Earth

Pagan Petition

(x = space)

Pagan Petition

Freya of the

Earth,

On your day

I ask for

Such a small part

Of the world

To borrow

Where I stand

Where I sit

Where I might lie down

For a while

Yes, I mean

What metaphors might mean

Yes, I need a place

As trolls need caves

Only with a door

And a wide window

And some plumbing

It would be home

Until it’s a time again

For wandering

Please

And thank you,

Lord and lady of

Earth and earthiness

C L Couch

Reliefbüste “FREYJA”, Amalienstraße 51, Fürth

Wofro – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21650063

September 10, 2021 2

The Agenda in the Storm

(x = space)

The Agenda in the Storm

(having gathered)

New York was hit

Awfully bad

It’s moving north and east

The fires out west are also

Famously terrible

And there are storms

And floods and fires

Elsewhere

It is bad in Kabul,

Too,

The President asking for

More planes from non-military

Sources

And we can’t compare

This to Saigon, because

The fighting isn’t over

There’s a force ready

To fight the Taliban

Will North America and Europe

Recognize this group

To send them aid,

If an irony of aid

And there are other groups

In prisons and dealing

With worse persecution

(another irony)

On the outside

These groups are in Myanmar

And China

And northeastern Africa

And in North America,

Native Americans

And First Families

And do we want to keep the

Border nonporous to the south

Because we want to contain

Mexicans for being

Mexican?

And blacks and whites

Where are we now?

These are the ethnic

Fires and the flood of hate

And fear;

In the USA, we once liked

The melting pot

Though now it seems a crucible

To separate us and to test us

Then we might go back

To melting

In that first, patriotic pot

There’s climate

And still too much unchecking

You know, there’s a town

In Ohio that found natural gas

In a parochial way

And burned it all,

Frankly, excessively

Until there was none left

I don’t want to blame them

For excitement

Or working out technologies

At large, we need to do that,

Too

But I suppose there’s a lesson

In there, somewhere

And we have so much to learn

And do

To stop the fires,

Contain the floods

Mine in every way

Our minerals well

Maintain both poles

Step in, step out

So there might be

Peace in western Asia

And elsewhere

And then there’s hate

And fear behind the hate

That’s for our dealing,

Too,

To have a planet that we’re

Fond of and it shows

It breathes, it smells,

It tastes, it sounds, it feels,

It looks

Grand as canyons,

Vast as deserts,

Cold as frozen,

Hot as eruptions,

Living as oceans,

Deep as thought

C L Couch

The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill is alluded to, above.

Photo by Kevin Grieve on Unsplash

Trafalgar Square, London, UK

August 24, 2021 0

Animated

(x = space)

Animated

I imagine a cartoon globe,

The kind of old cartoon

Like old Popeyes or old Mickeys,

A cartoon Earth

Sending explosions into space: from

South Africa,

Afghanistan, Yemen

Cuba, Haiti,

And from certain places in

The USA

Maybe there are soldiers

(now we’re talking cels

for newsreels)

Marching through this cartoon

In perfect lock-step,

And maybe rockets are fired

With animated

Accuracy

And maybe the moon

Looks down with tears

As parts of Earth

Burn up,

The tears maybe cartoon-falling

From the face

On the fires

C L Couch

jah$tar printed graphics for animation. ammo stilo. grounded media. May, 2021.

Photo by Matt Moloney on Unsplash

Philly, PA, USA

July 15, 2021 0

Earth Day

(x = space)

Earth Day

(2021)

And

With Earthlings there

Is a relationship

Dysfunctional and thus

Destructive,

So say

All the tops of trees

Burned

By acid rain

Earth survives

As it may

And sometimes must

Fight back

We’re only guessing

But with all the metal satellites

Surrounding,

You’d think we’d know

Earth better than

To ruin it

Yet we must ask

Victims of hurricanes:

The storm,

The flood that

Take one’s own

Earth was no friend,

And who is with them

Now?

Earth and Earthers,

I can only hope

Source of pleasure

Source of pain

(source of profit)

It is our world,

Though we eye another

It is our microcosm

And an old,

Old story

Moon who watches,

Heaven beyond,

Hell below,

Ten circles in the center

Everything we know

In the

Cosmic narrative

Maybe it’s time

To release Cartesian

Orientation,

Since lines really

Do not hold down anything

And are twisted when

New encounters

Overthrow

The old

(which is

discovery)

Time

To like the Earth

Again and like it better

We should know how

By now

C L Couch

Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash

Satellite over the coast.

April 22, 2021 0

a medium for heroes

(x = space)

a medium for heroes

what if a dream deferred

is not enough?

