Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Bird-Talk

(x = space)

x

x

Bird-Talk

x

It sounded like

The birds at first

The screeching of a

Saw outside

Maybe a leaf-blower

Blower, most likely

It being fall

But either way,

At first the narrow, high-pitched

Range bird-sounds might own

As if to say

Not only that I’m here

But also come here

Like the

First message on

The telephone

Watson, I want you

Or some such

Another day, another range

Of sounds to own:

These are mine

These are mine

(the utterances)

Where are you?

x

One bird

Lonely bird

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Ynne on Unsplash

x

Antiphon

(x = space)

x

x

Antiphon

x

I hope it’s

A good day

You might be at dawn or

Well into tomorrow,

However the sun

And moon

Are moving

One place or another

On the world

x

Our count of day

Is relative,

While the actual

Ebb and flow

Of tides and

Of day and night

Move in

Real relationship

Without

Our measure—that’s

The way it is

x

And it is good

As I’m hoping for

Your day

To be

Or, in the uncounting

Time of Genesis,

Become

x

C L Couch

x

x

Groume – Le Cadran de Dalí, uploaded by Paris 17, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23114485

Cadran solaire de Salvador Dalí sur la façade d’un immeuble de la rue Saint-Jacques, réalisé pour des amis qui y habitaient.

(sundial by Dali)

x

In a Week or So

(x = space)

x

x

In a Week or So

x

They’re old and white

And waiting for

Each other to die

Republicans and Democrats

Meanwhile, they hold

Power as if they own it,

Forgetting that everything

Is lent,

Stewards of the vine

To whom accounting will be due

Once the owner returns

Maybe in the times

We did not know them

They did some good

Something inclusive

Something that

Cost them for a difference

Where are they now,

Where are their souls?

I do not know

Or have to know

Thank goodness, it’s not up to me

To judge them

Or to you

We have the privilege

To vote them in or out

They have the greater privilege

To serve beyond themselves

To represent our counting

The measure of our mood

And of our will

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Jana Shnipelson on Unsplash

Minsk, Беларусь

x

Later

(x = space)

x

x

Later

x

I’m not sure what to say

It’s been a day

I slept in bouts and woke up

Very tired

I got some coffee for the

Caffeine and the ritual

I started writing, trying to find

A way through the events that matter

Seasons and ideas

What might move us

One by one and as a people

Of the planet, who for now have

Such a nascent idea of

Who of Earth we are

Thousands of years in groups,

The rise and fall

Sometimes extinction

Through disaster,

Sometimes disaster through conquest

Then the conquered fall

Harry Lime says

The Borgias had war

And sponsored the Renaissance

While the Swiss had peace

And only produced the cuckoo clock

Great striving

Requiring great tyranny

Do you believe that?

I don’t,

And Harry was taken in a sewer

Underneath Vienna, by the way

Peace is a practical

Possibility—of course, it is

Think how much does not

Have to be destroyed

Except for fear

In tyranny

In peace, there is plenty

There is art as well

I think Harry also forgot about how

Art is patronized and how

Patronage does not need

A dictator’s purse

Coffered by the people, anyway

x

Can we imagine having

Everything we need?

Do we think it would be over,

The human drive?

I think we would explore

What is beyond crushing need

In a universe,

A universe,

With which we haven’t started

Beyond machines

Impartial theories

Take away the bullies

And concomitant destruction,

There is finally a chance

For everything

x

C L Couch

x

x

The Third Man, a film directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene

Greene wrote the novella of the same name as preparation for the screenplay. Anton Karas wrote and performed the score, which featured only the zither. The title music “The Third Man Theme” topped the international music charts in 1950, bringing the previously unknown performer international fame. The Third Man is considered one of the greatest films of all time, celebrated for its acting, musical score and atmospheric cinematography.

Halliwell, Leslie and John Walker, ed. (1994). Halliwell’s Film Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-273241-2. p 1192 [cited at Wikipedia]

x

By PunkToad from oakland, us – Cardinal Cuckoo ClockUploaded by clusternote, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27515171

Cardinal Cuckoo Clock, 126 1st Ave. Minneapolis MN

x

Bump

(x = space)

x

x

Bump

x

In a week is Hallowe’en

Let’s reach up

Take down the ghosts

x

Dust the sheets

Sew a few stitches

Here and there

x

This is the time

When ghosts of the past

Year-round

x

We know the kind

Deserve some sublimation

For the humanly

x

Storied things

Chased with chocolate

Chasers

x

While fun

Is fright

All pathologies aside

x

Mars is not invading

If you think so,

Happy Hallowe’en

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

San Francisco, CA, USA

San Francisco 2020, after the Labor Day fires.

x

The Reveal

(x = space)

x

x

The Reveal

x

A device

All those suspected gathered

In one place

Where and when

The sleuth surprises us

With details

No one else could own

Much less articulate

Except perhaps the killer

x

Take her away

Read him his rights

It’s always extra-dangerous

When there are no police

No plank of an inspector

Standing by

Revolver in a pocket

Odd assurance in a gun

Though he or she is trained

And it’s unlikely there

Will be a shot

For in this scene

The truth

Has enough weight

To push the world

A little more

Toward light

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash

Il s’agit d’une photographie réalisée pour illustrer les offres de création de photographie d’entreprise.

