Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search

A Game of Go

(x = space)

x

x

A Game of Go

x

I should go

And now I must

Hello, Captain Spaulding,

And now

I must be going

x

Where I do not know

(I think the

captain

meant to stay)

And I must balance

Coins upon a plate

Upon a stick

Held high

That somehow starts a kind

Of arch

Maybe an energetic

Ley line

That on the other side

Under the same sky

Is a place

To land

x

With only a few more things

Broken

x

C L Couch

x

x

(English-teachery note)

Captain Spaulding is a character performed by Groucho Marx in the movie (first the play) Animal Crackers.

x

A Korean couple playing Go in traditional dress. Photographed between 1910 and 1920.

Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID cph.3b26994.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2871048

x

0

No One Asks for Silence

(x = space)

x

x

No One Asks for Silence

x

No one asks for science,

Really

The lack of noise would drive us

Where we’d never want

To go

x

But no one wants barrages,

Either

Of war or words or walls

x

Not being unflawed,

I cannot claim forever

Virtuosity

So now inside an unjust

Place, I have to

Assay justice for the now

Against the always

x

Time and change

And I shall go away

And hope not to return

Because larger signs

Of decay

(naught to do with me)

Already settled in

Before the current woe,

x

And I should have owned the signs

Enough to leave

A while ago

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

Seonyeon-ri, Okseo-myeon, Gunsan-si, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea x

1

Day 3

(x = space)

x

x

Day 3

x

Of an awful week

When everything still hurts

And crying underneath the skin

Wants out

x

Being ganged up against

As electrons, anyway

What they’d say for real

We’ll never know

x

Time for change

But how a change

When nearly everything

Is frozen

Like Merlin

Like Ophelia

What kind of life might

Come after

Shouldn’t be a mystery

x

C L Couch

x

x

ice on the fountain in my yard

Photo by erin mckenna on Unsplash

x

0

Prescriptive Talk

(x = space)

x

x

Prescriptive Talk

x

The pain

It courses through me

I want to feel better

I want vindication

I want acceptance

In the world

x

Mainly, though,

I want the pain to stop

And feel better in

That way

x

C L Couch

x

x

Spikes

Photo by Andrey Grinkevich on Unsplash

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens & Meadowlark’s Winter Walk of Lights, Vienna, United States

x

6

Hot Mess

(x = space)

x

x

Hot Mess

x

A knifing pain

Guts through

This is not a study

The other one

Must be a saint

So this must be the demon

x

Hooked on one’s own

Fallacies, who can

Judge the partial

And unknown?

Who should?

x

God should

But we are here

On Earth

x

C L Couch

x

x

lit cooker gas ring

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

x

2

The Problem of Pain

(x = space)

x

x

The Problem of Pain

x

It keeps other things

From happening

It freezes us

In case the next move

Should hurt more

We get caught up in

Indictment and

In judgment

We want the world

To stop hurting so much

This way

x

A muscle pain

We can get over

Even headaches can be

Resolved (at worst,

through wishful-thinking

maybe Ice

maybe thinking

about ice)

But pain offers no answer

To itself

Perhaps because the

Only resolution is

From outside

From someone else

Who gets it

And who cares without a fee

With no assurance

Of divine guarantee

The odds say we’ll get over it

The odds say

That we don’t

There are too many ways

Of counting

x

Pain leaps us into an unknown

A life without

An anchor except the one

We do not want

And can’t control

x

Let it go

Let go life

Not at all to die

But in waiting

And in waiting

Doctors without doubt,

If it’s that kind

x

But this, the kind

That wears the soul away

Wait

And wait

And try to live

Fractured, meantime

Until someone takes hold

In a way that angels and grace

Have not offered

On this side

So much

Except perhaps

In mystics

x

C L Couch

x

x

The Problem of Pain is a popular treatise by C. S. Lewis.  A more narrative response to the problem is his A Grief Observed.

x

Photo by Oleg Laptev on Unsplash

x

0

Peer Review

(x = space)

x

x

Peer Review

x

Your stories are

Amazing

Amazing stories

Keep sharing from them

We need their wonder

That

Certain metaphors aside

And without exaggeration

Are real

x

C L Couch

x

x

Full Disk Earth, Apollo 17, 1972

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

x

0

Inventory

(x = space)

x

x

Inventory

x

So what shall we say,

Shall love have us

Or hate?

Shall we hate our neighbors

For their differences?

Straightforward questions

On a day when nothing new

Is under the sun

x

But we can make it new,

Should we drain our scorn

Like pouring out

The rain barrel for

The change

Into nourishing places

That don’t need

To be so parched

Anymore

x

We can grow

And nurture other things to grow

Until there’s verdure

In the sunshine

And the rain,

Everything growing in balance

For the change

x

I write on an angry day

Because I have to alter it

I need my spirit

I should care for yours

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Wolfgang Rottmann on Unsplash

x

6

Interpersonal Toxicity

(x = space)

x

x

Interpersonal Toxicity

(bad week, bad season)

x

Toxic people

Make me toxic

But that’s not all there is

I can without doubt

Do it on my own

x

I’m sorry, I’ve had

Bad encounters this week

With people who are

Poison,

And it’s so tempting

To turn poisonous as well

(there, turned)

x

To deal with the pain

When what I really need

Is an antidote

x

Thoughts?

Recipes?

There have been

Poison pens and poison rings

I don’t think

A tourist’s anodyne will help

Though there must be

Something

x

I don’t mean chemicals

I think you know that

Though certain things must

Be released inside the blood

From time to time

x

I suppose we have

Our healing substance, then;

But what I’m thinking is

The answer is communal

x

That in love of each other

We’ll get better

And survive

x

C L Couch

x

“Poisoning of Queen Bona” by Jan Matejko.

By Jan Matejko – kpgd.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=698448

x

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