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Starts with a Story

(x = space)

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Starts with a Story

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On a hazy

Saturday,

We talk about

The past

Long past

How the human genius

And the genius of creation

All ancient

Partnerships

Ask better of us

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Look at the red curve

In Altimira

I think

An arch that goes much further

Than a count

A quota

Even for life

The lives of

Ancient companions

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Red and black

Lines

So much more than

Counting

That have ancient majesty

A thinking of high places

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Pointed Notre-Dame

Or round Saint Paul’s

May rise in tandem with

Ancient siblinghood

Reasons for the hunt

For the migration

After meals

For living

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For living

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C L Couch

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The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, David Wengrow

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Bison in the cave of Altamira.

(image) By Daniel Villafruela. – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22778033

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2

Pollock Shock

(x = space)

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Pollock Shock

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What is honest,

Anymore?

(people might ask

they might)

Is it when we cry in pain

From suffering?

Is suffering so honest?

No great art

Without suffering

Speaking to the vision,

I suppose

Michelangelo before

The chapel ceiling

Pollock

Before the floor

Art that changes everyone

Born from the pain of one

Or more

And what about beholders?

Do I understand,

Bring it close to heart/

To home

Because I hurt before

I see above/

Below,

Hear the music,

Touch the statue,

Walk the garden,

Smell the cooking?

A world of pain, they say

No other way to

Know magnificence

But through agony

Small pain

Great pain

Small art

Great art

I want to fight the premises

Argue them for

Ordinary time

Sigh

Maybe we have to hurt

Before even plain beauty’s

(leaf’s magnificence,

soup in the pot)

Understood

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jené Stephaniuk on Unsplash

Part of the painting “Day Trip” from Jene Gallery.

Austin, TX, USA

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It Might Be Magic

(x = space)

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It Might Be Magic

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Do you eschew

Institutions?

I do, anymore

The machines

Made out of people

Don’t blame the

Bureaucrats:

They operate

What others made

A breaking efficiency

In copper and in

Oil replaced by

Split atoms, unleaded

Gasoline and now

Other fuels

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The early price

Was trees

And iron from the earth

Water unafraid

Unplastic skies

That might storm

But otherwise

Were trusted

x

Press agents lie

Because they forward

An agenda

They were told

Beyond the news

To promulgate

Or else

Lose their jobs

The heroes and the villains

All are mixed

Or so it seems

Because they’re not

x

We are blended

Creatures now,

It’s true

Nothing of persisting,

Edenic status

Has existed for a while

And in our

Reconstituting state

Generations are confused

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Hamas has launched

Three thousand rockets

Into Israel

That fights with

More sophistication

Missiles from planes

And from the ground

More of us

Are good at war, these days

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I read the city paper

In the morning

To find out who has

Shot or otherwise killed

Whom

Or who preaches

On Hyde-Park boxes

That it should rain hate

Should we have our way

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There is an answer,

So many traditions

Espouse

It’s a good thing

And nothing new,

Ancient of ages

But statues will have to

Have their clay feet

Scraped out

Then with something better

Slid into place

And shaped

While the rest of us

The citizens, the voters

Hold the upper parts

The structures of society

In place

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See,

Nihilism is not the answer

Nor to fire agencies

Especially with fire

We can keep

The inefficiencies

Of efficiency,

The inexactness

That comforts us

Knowing the machine

Is never all

But flesh and blood

And synapse

And our loves

Matter more

x

Next chapter,

All yours

It might be magic

But it’s not:

It’s mortal hands

Moved by mortal hearts

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C L Couch

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In the Line of Fire

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

Hay, Australia

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Later

(x = space)

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Later

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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

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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

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C L Couch

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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]

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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

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A Response to “Cleon” by Robert Browning

A Response to “Cleon” by Robert Browning

(which has stuck with me for years)

 

Yon swimmer is an ode

Cleon says so

I paraphrase

To Proteus or something in authority

A tyrant in the Classical sense

A tyrant who knows virtue

They had those back then

And a patron

To the speaker of the poem

The writer of a letter

 

That does not hesitate to compliment

But also makes the case

For what is true

In your tyranny, perhaps

Argues Cleon

You might be missing something

When you elevate my art

Not that I don’t mind the support

Artists need that

But in understanding why the art is there

To tell you in itself

That life is better

 

Our art records and re-expresses

Interprets who we are and what we do

But the actions so much better

All the attributes that make us

They are real

Poets know this

Beyond an abstract exercise

So we will write

Sculpt words on paper

Into pieces that might find you

Whole, more whole for this

 

While replacing nothing

Enhancement, we hope

Greater clarity

A lesson, if we must

Learning in other ways

To trust

 

I recall because it comes to me,

Now and then

Having looked up nothing for a while

(the swimmer is a rower,

and Proteus is Protus

while English majors smoosh words to pass

the comprehensive)

But the epistle goes on meaning much

To me

I try to keep it real

Real enough,

As Cleon’s maker trusts

The last apostle who wrote letters

To the faithful

 

C L Couch

 

 

(from) “Cleon,” Robert Browning

. . .

