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Bittersweet

We make words that work

The Anglo-Saxon hoard

That was the dictionary

And all the other contributions from

All languages

Language cannot be its own end, I guess

Yet there are beautiful words

That are lost each day

Because the group has gone

Or, sad to say, been subsumed

Our words don’t come with protections

We could use all kinds

If it were a law to think before they’re uttered

Beyond the autonomic

Well, there’s not

We are not oppressors

Not all of us

Not yet

We can’t have a rule that says

Everything must be approved

We only have the inner voice

That speaks to fast for words

Because that’s how ir works

On the inside

 

So that with which to regulate is

Strapped with nervous speed

Adrenaline is good

And it’s hard

Speaking well is good,

Which is not about articulation

It’s about discretion

The better part

Of something

 

Unironically, if we could only pause

But I cannot make that happen

Nor would I want to

Yes, I would

But it would be so easy to hamfist it

To make a break with tension

A legality

Then we’d need freedom fighters for

Release from word-overlords

 

Whew,

Let’s simply take advice

Don’t kill the voice with alcohol

I know that doesn’t work

But listen for that voice that goes by too fast

Pull some seconds out

Stop in order to choose something better

Something good

Maybe wise

To say

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Man vyi – <span class=”int-own-work”>Self-photographed</span>, Public Domain, <a href=”https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20208143″>Link</a&gt;

Hauteville House – Victor Hugo’s copy of George Métivier’s Dictionnaire Franco-Normand

 

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Chess Pieces

Chess Pieces

 

On the local television news,

A black man and a white man

 

Share half-jokes with each other,

And they chuckle

It’s good to see the black man and the white man

Having fun

How much of it is scripted? I don’t care

It was real enough

For local news

And my heart, today

 

The monarch of what I am

And what I want

Thinks and feels protected

And a little rested

 

C L Couch

 

 

Hans / 22248 images

https://pixabay.com/en/users/hans-2/

 

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Young Athlete in Pain

Young Athlete in Pain

 

Lord, I don’t know what to do

The pain is bad

Shall I try hot or cold?

But it’s all kinds of muscles

The ones I think with

Play with

Occasionally make love with

Everything hurts

Everything is bad

That’s pretty simply put

And how I think

And how it feels

I don’t know what to do, Lord

Please help me

I don’t know if it’s an angel

Or a miracle

Or simply something I haven’t thought of

I don’t claim to be smart

Not now

When pain takes over

And my thinking’s overloaded

 

It’s not going to be a good day, is it?

A good year,

Good life?

How hard have I made it all?

Forgive me, if I’m faithless

Forgive me if I’m rude

It hurts is all

It hurts very much

And I get sidetracked or benched

(or bench myself)

From my better calling,

Please speak to me again

I will try to hear

And if my ears don’t work,

I have other senses

 

You could even tell me in a dream

Though that’s hard for me

I tend to think that dreams aren’t real

Once I’m awake

Even ones that have me wake up

Crying

 

Hear my voice, O Lord,

Even when I’m not speaking

I’m sorry, I should really believe that

You will reach out to me

It’s not magic or a game

 

It’s your way of being perfect

I must believe

I must love

 

It’s just that it’s really hard today

It was hard yesterday

I don’t know about tomorrow

 

Help

Sometimes I don’t know what else to say

 

Help

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30082359

Marta López being treated off the pitch at the Spain Handball All Star Game 2013, held in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid, Spain.

 

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Make Like Knights, Just

Make Like Knights, Just

 

Dames or sirs

Let’s all be one or the other name

Or come up with a new one

For those whose errantry

Takes on charges toward an

Earth of fairness,

and all her people one

I’m not saying blood or rank

Far from it

Though blood might be the cost,

 

Which is instantly ennobled

On contact with an air, foul or fair

Split from flesh while questing after

Nothing more than

Quotidian liberty,

The balance that we’ve

Sometimes heard

Our prophets talk about

 

C L Couch

 

 

(image)

Rosa Parks with King, 1955

National Archives and Records Administration Records of the U.S. Information Agency Record Group

 

(cited)

“Turn Back, O Man, Forswear Thy Foolish Ways,” a hymn by Clifford Bax (1886 – 1962)

 

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Flat Earth Society

Flat Earth Society

 

Who decided that the Earth

Should have four corners?