(it is a cruel question)

what if our refusal

to lift up each one

is a matter

for the Earth’s survival?

who is the next Einstein

or Jenner or the Curies

who will save us

from nature’s catastrophes

or our own?

they may rise

unless we have refused

them breath and opportunity

and without knowing

(and we never know)

we simply have to raise

each one

each one on the Earth

and the Earth itself

c l couch

photo by Jeff Ackley on Unsplash

April 15, 2021 0

The Devil in the Middle

(x = space)

The Devil in the Middle

What is in

The center of it all?

A devil laughing?

Why should a devil

Laugh? Why should

A devil care?

Devil-may-care,

What does that mean?

It means cavalier

In this instance;

Cavalier meaning gallant,

Gallant meaning piquant

Small matters

To the devil

Some imply a drama:

The devil made an angel,

Risen through the rank

To be chief angel

Even over arches

The prince of light

In the maker’s eye

Then came ambition

There must be more

(there isn’t

there is),

A form of pride

Borrowed from the will

The maker gave

The last things made,

Before resting

Pride made or given,

The angel rises

Now to have something

Of its own,

The will to chase the universe

To know

And thus have

Everything that moves—

Better yet, motion itself

And heat

And all reactions,

The moving in everything

That moves

The universe is not

Statuary;

I will own dynamos

All that makes possible

All else—this

Is ambition

And the maker,

The maker said no

Other than the tree,

The first time

That was said

More so imposed,

And the devil knew

The maker meant it

And there was howling,

The first kind

Ever heard in heaven

And rebellion

And rejection

As decreed

In the moment before

And in between

Anything beyond the host

Was made

The devil thought

Nothing like this could apply

To an angel

Better than archangels—

But this was meant,

It knew and so

It and its own followers

Must leave,

The devil

And the devil’s own

Sliding onto Earth

In a compromise, it hoped,

Of creation’s creating,

Maker’s binding law

Not to destroy in victory

Anything that was made,

Even with

Accounting the defeated

Earth the great place

In between,

Where battles might be fought

Until the last engagement;

The devil knew it all

And didn’t care—there

Were its own skirmishes to win,

A campaign of turning

And, turned enough,

To ruin Eden’s darlings

Even turn the animals

Twisting the good

In molecules

And lightning

And all forces remade

Into viscous virtue,

Easy to remake

And redirect,

Blurring the vision of the end

Even in its sight—

Maybe the devil and an army

Of the Earth

Will split the maker’s love

And all will overthrown,

New laws

With everything its own

With what might be taken

From each other

All anarchies,

All chaos

Water will not fill the shape

Of its container

For physics overthrown

With anything agreed-upon

Undone

Undo it all,

The devil owning energy

Would win

And have its own,

More than any other

Enough of a plan

To ruin Eden’s promises

Then go from there

C L Couch

there is more

Photo by Jonathan Bean on Unsplash

April 7, 2021 1

tandem

(x = space)

tandem

if I count all the noise

I am depressed

at least disappointed

I like the noise of living:

children (not always)

dogs, pans squabbling

even the noise of

passing cars and the diesel

of the bus

but the anchorite

would like some quiet

in the cell from time to time

to think and feel through

insight

and the soul

and who quiets the noise inside

I am not sure

I try it on my own,

and only impulse closes over

wakeful everything

I ask,

maybe will receive

not a holy schedule

but a sacrosanct surprise

that the Earth is

made quiet through

a tandem try

so we both may dream

c l couch

photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash

bike for two

February 11, 2021 1

Wolf Gang

(x = space)

Wolf Gang

(winter song)

Up and down

The streets at night

Back and forth

Across the city

We go for what we want

We don’t care about

The human race

Except as a resource

For the things

We need

It’s winter time,

Our favorite time

We take what we need

You could wish

For a gang as this

Keep wishing

We owe no one anything

We take what

Evolution dictates

Our strength

Is a number, only

Each of us

Would rather be alone

As our howl sings

At the break of day

We are wolves

We are alone

We haunt

The human mind

We break apart

To make each one

A scoundrel of the day

Then we sleep

We sleep long hours

Then when

The weakling day is done

We wake up to

The power of night

And

And none of this

Is true

We are families

And our power’s for

Our children

And the pack

We mate for life

We do not wander

Unless the food is far away

You might fear us

We need our teeth and jowls

And a howl that sings

We know you’re there

We sing

To each other

What we want

Is life together

You ruin all our seasons

In the land

Sometimes

When you can’t hear,

We also cry to Earth

To punish you

And save us

C L Couch

This is a response to a prompt: https://wyrdwordsandeffigies.wordpress.com/2021/01/17/write-yourself-awake-wyrd-creative-writing-prompts/. Katie writes fantastically about winter and folklore, self-awareness and the growth of self. The prompt is for the season, and there are many good cues there from which to choose. An opportunity to express (and thus enhance) creative health in winter.

https://wyrdwordsandeffigies.wordpress.com/

Photo by Chris Henry on Unsplash

Canada

Please follow me on Instagram! @chrishenry

January 24, 2021 7