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The Boy Who Knew Something

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The Boy Who Knew Something

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A spark of something

Blown on through the breeze

Of time

What did he know?

Something about dreams, perhaps

That dreams try

To work out something

And something about wandering

That loneliness

Is good

That reactive loneliness is hard

But being on one’s own

As a decision for oneself

Is not so bad

Bicycle

Riding across an empty schoolyard

Creeking

Climbing rocks

Falling

There’s a bruise

One survives

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The working out of dreams

When dreams are ridiculed

That’s when it gets hard

Harder than the stones

One fell upon

Growing up will help

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If only there could be an arc

So many things

Could be worked out

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Call it memory

Call it inspiration

Allowed to last

Let it last

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C L Couch

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Photo by Hugo L. Casanova on Unsplash

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Virtually a Sunday

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Virtually a Sunday

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I pulled on a shirt for church

Only to have technology

Fail me

Or I fail it, more likely

Virtual church

I should walk down the street

Through wide doors

Greet people

Sit down upon the wooden and worn

Bench

Await the start of something formal

Or walk

And keep walking

Chill and sunshine

And have church that way

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Pray as I go

There are things I want

To pray for:

My brother’s health

Cancer

My nephew’s healing

COVID

My neighbor’s heart condition

Another neighbor’s children

COVID in the world

(cancer, too)

The horrid war in Ukraine

War in other places

Where it’s horrid

(always horrid)

Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan

Or violence undeclared

Peace thwarted

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For food for everyone

Safe water

Safe living

I guess I can pray all these things

While walking

Pausing for crosswalks

Maybe I prayed for them now

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C L Couch

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Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

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Born Again in the USA

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Born Again in the USA

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A sabbath time

To stop

To breathe

To wait for it

To be over

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Counting the minutes

Of the homily

Or sermon

The teaching of the word

Waiting for communion

To be over

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Now, where is the car?

How long will it take

To leave?

Thinking about

Food and rest and TV

After

The holy time

Set apart

Once a week if that

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Bigger deal

Maybe wireless

For those who could

Be there

At Christmas and at Easter

What is wrong with

All these things

Is nothing

But set apart is set apart

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Then the chance

To splice it

Graft it all together

Stronger, faster

Like the cyborg hybrid

Only real

Sacred and prophane

With blessings

Rain from an aspergillum

The scent of flowers

From a thurible

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Sensations

Only God

Can bestow

In the world

And the world

Can respond

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C L Couch

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Photo by Bas de Korte on Unsplash

“Storm in a few minutes.”

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Who Slew 3G?

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Who Slew 3G?

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Phone’s dead

As in a horror movie

When the characters

Feel progressively

Closed in

And the killer starts

To take them,

One by one

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It’s a sad day

It’s a widespread problem

For the company

And the old people’s plans

Like my plan

Time to pay one way

Or the other for

The lack of service

All the promises

Smiling gray faces

Provided

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Bakelite phones

With wires

Newspapers

Made of paper

Talking with each other

On the street

Sending the urgent telegram

These might be making

Returns

Should we need to share

In an analog world

Again

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A horror movie

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ilinca Roman on Unsplash

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Battle Cry

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Battle Cry

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The war goes on

I know war from

Reading

All Quiet on the Western Front

Johnny Got His Gun

The Red Badge of Courage

Funny war in

Catch-22

Romantic war in

Anything by Alistair MacLean

And

The Lord of the Rings

I’ve seen videos of

Hiroshima,

And I see images of Ukraine

All of which means

I don’t know anything about war

I don’t know the ripping pain

Of bullets

The sounds from

Many explosions

The sounds of people

Wounded

And the dying

All in states of dying

Mortal life leaving the body

Violent upheaval into judgment

All out of place

Before its time

An outrage of angels

Crying from all sides

The risen and the fallen

I hear stories

Read them

Hear them

Imagine them

And let them in

It’s not the real thing

But it’s something

Enough to think and feel

And cry against

And I have perspective

While those who call for war

Haven’t any

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C L Couch

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Photo by British Library on Unsplash

1914, World War 1. Highland Territorials in a trench. Photographer: H. D. Girdwood.

La Gorgue, France

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Impositions

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Impositions

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The palms are burned

From last year

And ashes are prepared

To go on foreheads

All day long

As Lent begins with ashes

As reminders of mortality

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We might not

Understand mortality

Since we want to live forever

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Which might be the impulse of

Creation

To want and think the days

Will never end

As we live

Tomorrow into tomorrow

Without concern

Until concerns are imposed

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Wondering what do we know

Of immortality

Except that we think about it

A great deal

When not ignoring

Thoughtless into tomorrow

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The assurance of faith

Stories of coming back

Visitations

Apparitions

Scant stories

And the few that are detailed

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Regarding intimations

Life catches up with impulse

What happens

We’ll know

We’ll know what we know

Assurance of faith

Or amazing-grace

Surprise

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C L Couch

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Photo by William Krause on Unsplash

Burnt bushes and trees in Sardinia, Italy.

Sardinia, Italy

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Cyber Prayer

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Cyber Prayer

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God, help

The people of Ukraine

And the Russians who

Protest the war

And are arrested

By autocracy

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Brave days for faith

And hope

And love

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Amen

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C L Couch

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Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash

Cyberpunk Tunnel

London, UK

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Two Days before Lent

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Two Days before Lent

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There are too many

Things to pray for:

Ukraine, COVID, the

Other violence

In the world

At home

In the heart

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As it happens,

There is a season

Starting Wednesday

A season really good

For prayer

And such

Lean living for a while,

As we can manage,

Extra services perhaps

Of kinds

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A time whose name

Means slow and full

And other things

That say

Slow down, remember me

My teaching

From the start

As if to say

I meant creation from the start

To teach

To have us read the surfaces

As teaching and as

Starting points

From which to dig, to dive

Or from which

To fly

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As if to say

We have this time now,

You and I,

In which to walk as if

There were a garden

In which to talk about

All things

Anything

You like

Or don’t like

But need to share with me

Because I’m wise

And all love

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C L Couch

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Photo by Susanne Schwarz on Unsplash

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Wargodlike

(x = space)

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Wargodlike

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We’ve known God

For a long, long time

Leaders used to want

To curry favor

So built monuments, set

Time

Struck stone tombs with

Asking after asking after asking

To be let in

In a public sense,

Regardless of administration

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It’s easy now

It’s vogue to say there is no God

So no one to attend

No one to tithe

No one to contribute anything

Except to me

And my circle

Broken, though I do not know

Cursed through an absence of words

Who hasn’t earned ruins

But the detritus in between

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C L Couch

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Photo by Matin Tavazoei on Unsplash

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