The many years of pain that taught me art!

Indeed, to know is something, and to prove

How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:

But, knowing nought, to enjoy is something too.

Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,

Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.

I can write love-odes: thy fair slave’s an ode.

I get to sing of love, when grown too grey

For being beloved: she turns to that young man,

The muscles all a-ripple on his back.

I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!

. . .

I cannot tell thy messenger aright

Where to deliver what he bears of thine

To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame

. . .

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43749/cleon

https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/robert-browning/cleon-6646

(two places easily to find the poem)

 

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

Puerto Marina, Benalmádena, Spain

Momentos antes del inicio del Triatlón de Benalmádena.

 

 

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Riding Gimbals

Riding Gimbals

(blank page part 2, I think)

 

The blank page terrifies

No, it doesn’t terrify

It’s only a blank page

It has no weapons, no teeth

No agency to thwart us in

Our better aims

(well, maybe teeth

and when ink is added,

we say sharper than the sword

 

But) all we have to do is write

Try crayons as electric bits

There are some screens that let

Us do this

Take a paper page and apply paint

Relax or get excited

Whatever might compel, today

 

Or write then erase

(I might do that here)

Get something down, send it up

A muse might listen

Write André-Breton-like

But don’t pretend

Because if nonsense,

Say so to yourself

(me say so to me)

Yet we are meeting words again

 

Something like syntax

The grammar of creation might

Not be so far away

In the room, beyond the wall

Through the window flown like Pan

With lovely thoughts

 

Or in a recess unvisited

For a while

Pain, if we must find it there

Pleasure, if it’s due

 

But now some clay is on the wheel

We might need lessons

We might turn it into homework

Over days, who knows

 

We have what we have and want to do

To say

To be engaged

Maybe we can campaign in this

A conspiracy of art to

Break the trap

Release the net

To let us out

 

C L Couch

 

 

Jerrie Cobb, a well known female pilot in the 1950s, testing Gimbal Rig in the Altitude Wind Tunnel, AWT in April 1960.

NASA/GRC/Arden Wilfong – Great Images in NASA Description, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6448450

 

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Wrought

Wrought

 

A new way of thinking

That’s what we make

Well, we make the frame

The content of new thinking

Is up to you

Which I mean in the best way possible

Fantastic responsibility

To move yourself

And your people

Forward

 

Maybe help with the first of these

So many layers added al the time

 

There was gray light

And I turned it on, and the lamp

The bulb

Changed light to gold

Like Rumpelstiltskin’s straw

 

It might rain

It might be on the way

We’ve had some downpours recently

But the forecaster says that

Our water table’s low

 

Good time for participation

For new things to fall

To wash the world some

Offering nourishment to the ground

And those who live upon it

 

It means grayness continues

Though we can have better light against

The darkness

Through craft

And letting go the work

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Raheel Shakeel from Pixabay

 

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Found Art

Found Art

 

My sister’s shop

Is cool, if you like old things

I do

Actually, she’s moved it home

Closed up her vendor site

And now is selling though an auction

Place up the road

It’s working well

 

The shelves with all the items on

Them are now

In the guest room

I’m surrounded

 

By a bunny mold with eyes that have

No pupils (they would be added in the icing

once the cake is made), yet it somehow stares at me

There are cordial glasses

Old-style mason jars

Filled with marbles

Or shells found on beaches long ago

Nancy Drews

And cookbooks

Cameras that take film and mild-blue flash bulbs

She tells me they all function, still

 

But what I see everywhere is

Anthropomorphizing

Like the rabbit without eyes who looks at me

Pig, mole, gnomes, more pigs

(she likes pigs)

Dogs, Santa Claus

Unliving metal, porcelain, and glass

All made into living things

Representation

I have lots of company in this room

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mario Calvo on Unsplash

 

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Want Adds

Want Adds

 

“we are seeking talented, enthusiastic individuals who are ambitious and hungry to grow”

 

Why can’t anyone

Be seeking laid-back

People who like to write

Poetry and to live

Like hobbits?

 

It gets worse

The ones on board are dressed in black

Or maybe deep, deep gray

They have many, smiling tiny teeth, maybe in many

Rows like sharks

They’d have slow-moving fish like

Me for lunch

 

Wanted—someone who likes art

And history

Someone who reads novels for lunch

Someone who eschews the necktie

The power whatever-else to wear

(female or male)

But who is loyalty

By default created

Who loves patterns and textures that

Go so far down and up so high

 

Who dreams

Who wants others to dream

The kind of dream that makes us real

If you have a job

Like that, please post it

Or maybe forget that and dial or

Wire me directly

(sorry, text or click

 

but) If you light a bonfire on a hill, that

Might do

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

 

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