clcouch123

“Unsurvivable”

Hurricane
Helene
Has killed through
Its own force

And
Maybe we’re complicit
For
The lack of means
We should
Provide
Even
Long before

I don’t know
And in the moment
Don’t care
Probably as much
As
I should

But I have family in its way
And maybe you do
Too

How about we pray
Then find
Additional ways to
Help

How about no matter
Who we are
Or where
We pray
Then find
Additional ways to
Help

C L Couch

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

a telling of creation

what is the sense of things
in creation

first nothing
we suppose
and then something

a sound
perhaps
and then some light
to they
could see
what they were doing
though I imagine
angels who were
blind
or deaf
could know something
was happening

the light from dark
or light and
dark
that is

two halves
both being worthy

then some water
black
and barely lit
and then some land
pushed up
somehow
by a hand
that might like molding
or making
in another way

and the land shall need
the sun and moon
water already
extant

and now some creatures
on the land
there already being
beings
in the water

and everyone will need fed
and so have plants
for food
as well as beauty

and we shall say that
this is good
and who shall say

hmm
we need someone
on Earth
to day

and so we make some people
mold them wondrously
such beauty
from the ground

and they shall have five senses
mainly
though not all
with all

and they shall speak
who can
or gesture
or express in another way

everything
to say the act of making
to a lesser degree
but make that noise
anyway

and then settle into
utterances
that God can understand
(having made language)
and they
and we
can understand each other

understanding
being a first feature
in the mind
of creation
and to degrees
our own

based on something else
the riskiest thing
to have been made
and how the angels
might have argue
over this

a thing
it seems
they do not have
though
once beholding
might argue
for
in angel-workers
negotiating with
the boss

and it’s will
of course
the wish
the dream
the mind
the spirit
and the choice
to think

and also feel
to decide

and first
one’s course through Eden
and then
the names of animals

then after
all the sadnesses
a course on Earth
and all the things on Earth
to get
to know

c l couch

photo by Elvis Bekmanis on Unsplash

(haiku for fall, starting in a grumpy mood, I guess)

(1)
well that’s enough of
haiku play and fancy with
no work proof for pay

(2)
the hour is done now
leaves have fallen into water
growing into green

(3)
old and new worlds tilt
leaning could be tree-delight
as dancing solstice

(4)
water purify
as on our other planets
with true air command

c l couch

photo by Mathias Reding on Unsplash

A Plain and Fancy War

I’ve made
Notations
On the weather
Even risking
A mood
Based on the same

While all the hundreds
Are new victims
Anywhere there’s war
Or war
On deck
As if to step up to
The devil’s plate
In a game against a team
From hell

And this is stupid
Reasoning
So far
Foolish metaphors
Of weather
And of games

While in the east of east
From here
And west in Asia
So much is brewing
Like
The witch’s
Stew
That at this time
Is also fanciful

All because
I do not want
To face
With my face
And what's behind it
The real death
The ghost of war
(un-
metaphor)
Come
To haunt again

And everything
That schemes with it
Famine
Hopelessness
Annihilation
Of the body
And the spirit
To win more souls
For hell

Though for now
It’s destruction
Literal
Destruction
That matters most
And
Yes
The devil’s work
In strategies

And I can’t keep from this
I guess
The rhetoric
The discourse
When we have no mouths
And if we had
What we would have said
Gone ignored
And then frankly
Horribly
Set
To detonate
And then
Explode

The tangling
Of war
The limbs
The lies
That both must soar
In gruesome pieces
Through the battlefield
Certainly before
And after
Without doubt
When
Generals and presidents
Defend
Without forfending

And this is one place
And there is more
In more
Places
With all the consequences
To the body
As we say
And the soul
Cliché for closeness
And the truth of things
We must have one
And have
The other

Losing one
Or both
A battle
On the plains
Or any parts of middle Earth
With all the forces
Human and human-like
Divine and like divine
Assembled
Frankly
Like Megiddo
And now
To consider
What shall happen

C L Couch

Photo by Zihao Wang on Unsplash


There and Back and There Again
(22 September)

It’s Sunday
It’s fall

And the light of the full moon
(should there be)
On Durin’s Day
(should it be)
Might illuminate the secret parts
Of maps
For our adventures

But it’s the hobbits’ birthday
For our attention
Now
Of two hobbits
Born on the same date

With the first fellow
Visited by
Dwarves
Who called for
Cake
And what is
A seedcake
Anyway

There was music first
And then a plan
To find a realm
To find a base
To find the horde
Inside the mountain where
The throne resided
Too
And
By the way
A dragon
In the way

Then was the second one
Years later
Who took his uncle’s ring
To a deadened land
With a volcano
Into which
To throw the ring

