the awful now
when
get me out of here
but
keep me here
I’m waiting
trying through small resources to
have something
build something both liked and approved
approved
and
liked
am I not deserving of the least
or
least of least
negative least
as it
were
not for virtue in the first place
or virtue after rescue
from sin
raised
up
from having fallen
be good
or bad and might I have something
anyway
for being here
for
trying
failing
like
she persisting
c l couch
photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Insurance, Roll (2 poems, maybe a minute and a half, then thirty seconds)
x
x
Insurance
x
Someone’s game
Since what’s insured
What’s assured
The people
Whom I deal with
Are human
They are kind
As well as enthused
And
Yes
They’re selling something
We sell lots of things
Not always cordially
Especially when
Necessity’s involved
x
These are
Community people
We live in the same town
We buy and sell
Sometimes
Maybe often
From each other
We live here
Don’t we live here
A modern age
That has split generations
Hasn’t split everything
Between us
x
Not that a moral’s needed
Some would say
No doubt
Leave out
But
Maybe
There’s some insurance
In that human sameness
For our differences
Maybe
x
(my car was totaled and I’m inheriting my brother’s car, dealing with all that)
x
x
Roll
x
I rock
Without a chair
Just rock back and forth
While seated
(wherever)
Works out my lower back
A little
Plus it encourages distraction
While sometimes
Reflection
I close my eyes while moving
Think of nothing
In particular
And listen
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Emily Grace Corley on Unsplash
x
blue face
look at the blue face
do we ever get that close
and the feathers for a crown
as peacocks have
too
this is an impressive bird
no wonder Franklin wanted it
rather than eagles
for a nation’s emblem
c l couch
this was my response to Grace’s response to the prompt she received from Melissa’s blog (whew); Grace suggested I send it along to Melissa’s blog via posting it here (whew)
Grace’s work, https://graceofthesun.com/gobble-gobble/?sn=c&c=76158#comment-76158
thanks, Grace! thanks, Melissa!—Christopher
Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
(the photo here is not the prompt; please use the link above, that is, from Melissa’s blog; read Grace’s response as well because it’s enthused and endearing)
(x = space)
x
x
Catbird
(recalled)
x
I’d like to speak
Of God
But sometimes silence
Is called for
To listen to the maybe
Maybe something grand
Maybe single
Bird-call
Can one hear the dawn
Or the vibrations in
The setting sun?
Hearing apparatus
Is not required
So much as to
Open up whoever we are
Enough to gather in
What the quiet Earth
Has to say
A gift for any, all the senses
We may have
x
Speak through the Earth
If we are mute
Savor unimpeded,
Unreconstituted wind
If we have lost our
Sense of taste
Let the sun move us through
The day
If we have no movement
Otherwise
What we’ve had,
What we’ve never had,
What we’ve lost
x
We have so much
To take in
Then contribute
To the cause,
Nourishing
And strengthening
All our
Good communities
x
C L Couch
x
x
On the Road from Stanley to Boise, Idaho
By TonyCastro – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83018649
x
(x = space)
x
x
Writing Us
x
I suppose
We have to talk about ourselves
Each utterance an unwilling
Biography
I want to hear your story
And in the electron universe I do,
And I am thankful
x
I hope that you are well
I hope that God protects you
Via angels
Or the arrival of a cathartic,
Gentler day
Then when inner wind’s inhaled
Back to the fray
That is the rest of today
Into tomorrow
x
So I might hear,
Inshallah,
And you tell me
Tell us all
So we might breathe
For sharing
And consider this community
With certain anonymities
Withstanding
x
Talk to me
I can talk back
Unless listening
In the quiet space between us
Is better
For the call
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
Drops
x
(x = space)
x
x
Frozen Yellow Rose
x
Is this a prose-poem or an essay or a Sunday homily (the text would be the Good Samaritan)? I don’t know, but here it is. Something I heard at church from those who were there. I mean, were there in Houston.
