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Sometimes Older Metaphors

Sometimes Older Metaphors

(not always)

 

Silent and dry

Like the oasis near the desert

Nature can make the noise

To overwhelm cacophony

Of metal articulation

Plastic reasoning

I know that there’s romance

And romance becomes cliché

Oases, Baghdads, minarets,

Viziers, and genies you

Could call djinn

 

How novel (and in novels

and our poems)

Centuries ago

To what we think is

Trite imagination

Yet viziers become wizards

New packages and popularities

So I’ll take my oasis, thank you

In all it means

Or used to mean

A place to re-source life

Discover air and water

Make into verses

Eden in small patches

All that’s left

Upon our minds

Of paradise on outcast Earth

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Philipp Lublasser on Unsplash

Epupa Falls, Epupa, Namibia

Coffee Break in Namibia

 

3

Shouting Match

Shouting Match

 

A man

I think it was a man

Was on the sidewalk somewhere

Outside, screaming about something

Early this morning

It might have been about the

Lord

Who will give him understanding

It’s quiet now; I saw no flashes from

Police cars

There is a religious group next door

Maybe some of that group came out to

Attend to him

Maybe not

Maybe they called on everyone’s behalf

There has been silence for a while

I could have been

In a city where

Such happenings are commonplace

But it was here in the center of

Our borough, small Mechanicsburg

Not Queens or Brooklyn

Nowhere near Manhattan

Not even Harrisburg

Across the river

I’m not feeling guilty so much

Nor do I dissemble

I am one

Who else could there be unless the

Dissolution in the building be resolved

Next door they are several

They take up the parking with

Their cars from out of state

The violence was verbal

And, yes, I know, it is an insane world

Proved by this part of it

Raving where there was no crowd

For hearing or responding

Small repentance, if there should be any

Did he think himself

The voice in the wilderness?

A prophet by the Jordan for our time?

I doubt I’ll ever know

I guess I could be

Shaken just a little

I’ll have some coffee now

Then take my pills

I wish I hadn’t used up the bread I had

For toast

Something nice for breakfast

Might be appropriate

A small salve

For a scratched place on my soul

The cause of fear from confrontation

Or maybe

A caution of indifference

 

An hour later

A touch jumpy, mostly sad

Fifteen minutes more

Now I’m teary

When I think about

The man in the world

All his wilderness

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

Melbourne VIC, Australia

 

4

Their Eyes

Their Eyes

 

 

There is a drugstore

What we’d call it

Wait, a soda fountain

No, an ice cream parlor

Of the old kind

In my town,

I mean the old kind

Made of wood inside

The kind that is

Thick paneling

Holding up the walls

And whatever a

Soda fountain really

Inside, what controls

Behind the counter,

Is there

And all the wired,

Cushioned chairs

That keep us in our place

Just long enough

It even has the gilded

Name of Eckels,

Which for some reason

Makes me think

Of spectacles

Not on a sign such as

The billboard in Gatsby

That also makes me think

Of the work by

Zora Neale Hurston

 

Old-fashioned eyeglasses

Metal, round

The kind that perch

Upon the nose

Through which we

See a shaded world

No longer extant

Save in restorations

Such as Eckel’s

 

A walk into time

(with fresh ingredients)

Such as in the story

When the man

(it was a man)

Walks down the stairs

Inside a city station,

Finds another

Set of tracks that takes

Him back in time through

Less than

A hundred years or so

To live in quiet time

Stretching easily for

Needs something like an

Old-coin collection

 

In the past,

We read that story, too

 

 

nota bene

There is a mystery

I hadn’t read the novel in some years

Though as an English teacher

I should know it

Eckel can be found in Eckleburg,

Somehow

Though I wasn’t thinking that

On passing by

The store in town

Or until I looked it up, just now

Mystery of memory

I don’t know how to read it with

So many blank pages

In between

 

 

C L Couch

 

 

 

(“The Third Level” by Jack Finney, 1950)

 

Photo by victor vote on Unsplash

 

1

Reconciliation Easy

Reconciliation Easy

 

There is no war that’s worth it

We’ll be here

Because being here is good

Bring on your armageddon

We won’t be taking part

 

We have trees to plant

A desert to renew

So much to sweep

We’ll need new brooms

Attaching brushes to bazookas

Dust rags to rocket tips

You may lay your devices

Over there

 

We’ll need the fire for cooking

Many mouths to feed

In swift rotation

We have a world to recast

Keep your gauntlets out of this

We’re busy

We’ll get to

That part last

Though if they are used up

Expending all munitions

We’ll grow over the crater

As we should

As we must

 

We might have to be sad

But the heaven we can afford

That’s in our hands

Is waiting to be made

Impatient for joy

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jeff Ackley on Unsplash

 

10

Outside to Play

Outside to Play

(borne out of neighborly annoyance)

 

Well, it’s quiet now

I have a moment

Not at five-thirty when

Everyone above had to stir

And drop barbells when waking

Maybe the human’s gone

And the dog is dreaming

Of bigger places

Than the third floor

Grass just outside the door

Where rabbits might be

Chased but not be caught

So that there’s always fun

Dog fun

Rabbit fun

 

C L Couch

 

 

photo by troy williams on Unsplash

Pismo Beach, United States

tennis ball retriever

 

5

The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives

 

My best for years

Wasn’t nearly enough

I’m slouching toward Jerusalem

The holy city where the ages crash

Enough of sailing to Byzantium

That fell so long ago

 

With what is left

The modern age done years back

What does one call the next age

But the next age, as we have done?