You see
The ring was more than magic

It was power
The kind that Acton said
Corrupts
Entirely
And Frodo
And his friend
Samwise
With allies
Several
At first
Quested through corruption
To get there
To this mountain
To destroy the thing

That
Took the easier story
(tell Bilbo’s buttons)
Into
Perforce
An epic situation

And all the armies of the Earth
Came
Or didn’t come
To Pelennor
Then to the northern gate
Of Mordor

Great battle
Great losses
Final victories

Though it was the hobbits
Who saved everything
At last
Wounded
And wounded again
With the assist
Of an eldritch creature
Half-hobbit
Perhaps
Who fell with the ring
Into the fire

Rescued by giant Eagles
And wouldn’t that
Be something

Then Frodo
And his friend
Could not stay in Middle-Earth
Though they lived there
For
A while longer but
Finally
Set sail
With other heroes
Toward a land of blessing
Land of healing
Over the sea
Like Avalon
To Valinor

We live there
Where the hobbits
With the others
Trod
And where hobbit-peers
Might be hiding behind trees
Out of
The classic
Corners of our eyes

For
Middle-Earth
Is our Earth
And us

So
Happy Birthday
Bilbo
Frodo
Regards of a thankful
Planet
That now
Would like to party
For you

Still wondering
What a seedcake
Might be
(okay
I can look it up
and
well
the Victorians
liked it
and there are
recipes
and other lands
and times
where I’m sure
we like it
too)

C L Couch


Photo by Lucas Gruwez on Unsplash
(as I recall, the house of Samwise has a yellow door)

Love and ~~Gain~~ Loss

I don’t know
How are we honest
About loss

We feel it
We feel the
Not-the-presence from what is
No longer there

It’s rather plain
All the small things
That don’t quite work right
Anymore
Or at least don’t work
The way they used to
When
What is missing now
Was there

But then
The missing is another
Something
Too

It has been added
And we’re supposed to deal
With less
Than we had before

I don’t know
The paradox of
Loss and gain
Or
Loss and loss

Escapes me for compassion
Even in
A philosophy
Of love
Which is the “love”
Part
Of the “love of wisdom”

Though love might say
With philosophy
Or away from formal justifying
That everything should be embraced
What we have
What we no longer have
(I know
like hugging
a phantom
somehow)

Well
My friend is gone
And other friends are gone
And something of good
Feeling’s
Gone as well
Though ironically
(and paradoxically)
I suppose
We may need more such feeling
In these times

All right
No supposing

This is when we say
God
Of goodness
Help us through this time
For you are author and sustainer
Of everything beneficent
Plus
The way
(you show the way)
To deal with
What happens
And is
Injurious

The answer as in all things
Must be love
And love somehow in
The inquiry
As well
Which is added
To the present pain
In
Our reasons for it
Any of it
Plus the lack thereof
(of reason)

Clearly
Then
We go back and forth
And not so clearly

Why the loss
Even why
In the first place
Love

Knowing
And not knowing
Love is the means
The resorting
The resource
And was
At first
And shall be last
The seal

Our pledge
That is
An answer
With a reason
From
The start
And now even
Our gratitude
To go on
Positive
And with
Anticipation

C L Couch

(on the death of a friend)

Photo by Kseniia Rastvorova on Unsplash

I don’t know, a sentimental Friday? Cats and new seasons—well, please enjoy!

The Cats of Reykjavik

They wander
Like the wanderer
Singly
Sometimes together
They are sheltered
And presented at
The cat café
In town

There are thousands
They are welcome
All around
Like elves
And horses
And like these
Protected
Through acceptance
Also magic
And folklore

For there is a Christmas Cat
That urges you to
Shop for clothing in
The season
Otherwise be caught with old
And should the Christmas
Cat
Encounter you
Will eat you
(I’m thinking
worse than
Krampus)

(reacting to a souvenir and a little looking into it, into them, having Facebook and Instagram pages, by the way)

Come Fall Come Spring

As the new seasons
Approach
Fall in the north
Spring to the south
I hope you appreciate
The change
The opportunity
Encouraged
To think a little differently
Should it be time for
A different thought
A different way
Of thinking
Maybe
Allow yourself the chance
As might
Sweeten many things
Like autumn apples in the north
And full flowers to
The south

In the offing
Are new things
For new-ish people

Approach with care and yet
Approach
There are new colors
And new flowers
For you

C L Couch

Photo by Manny Moreno on Unsplash
(a cat of Reykjavik)

	Renate on God’s pretty
	K.L. Hale on barely green out there
	wiseforward on haiku regarding nature and…
	clcouch123 on sun and moon and stars
	judithnilan on sun and moon and stars

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

“Unsurvivable”

a telling of creation

haiku for fall

A Plain and Fancy War

An Image of Sea Otters

There and Back and There Again

Loss and Loss

Icelandic Cats and New Seasons

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta