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You before Me

(x = space)

x

x

You before Me

(for everyone)

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You’re in line

In front of me for friendship

x

We’ve been here

For an age

And hear the hits,

One hit at a time,

Behind us

x

To feel the hit

Anonymous

Then know by instinct

Now

(it’s how the world works)

To strike the person

Back of the head in front

Anonymous (we’ll

get away with it)

And then receive

The things,

What people say

We’re due

x

In a line of greed

Even for an age,

Someone must turn first

To receive the slap

Looking into the face

x

Then the forward movement

Stops and painless

Possibilities considered

x

It’s risky

Being hit so hard

(regulations say each

must hit hard),

But all good things are chances;

x

Life might end for me

Or in part,

Begin for you

And everyone

Ahead of you

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Srivatsa Sreenivasarao on Unsplash

Four Birds and Reflections

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Me before You

(x = space)

x

x

Me before You

(for youth)

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Peace in our time,

Which implied more strongly

Than the message

That there would be no peace

In their time,

The coming generation’s

x

We bargain with our children’s

Lives and should

Know better,

Abrogating wisdom

And the sacrifice of us

So that they have a world

Better than we found it

x

There used to be a message,

Parents investing

So that children should have

Better lives than theirs,

A message that had stopped

Variably in the seventies

And eighties,

Not to mention attitudes

Toward annihilation

From the war that was so cold

x

Sorry about all that,

All this

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

Freedom

x

1

Degrees of Incarceration

(x = space)

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Degrees of Incarceration

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I don’t know what to say today

To students, peers, siblings, or anyone

I keep thinking about

The Pennsylvania woman on spring break

In Florida, who was raped and left

For dead

And who died

Whose credit cards were stolen,

The proceeds to sponsoring more partying

By her rapists, now incarcerated

x

I keep thinking about the images

I’ve seen of spring-break partyers in Florida

At night and looking young and fit,

Drinking from cups on lawns and in driveways,

No doubt parking lots as well

And in many, many rooms

And there is not a mask in sight

And there is no safe distance in between

For any reason

x

I keep thinking about the places where

People are fighting, virus (also) notwithstanding

Syria and Yemen

Myanmar

Hong Kong where leaders and speakers

Are arrested

And all the acts of violence in my land

The land about which Woody Guthrie wrote

And sang

Irving Berlin and Kate Smith, too (respectively)

x

There is too much to think about

But no sedative or anesthetic for me,

Please

I have to deal with side effects from

What I take each day

x

I ramble but around a theme

And I’m revising, too:

What do we think about what threatens to

Close us off from normalcies

And niceties?

It’s all right, you know

(I know)

There is no Sunday best required

For thinking spiritual thoughts

Or wondering how the Spirit as we know

That Spirit might be enlisted

Might be involved, anyway

x

If not our neighbors or our friends

Though maybe our neighbors and our friends

And family people

Encouraging our say

As we encourage saying

For all the times I want

To shut up, and that is right

For all the times there is something pressing

And I

And we

Should release it

x

And, yes, I wonder if poems

Should have messages and morals, but then I think

I’d have to say that poems aren’t for less

x

Maybe poems are

Things we have to say

That can’t be said better in

Any other way

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C L Couch

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https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-spring-break-victim-identified-24-year-old-philadelphia-woman-20210323-quet7ixvhbcodaxhi7h3n5tmj4-story.html

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-spring-break-woman-rape-drugs-dead-20210323-qljdbntr3vd43bbvfaxj5aclaa-story.html

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Photo by Rajesh Rajput on Unsplash

Love

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2

During Great Pain

(x = space)

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During Great Pain

(preempting Ms. Dickinson)

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In the ‘midst of pain

There is no formal feeling

It hurts is not a great pronouncement

One could, when it’s bad,

Wish to call up the carriage

That Death provides,

Though that arrival should be way,

Way off

And when it’s time

Will call up itself

x

No, this is pain

That ends with mortal life ahead

But now the middle time’s invested

Having begun some time ago

Has an ending to which to look forward

And now

Is now

The beginning and the ending

That don’t matter

As this moment

When we wish it  had

Never happened

If there’s awareness

x

Or we simply want it

To go away

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C L Couch

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Sobieszewo, Gdańsk, Polska

Remaining.