x
here’s what happened in Houston (Texas, USA) yesterday:
most homes do not have fireplaces and instead rely on electricity to power furnaces for heat and appliances for cooking and computers, but the power grid is out, it’s blank in Houston;
in grills or in makeshift places, Duralogs were burned and any wood that could be found or any charcoal left from summer or, indeed in a deep Southern place, the last time there was a barbecue;
the feeling was post-apocalyptic
there was a certain grocery store that powered up enough generators to preserve food and to allow people inside safely, though the numbers who could enter at a time were severely limited (because there is a pandemic raging ‘round the world and through Houston); this meant that there were thousands outside the store in line, waiting for their turn;
keep in mind it’s extra winter there just now, the temperature having gone into the teens during the day;
the manager of this grocery store or maybe it was the owner, walked up and down the line outside and said to folks, if you can’t pay for your groceries just now, don’t worry—get what your family needs, bread and baby food and such;
according to those who were there, this kind of thing was happening all over the city
coda
this does not account or provide sustenance for those assailed by the crisis of collapsing glacial ice in India that has stolen the lives of scores of people; this does not take care of COVID-19 or provide vaccine, something that the world sorely needs; this does not answer all the problems and frankly all the disasters that we suffer with here and there on planet Earth; it is a single story, and maybe we could let it have the power of a single story, which like creation stories or apocalypses or “The Gift of the Magi” or “The Artist of the Beautiful,” can be, well, pretty powerful
x
C L Couch
x
x
Power Failure: How a Winter Storm Pushed Texas into Crisis
Around 2 a.m. Monday, the full measure of the crisis Texas faced began to be apparent. Cold and ice had set in the day before, leading to spreading power outages across the state.
x
Photo by Vlad Busuioc on Unsplash
Downtown, Houston, Texas, United States
drone view of a city
x
Gatherings
There are many thoughts
In the in-between
Waking, prior to rising
But now there’s light and rising
Ablutions, coffee-making
And they’re mostly gone
Damn
There were some good things
There
Now I have to work it
Strive to half-express
Not give everything away
Not only because I do not know
But also so that, you know,
There is something
For you
It’s all for you at last
I will be absent
This is what you will have
Copyright and other
Social niceties aside
This it’s yours
As anyone who sets these down
Might say
It’s all for you
So what do we have?
We are in a circle
(please sit down)
Taking part in great
Ordinary meaning
These circles happening anywhere
Or so they should
To share responses
And like Pietists
To temper revelation
Our event horizon, so to say,
Is now and what’s next
A crisis, maybe
Always an opportunity
Remember to be civil
Give everyone a turn
Don’t let one thing take over
Though everything is bias
That’s okay
It has to be
It’s natural
Impulsive
It’s how we were made
And if you don’t go for making
It’s practical, alone
Our circle might contract
Better to expand
To divide when a certain number’s reached
Nothing wrong with chapters
We can communicate
We’ll need an index
But this will be
Good turning and good living
C L Couch
Photo by Sebastian Schuppik on Unsplash
Berlinka, gallery café & bistro, Slovakia
The Formal Feeling
(title from Emily Dickinson)
Catharsis after tragedy
The sad rush we feel, knowing
The experience is over, that we got it
Vicariously,
That it will not happen to us
And by the way
The community depicted now is stronger
It’s after the terrible and blessed
Have both transpired
And watchers leave the scene
(we leave the theatre)
To go home, chastened and relieved
It wasn’t us
They got their due
Their nation will be better
Let’s go home
It’s not closure
(what is)
For a future ticket will bring it all to
Action, opportunity, and desire
For mortal flaws to seed
And then to flourish
And are these analogues for
Life outside
Well, for those who must
Who will not learn
By mastery of organs or
Of language
Who will not hear
And will not heed delaying paradise
So not to have it at all
C L Couch
image from a production of Hamlet, 1899
Barn-Raising
It’s a day, a process
As long as many are involved
It stands a chance
But that’s the deal: we must
Come together to make it
Happen
And afterward we have a barn
And each other
All in company
Maybe the U.N. should go into this
Raising barns in needful places
And then making delegates
Raise barns in troubled places
No doubt some of the work would be bombed
And other work burned down
We have to allow
For that without ever
Approving
C L Couch
Catskill Animal Sanctuary Needs Your Help to Complete New Barn …
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