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I feel old and useless

Too much pain inside and

From the world

Like the Quixote, then,

I might read too many romances

Find a pink horse

And ride off into windmills

Any Panzas wishing to apply

Will have ‘til my departure

For an interview

 

C L Couch

 

 

photograph by Cathy Birdsong Dutchak

(gratefully) used with kind permission

https://wanderessence.com/, where she is blogging now

https://catbirdineurope.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/a-morning-with-the-windmills-in-consuegra/, attribution (link) for the windmill image

in search of a thousand cafés (her blog title that grabbed me)

 

5

Destiny of Manifests

Destiny of Manifests

 

How we can disperse all hope

Or think we should

Why we think we are the best when,

Point by point, we’re not

Several are more literate, many

More able with math

Many with armed forces

That train and guard more than

They have to fight

 

May peace prevail, the pole proclaims

In many languages

What language do we use

When talking with our neighbors

May implies condition and will

What do we condition

What do we will

 

It is a wonderful statue

So many monuments are

And nearly all espouse a cause

With some nobility

I can drive down to Devil’s Den, now

A reminder of

The awful cost of slaying a

Brother in the split of war

 

And what war does not take a sibling

What part of Earth is not destroyed

What town, what hold for families

Is gone from the roster

Of the world

We all are charged to keep

 

Independence Day is on the way

Many nations have one

They speak to freedom

Of the mind, the will

The charge to make the planet whole

Especially

When we ruin something of it

 

C L Couch

 

 

image

assembling the Statue of Liberty in Paris

 

 

 

3

Try to Be Still

Try to Be Still

 

Try to be still,

Try to be still

To hear the small voice;

 

That would be fine

Or maybe not to hear anything

For a while,

 

To nestle in the darkness of

The mind

To listen for the voice before the voice:

 

The whispering commands

That the angel receives,

 

The assignment

From God’s ear to mine

 

C L Couch

 

 

www.flickr.com/photos/joshcon/4450007889/in/photostream/

 

2

Near-Dead Reckoning

Near-Dead Reckoning

 

If I had children

To rear (that used to be the proper

Word), I’ve little doubt

I’d treasure some time apart, now

And then

There’s a story of the mother of my

Namesake

 

She was going to walk

Around the hundred-acre wood

Her son asked to go

And she said no

But when I return

Welcome me

As if I had been gone far

Away for a long time

 

Nowadays what guilt the mom or dad

Must feel to know

That children are taken from their

Parents with no returning

Promised

 

The parents now are criminals, they’ll say

Trying to enter by

Liberty’s calling

 

The children are caged, too

 

Everyone is guilty, by the way

Not one of us gets off

Unless we’re trying

 

God will accept a prayer

To bring entire families

Along with sanity

To what has been happening

 

My father’s people were

Here to tie

Up the ships of all the rest

My mother’s people, there’s a problem

Only a few generations here

So I’ll

Have to take my chances

 

Warming up to say

That without family

Without the value placed

Up on the shelf in pride of place

 

That what have we of home

A nation of all promises

Is dust collecting

In an empty place

 

I don’t have all the answers

I don’t know all the rest

But I think impracticality also

Becomes illicit

When we break the bond

That promises compound reckoning

The nuclei destroyed

Hostility left to orbit like

Errant electrons

 

Preachy

And sing-songy

Yes, I know

 

But there it is, I’ll ‘fess up,

And if you’ve come this far

We can go farther

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://www.expatsinvallarta.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Nogales-Tuscon-sign (/jpg)

 

3

Ascendant

Ascendant

(believe it or not, for J K Rowling)

 

Suddenly the steam from

The coffee rises in an eldritch way

Because the cup is now a cauldron and

The liquid is the matter of a

Spell,

Not the dangerous kind

The easy, adolescent kind that only

Causes sit-com harm,

The kind that must be resolved in

A half-hour

And hadn’t hurt that much, to begin with

 

But rain is coming on

Humidity is high

There is wind high in the trees

The branches dance to universal motion

And I wonder who

Casts such a summer day

As this

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://novedadesdetabasco.com.mx/2017/04/08/se-preven-tormentas-fuertes-en-zonas-de-puebla-oaxaca-veracruz-tabasco-chiapas-campeche-y-quintana-roo/

 

4

Border Talk

Border Talk

 

I don’t know what to say about

A family torn apart

I never had that feeling

Once I thought I’d lost part of my family in

A famous fire

I was hundreds of miles away

I cried for a day to find

It wasn’t true

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://keranews.org/post/view-border-mcallen-locals-debate-child-immigration-crisis

 

0

Made Up

Made Up

 

It’s Sunday

Maybe I should think something

Religious

I’m two days behind the Jews

Only one day after

The Adventists

And for those who never keep a sabbath

Why miss out on

The rest

 

It’s inside-out

Or should be

Take the time to know the heart

Four chambers to walk through

A mind that is a ride

In a synapse car

 

None of this is religion

But there’s something about

Wonderfully made

That comes to mind, while

I’m on the synapse-ride

In a park with a

Neuron saucer

 

What would I configure

If I had to make up me

 

It’s been done with

Someone who has more

Art and skill than

I shall ever have

 

In fact, the one who

Made the ride to

Set me on this course

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2017/06/hacking-human-brain-lab-made-synapses-artificial-intelligence

 

0

Civility

Civility

 

What if the world gathered

In small circles

As it gathers now

But the smaller circles valued

The way they’re not

Not now, given the searches for

Celebrity,

For trending items that for now

Must matter more

 

What if we enjoy the ones

We really know

And see home places that are

Modest but loved as

Palaces

 

Not exhaling compromise

But sing a celebration

Often

Of what we have,

We are,

We are

 

Change to make it better

To hear a crying need

To know who’s next door because

That’s virtue and delight

In community

For all the ones who struggle

To have any

 

I don’t mean Americana

I mean Earth

All Americas

And every continent

Living

As it were

As we are

At home

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/women-led-giving-circles-rise/

 

0

Peacenik

Peacenik

 

assertion

 

I want soft things

To be protected

May we do that

 

Give puppies homes

And kittens

Take care of children

Until they care for their own

And, who knows, maybe

Us older ones

 

This leads to causes, I know:

Feeding the hungry

Safe water for all

Shelter especially for the frightened

Though everyone needs a home

Sue for peace

When we don’t have to

Rather than rattling for war

Literacy

And learning

So that all might know how to have

A world

As well as how to hold a job

 

epilogue

 

Don’t forget clothing

It doesn’t make a man

A woman or a child

But it makes our bearing in

The world

Wearing a relationship

With custom

Ritual

Work, play, gratitude, reflection of the

Earth

 

And might we support the artisans

Those who make not only

What we need but

Enliven wisdom, reflection, celebration

Of the materials

We find above or under

Ground,

Inside water or through the air

 

I mean manufacturing, you know

Not simply things for beauty

Though why we cannot have both, I

Wonder

 

coda

 

If you think this is

Impossible,

If you think I am

Maybe you’re right

Curing disease was

Impossible

We simply had to wait for God

Before we knew that God

Was waiting for us

 

C L Couch

 

 

Mystic Island Vol Fire Co Sta 72

 

2

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