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2

Counting

(x = space)

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Counting

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There was an equinox

The sky returned to balance

While our Earth began to slide

The other way

Into spring here

And winter to the south

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We call them snowbirds,

The folk who go to Florida

In January

I’m not sure about the opposite

Those who might want

To travel farther south for winter,

Maybe call them penguins

Puffer people

Magellanics

x

We wish for a good season

Much to plant

On planet Earth

To hope for green:

Seeds to break

Blades to rise

Life to harvest

Healthy crops of health

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C L Couch

x

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Photo by KT on Unsplash

Satay by the Bay, Singapore

Observed this Yellow Bittern for a good 20 minutes.  It was trying to find the most comfortable position for its morning food hunt.  Photo was taken from the lotus pond at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore.

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Catechesis, Parts 1 and 2

(x = space)

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Catechesis, Part 1

x

questions

x

I got up in time,

Sort of

How did you do?

Is it a good day?

Are things going well?

x

I missed my turn at prayer

The group went on

And I hope the quiet praying

Counted

I don’t know the protocols

On Earth, in heaven

So well

x

I fact,

When I feel my tether pulled,

So to speak,

On Earth or heaven,

I ask, existentially

What do you want of me?

And Who are you?

Asking anything of me

x

Not that I take it amiss

I have time

Enough lack of direction

That I may respond happily,

Given

Something good to do

x

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Catechesis, Part 2

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answers

x

You are God,

I think,

Maker of all things

That must mean good and bad

Downright evil

Or so frustrating that

Some of us

Might want

To scream and do

So you are the God

Of good things and bad things

And evil things

Supposing the delightful things as well

Spring and picnics in good weather,

Cool water, wine,

And sex

Beside still waters

(metaphorically at least)

You are with us

In all things,

Somehow excused of voyeurism,

Which might be why

The seraphim have so many eyes apiece

So that one eye or another

Might be closed

With no loss to function, overall

x

Anyway,

You want of us to love

To love you

To accept love from you,

Which isn’t a done deal

You know, during

Those awful times

When so much has been lost

To the dark

Forever night

Without night’s comforts

‘Til a white sun rises over day,

All our empty landscapes

x

You are there

Maybe we’ll excuse this

One way or the other

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C L Couch

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Photo by Avery D’Alessandro on Unsplash

Brugge, Belgium

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Ghosts

(x = space)

x

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Ghosts

x

I don’t mean

The kind that haunt

In stories

You know what I mean

That haunt for different

Reasons, sometimes

Only memory

Without any fright

A different kind of pain

In remembering

x

Have I lived too long?

I can’t count

The number who have died

I used to know them well

And they are,

You know,

Gone

Holes in my life remain

Small ones that expand

On certain days

x

I think the question might

Have to do with

How to keep them all

How to bear mortality

As well

So much by default

Makes it happen

All mortality,

And I won’t say I’m ungrateful

I am satisfied to be here

And for you

x

Some things will come in memory

And when everything wakes up

Greeting begins again

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Nolan Issac on Unsplash

Upstate New York Chapter, Rochester, United States

My best friend and I got some great shots in this abandoned place….I miss her.

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The Listing House

(x = space)

x

x

The Listing House

(have fun—it’s Friday)

x

They’re everywhere

I cannot tell

The open places anymore

For anytime I open something

Door or drawer

I encounter lists

And that’s all

Whenever I come across

The refrigerator handle

(now and then)

I pull and find inside

Only reminders on paper of

What I meant to buy

At the store

There is no desk

Or dresser drawer that’s safe

And sometime the house

Will lean over

Or sink in the center

To greet the ground more closely

Maybe to find what is

Beneath

I know, we have machines

But it’s been so much easier

To find a scrap and use the pen

I carry in my pocket

But here’s the thing:

I make the list

Then leave it behind

Think I will change,

I create then leave another

Now there is no space

For what I’d find

Should I consult the paper,

After all

x

I think it all will

Weigh out in the middle

The house will fall like Usher’s

Into the tarn of Main Street

And hell for me

Will be an inferno

Constantly

Ignited from

The lists I made in life

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Eniko Polgar on Unsplash

Bodie, United States

Desert Ghost Town

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1

Istanbul

(x = space)

x

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Istanbul

(Yankee perspective)

x

How colorful the lamps

For sale in the bazaar

I’m not sure how their talents

Transliterate back home

Where so much

Is right-angled

And pastel

x

One lamp of these lamps

Could shine over

Our obligatory book of a thousand tales

If not a treatise on the origin

Of mathematics

Or astronomy,

Right knowledge

That made protraction possible

Right angles

As well as acute, obtuse

x

A world worked out

Until the rough-edged stories

Like the roc that swallows interlopers

In the lore

Come to roost

x

C L Couch

(Yankee)

x

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