x

There Should Be Signs

(x = space)

x

x

There Should Be Signs

x

I open a new page

Place fingers on my eyes

And yawn

There are no coins on

My eyes for Charon

Not yet

x

Maybe a measure of

Prosperity’s due

So I’ll have something

Of my own to share

To pay my way over Styx

And to the land beyond,

The Grecian Hades

x

There I could find

Persephone,

If it’s one of her four days

And bid a change

To a new season

Death is a new season, too

x

I could have as much of

The pomegranate as I like

I was not abducted

And there is

No curse upon me

x

In fact, life would have

Been taken from me

Talk about abduction

In this case

Of mortality

Sad but without great

Feeling, once we’re there

x

I’m not sure where

The fires of hell came from,

Whose story

I suppose Elysian fields

Are for the gods

x

With a sigh, a last release

Of emotion,

I must go another way

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Kovah on Unsplash

Memories in Her Hands

x

Rally ‘Round the Crazy

(x = space)

x

x

Rally ‘Round the Crazy

(pandemic time)

x

Now he’s left

Without a mask to leave behind

Because he didn’t use one

Except the one before the virus

Now he’s left

With those who attended

Learning not to wear masks as well

Now he’s left

The doctors will move in

The people who live there

When at ease

And in pandemics

To do the real work

The brave work

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Daan Stevens on Unsplash

Zottegem, Belgium

After a day of shooting at the Zottegem Hospital for the Belgian TV series “Professor T.” I went back to clean up whatever the props department left. This was the room used in the shots and the machines where still running. It felt like a good opportunity to take a few shots.

x

Tomorrow Should Be Much Like Today

(x = space)

x

x

Tomorrow Should Be Much Like Today

x

I don’t know what to say

Am I confused?

Perhaps

I mean, I try to write every day

Not because I have to

Or because of a tontine

Between poets, as the

Romantics tried

Though they wrote with form

And complex thought

And feeling

Typically, I end up with

More than one thing

And I choose

x

Sometimes I surprise myself

And choose the thing

I wasn’t planning on

(as things came out)

And publish that

I’d say discovery is fun,

And it is

Though it is surprise

Becomes the main thing

When it happens

I suppose they go together

Discovery and surprise

x

I write based on

What’s happening in the world

And inside me

And if I haven’t thought of

Something spiritual, then

I guide my thoughts that way,

Which sounds forced

Well, maybe a contrivance

Again, I try to keep discovery

In the mixture, as a baker

Or mixologist might see it

Prayer, Bible, interrogative—I try

To take up problems

And solutions

Or else things that matter

In a smaller, more day-to-day way

Where we live

With our souls and God

Trying to know each other,

Eke out a life together

x

There is community

I’m aware of

Maybe matching something like

Thornton Wilder’s echelons

That Rebecca recounts—you know,

Citizen of Earth and such

I am Robin,

Living in a house

Along a street that’s old and busy

In the small town (borough) of

Mechanicsburg

In the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

One of the MidAtlantic states

In the U.S.A. (a country without

its own good name

because America is also

north and south

of us),

Living in the northern hemisphere

And the western as well,

Underneath the moon that

Orbits ‘round my planet

x

I am a citizen of Earth,

The third planet from our sun

In a system of nine or eight planets

(we’re still arguing about the

count, though I’ve thought

since I was a child about

another planet out there

to make the system ten or nine)

But, anyway,

A member of my solar system

In a spiral galaxy

Called the Milky Way

With another galaxy called

Andromeda by us—I don’t know what

The folk out there might

Call themselves—nearby,

Galactically speaking

And there’s the mind of God

By God’s own hand

How we were made and how

We’re sustained,

Despite the agenda of human greed that

Would rather have its own way

x

I believe in Jesus

Others await Messiah

Others live in Messiah

Others own Muhammad,

The prophet and the teachings–and

There are those who

Follow the Buddha

And those who want the Hindu

Godhead

And still others who follow other ways

With other entities and names

For God

And those who follow none

And I have to say

I do not mind, which makes for bad

Evangelism but also makes for

Respectful living

And I figure we need respect

More than singularity for now

Otherwise, we might not exist

To have all the arguments

About belief

Or lack thereof

That should only happen

In congenial ways,

Not with life on the line

For anyone

Believing, not believing

x

And so I’m done for now,

This day

It is autumn, my favorite season

For the thrill of cold

With the presence of new colors

That, to me, make everything

More interesting

I like the other seasons, too,

Happy to have them all

x

C L Couch

x

x

Our Town by Thornton Wilder.  The dialogue referred to happens near the end of Act 1.

x

By Philipp Salzgeber – http://salzgeber.at/astro/pics/9703293.html, CC BY-SA 2.0 at, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=184641

Hale–Bopp in 1997

x

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