No more girls in water

Sparking epiphanies (ironically through

water)

No more women beating men

To vote to have

The rudiments of politics

And understanding

I think they should rule—the

Women, not the politics

 

New happens with each day

There’s always change

Those who say there’s not

Who want all angles to be retrograde

Know nothing of the physics,

The inevitability of slopes that go

The other way

And energy with them

 

Africa is where the church is growing

And south of South America

Parts of India and Asia, even though

(please, not because)

It’s beaten down

Atheism rises, and why not?

Though I think agnosticism steers

The ship of state

Searching for a port

It knows is there

 

I think formlessness might be

The way,

Since doctrine has been brutal

In its application

And a ruthless form of righteousness

Where is love,

The orphan asked

He sung

And she responded

It is all around you,

Though mortality can end it all

It appears, my dear

 

Therefore go for what is real

Hold on, though not so tightly

The goodness cannot breathe

 

C L Couch

 

 

(title from the movie directed by William Wyler

Yeats is also relied on at the beginning

a musical toward the ending)

 

Photo by Fazel on Unsplash

Mazandaran Province, Unnamed Road, Iran

 

0

Tontines

Tontines

 

If there is a God

And sorry if there’s not

(there is—

there, you have the ending

of the story)

Then I wish God to do

A better job of it

For all the dreadful things

That happen

Not to me

(though, yes, there’s that)

But to all the people

Who are burned in fire

Felled into the earth

Killed because smooth steel

And lead pellets seemed

Good inventions at the time

And since

(we can beat them all down

anytime, pleading a case for

ploughshares)

God, can you not stop

All the measures that hide empire

Except where vanity

Vaingloriousness

Must break through

The offices and the meeting rooms

Sending, allowing

Hurt into the battlefields?

Naturally and practically, you can

Though there is that stone so

Heavy that you cannot lift

You made it out of will

And set it spinning

42, the Earth

It is a kind of comedy

The classic kind, pray please

In which through funny means

(grim humor in grim times)

The community is healed

Better than restored,

Renewed

And we have a forest for a world

Near the city of perfection

Feasts, cominglings, promises

Of weddings

‘Round fires tamed by angels

The marriage of harrowed hell

And heaven

New heaven partners with

New world, finally the right kind:

Just

And which

To mitigate with love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Richard Cordones on Unsplash

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Looking Forward

 

7

A Cool, Dark, Quiet Place

A Cool, Dark, Quiet Place

 

For optimal sleep, this is the

Room we need, certain

Voices say, though I think the sense

In it (in that) might be apparent

To reach out to the left or right

Then bring it in

Like muscles with a game ball

 

Lights out maybe with a care toward

Preplanning disorientation

From lack of light

We’ll need something soft, too, for

Our belly or our hip or our butt

Plus something for our head

Resting to the side or back or somehow with

The face pressed down

 

The coolness comes from moving air

Though climate control has become a

Denser thing, inside

 

As for quiet, we are on a noisy planet

Where some think noise is just for them

And could it harm the rest of us?

Let’s not think about that

In our cars,

On top of our neighbors

(I’m not bitter)

 

Cool, dark, quiet

And we sleep

I tend to think we figure

Other things might go that way—

Sex and, yes, well, rock ‘n roll

The play when that’s the thing

Our time in movie houses

Maybe for some exercise of other

Sorts, a walk at night, escorted,

Maybe in the rain

 

So I think we should vote for this

Approve efforts to make it happen

Good night to you

God keep you

God buy you

Goodbye

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Ryan Searle on Unsplash

Heal’s, London, United Kingdom

 

9

The Battle of Antarctica

The Battle of Antarctica

 

The battle of Lepanto

Where Cervantes lost a hand

The battle of Gallipoli, where

The artillery barrage had

Done no good

And so many Anzac soldiers

Died (like those in gray

with gingham inside led

Into Pickett’s charge)

The battle of Antarctica

It hasn’t happened yet

Except in novels, where it’s

Tragic that the last clean place on

Earth must have bomb-holes

And blood and other human

Wreckage wrought

Afterward, to stand as

Life-deserted monuments

For life had fled

We tore it out of bodies

As with the earth and sea

 

It’s what I think about

Today

While branches press on windows

Not invading but in greeting of

The day and even me

With a way of generous beauty that I

Do not understand

 

Conflict is small pain that grows,

Sometimes to tire me

In books

Though writers did not invent it

And readers have to learn

About it, again and again

‘Til nature stops, crestfallen

Due to our mistakes in self-destruction

Or, miracle of our making,

Stunned that we could get it

Right

Welcome “peace prevail” on poles (recycled)

Into

Every foxhole for repentance

And inside craters dug out with

Our bombs, before

 

With grace dispensed

Somehow

By human peace

 

C L Couch

 

 

No machine-readable author provided. Pablo-flores assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=334483

A Peace Pole in the neighbourhood of Empalme Graneros, Rosario, Argentina. The pole has four sides, with the message “May peace prevail on Earth” written in four languages; this pole shows the message in Guaraní and (barely) in Spanish. The other two languages are Toba and Italian. I, Pablo D. Flores, took this picture myself, in September 2005.

 

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