God bless everyone

God bless each one

God bless Rick

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C L Couch

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

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