Mapmakers, I guess

And a poet who could not resist

 

We make metaphors

So that something new might have

A meaning

Like the first day,

We need to separate night from day

One shape from another

Have touchstones for the texture of the thing

 

So that when

We hold something we don’t know

And wonder whether to feel squeamish

Or maybe grasp a little harder

As in the embrace of

Someone we haven’t seen for a while

 

The world is made of figures

(no need to fold it over;

take it as it is)

and the way to comprehend them

Is to line them up

Get to know them into metaphors, the similes

Induction to deduction,

We have

A rosy familiarity at last

We settle into something like a star

A source of light and radiance

Every place that has no pleasure

In the dark

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Konrad Miller – modified version of File:Karte Pomponius Mela.jpg; form Mappae Mundi Bd. Vi. “Rekonstruierte Karten”, Tafel 7., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38472341

An 1898 reconstruction of Pomponius Melas view of the World.

 

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What Happened to Wonder Bread

What Happened to Wonder Bread

 

To my shame, I used to ask for it

As if the store-brand bread were not enough

Admittedly, this other kind was softer

I enjoyed biting it

Sometimes making little doughballs out

Of a slice

 

I think that it became a racial epithet

In color, it was truly white

Too bad, though I think the product still is made

And epithets, they change

The spite remains the same

Regarding colors of all kind

Too bad

We really are more interesting than

Spat-out words

I don’t blame anyone

I blame everyone

Except maybe the hungry child

Who was entering the world

 

C L Couch

 

 

By uploaded by Koman90 at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SreeBot., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16895471

Wonder Bread company logo (part)

 

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One Thing I Forgot to Mention

One Thing I Forgot to Mention

 

I pray for the victims

Every one I hear of

On the news or on-line

On the page or when someone

In the room tells me

I pray for them to come home

 

And if I learn

I’d rather not have prayed for one

Too bad for me

The soul is not my bailiwick,

Thank goodness

Spirits are not on my plate

In my scale pan

Or wherever

That is someone else’s charge

The one who does it perfectly

 

So I pray

Briefly, mostly in a straightforward way

Depending on concentric circles

From my heart

 

I’m only human

I have favorites

But then I also need to keep in mind

The universe is biased toward gravity

God is biased toward love

Perfection mollified

For me

For you

For all of us who need the chance

Of human fallibility

To make it home despite the storm or any conflagration,

Anyway

 

C L Couch

 

 

Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic (Syriac)

 

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Broadside

Broadside

 

A hospital on fire in Gettysburg

A fatal crash on I-83, a driver in a Jetta

Having collided with a tractor-trailer

A woman indicted for drowning her child

In a toilet

 

Thirty students fight at John Harris High School

A school assembly tries to respond

A driver of an ambulance sentenced

For speeding then running down two people

(no sirens at the time)

 

How to save money running prisons

In our state

The incarceration rate in Pennsylvania

Exceeds that of Russia or Turkey,

So says the auditor

Jail fewer people, he asserts

 

The national shutdown is into day 27

Eight hundred thousand people are not paid

Many reaching out for public services

And “hardship withdrawals”

 

A story is upcoming about adopting pets

Then a commercial break,

During which I think

 

I see too few now

Hannah was presented me by a friend

When I was interacting with more people

All over town

 

But this is what’s important, as reported

Snow falling later on today

 

C L Couch

 

 

Dawkins, Henry, -1786? – Library of Congress Catalog: https://lccn.loc.gov/2010645651 Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/ppmsca/30500/30574u.tif Original url: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010645651/

 

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haiku

haiku

(stand alone or maybe work together)

 

Today is what I

Have.  Tomorrow is far off.

The wind will take me.

 

I’d rather have the

Cool breeze and warm air to take

Me to tomorrow

 

Will you join me in

Tomorrow?  We’ll need each other’s

Company today.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Dirk Ingo Franke – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2355854

Buller, Erin (11 July 2008). “Capturing the Wind”. Uinta County Herald. Archived from the original on 31 July 2008. Retrieved 4 December 2008. “The animals don’t care at all. We find cows and antelope napping in the shade of the turbines.” – Mike Cadieux, site manager, Wyoming Wind Farm

 

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