for the Crocus concert-goers in Russia
I’m sorry
and my heart is hit
by
what happened
at the Crocus
venue in Moscow
so many dead
so many
wounded
and no doubt
these days
the language goes to blame
and timely war
but sometime
in this time
we want to wonder
really
who the hell cares
I died
my family died
my friends who had hoped
for an easy time
in all the crystalline news
of massacres
were hoping frankly
thoughtlessly
and
humanly
for the relief in a good time
together
and now my friends are dead
and I am as good as gone
and I know
so many die
across the border
the near line
and on this
side
too
we wanted minutes
maybe hours
to have music
and some pleasure
taken
away
from all the sides
and to forget all sides
and like entertainments
in wartime
to leave it
briefly
and maybe in the back
re-think it
for a while
and look what happened
so many of us
and our hopes were killed
and all we want
is to feel better
if alive
and to have home
after
and
the rhetoric
that goes toward war
to go away
c l couch
photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
The Earth Is Not Round
x
Four thousand dead
In Turkey and in Syria
From earthquake
x
Do we understand
How many?
x
We could say
We could lost more in the Towers,
But do we understand
What that means
Save for being there?
x
And if there,
How far could we see?
How far would our eyes
And ears
And hands—our
Spirits allow?
x
The bodies piled here,
Now there:
Who understands?
And yet it happens,
All this happens—neither
Is done forever
Or for good
(that is a play on words)
x
We need to know we can
Step back—that
It is all right, the stepping back
x
As for disasters
We go in,
The brave go in,
Bags and boxes
Literal, awful
And sad treatments
That assuage
And do not heal
x
Still, many will be saved
And perhaps there is a plan
For the next time
To forestall the next time:
x
Real homes and towns,
Walls that bounce
And have a chance
To remain
And keep the mortal lives
Inside
x
I don’t have these perspectives,
Though I have come
To certain places
After:
Sometimes generations
Yet in need of fixing
x
Mostly, though,
The blood and gore
Have been my own
x
I do worse with yours
x
C L Couch
x
x
Turkey and Syria earthquake: race to find survivors as death toll passes 6,000 and hundreds of thousands seek shelter – latest
The Guardian via MSN, 11 minutes ago (12:24 EDT)
x
(I wrote this morning after sleeping with the news last night)
x
Photo by Parker Johnson on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Glass No Longer Darkly
(for All Souls’ Day)
x
I’ve been too busy
With the living,
Not to praise that
Habit
x
The dead have frightened me
When they are active
With the living
Like the Twilight Zone episode
That used to scare me,
The one with the telephone line
Fallen against the grave
And the dead calling
A living relative
Or the one in the Old West
With the peddler selling
Magic to bring back
The family members
To the living
In a town
And then charged more
To keep the dead, dead
And they return,
Anyway
x
That sounds comic, I suppose
But the dead used to scare me
Not so much now
Experience, I guess
And a constructive belief
In afterlife
And the agenda of their own;
They will be busy,
After
x
The sacred and the secular
All Saints’ comes ‘round
It doesn’t have to be so somber
In fact, there will be picnics
By the graves
In Mexico
And elsewhere
Commemoration
Remembrance
By the families
Who know how to love
On either side
x
C L Couch
x
x
Fotografía de una calavera de azúcar, típica en México.
By Pedro Moga – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22536159
x
(x = space)
x
x
Please Pass the Pray
x
Welcome home the victims
Heal the victims here
x
Quick prayer for those who died
And those who are wounded
And still here
x
Something in the house
Or in the car
Aloud or silently
It counts
The most basic ask of intercession
x
Like asking God
Be with whoever’s involved
In that emergency
Who are these people?
Someone knows
x
What is needed by way of comfort
Or of sutures
Or of passage?
Someone knows
We don’t know
Maybe we don’t have to
x
Prayer is involvement
Even anonymous
That works
We may not know the outcomes
That is faith
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Mikhail Volkov on Unsplash
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
In Kabul
x
Nine hundred twenty dead
Early counting
Now over a thousand
In Kabul
x
The Taliban has asked
With urgency
For aid
The people in the city
Are receiving help
From local sources
People, groups
And from outside Afghanistan
Organizations
Other nations
x
So many dead
The faithful will mourn
Accept
The will of God
While they mourn
x
C L Couch
x
x
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing at least 920 people and injuring 600 others in the deadliest temblor…Read More
x
Photo by farin sadiq on Unsplash
x
“Nothing mattered now.”
After Aslan is slain in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis
Unseen
Christ is dead
Not now but long ago
And on the full day in between
(Counting days on calendars)
When the body lay in Joseph’s
Tomb, the movement sleeps
As well
Nightmares of capture
And, worse, hopelessness
It is a time for cynical
Reasoning among the
Followers
Ciara
From the news, I wanted to get
The hometown right
Of the murdered girl
The search yielded a
Thoughtful, pretty image
Of the twelve-year-old
I’ll take it down, but for now
I fear to remove her from the
Screen—
As if saying good-bye
This way
Will make death, already decided,
Somehow more deeply
Done
clcouch123 
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