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Then Let’s Keep Dancing

Then Let’s Keep Dancing

 

I only knew one perfect person

And he was crucified, my father said

Yes, but then he rose, I might

Have said

It was the argument beneath the argument

Not a debate about

Points of faith

 

I didn’t know all the demons then

There are others

To learn

My father’s got the best of him that was

His joy and anything of wisdom

I never got the teaching I deserved

Any child deserves

 

It’s a long way past hate

Worse, dismissal

That became the only way to get along

Stranger, either way

Never a decent conversation

Decent as in real

 

I can only sigh about it, now

So much of it is dust

Like the Kansas song

Or the one by Peggy Lee

Every generation needs a song,

According to my professor

Something that turns

That turns us into mortal means

Reminds us we are seasons

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Alex Seinet on Unsplash

“Wind on Wheat”

 

“Is That All There Is” is a song created by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, famously recorded by Peggy Lee.

 

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Solace

Solace

 

It’s a kindness, really

To have a little something of my own

A pen, a pair of glasses

A pipe stand that belonged to my father

A photo of my mother, when she was a girl

Holding a little cat

 

It’s not remembrance

Or nostalgia

Mostly, it’s regret

For what they didn’t have

But should have had

 

A comfort only

That so much pain is gone

Absent from the Earth

Kept in the tears of God

And every now and then

When I press out my own

 

As if to keep them in a scrapbook

A book of scraps

The little bits that are my own

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Anne-marie Ridderhof from Pixabay

 

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Curmudgeonly

Curmudgeonly

 

I need to switch and place

Bread into the toaster twice

(thank you, Krups, and

the stranger who kept me from

buying the toaster I wanted,

telling me it

was no good)

 

But now I’ve noticed

That the toast comes out

Misshapen (thank you,

Pepperidge Farms, though this

time I mean it), crust

Bubbling away or so it appears

 

I like it

Sometimes I like misshapen

Things: my father tried, I think,

To pick bent-over trees for

Christmas

So that he could make them

Strong, the instinct of

An engineer,

A carpenter,

An English major

 

The heath must be blasted, after all

Or there will be no drama

And Romantic ruins cannot be

So even

Otherwise the outcast will not

Find the broken corner to

Inhabit with all thoughts

Of desperation

 

What if he had left alone

The Christmas tree?

My mother would have tried not

To stand for it

And succeeded:

The holiday should be an

Evened-out affair

 

In a house with so many children,

She was right; a

Democracy of gifts and celebration

To reign like the newborn

King arrived to recognize

 

But the body is not even

On both sides—curly hair has

Taught me that

And it’s fine

It has to be

Maybe being left-handed helps

The army that marched on that side

Fought and won and disappeared,

Vexing the Romans

And giving rise to left as sinister

 

Keep the shapes misshapen

For the love—

 

The half-burnt cookie you might

As well eat now

 

The tattoo where she slipped,

Leaving a twitch on the mermaid’s

Tail

 

The Earth where everyone is not the same

Leaving discovery our happy

Mandate

 

C L Couch

 

 

Joshua Trees (Yucca brevifolia) at sunrise in Joshua Tree National Park: Hidden Valley Campground

Jarek Tuszyński / CC-BY-SA & GDFL, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3466755

 

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1982

1982

 

My mother came home from the hospital today,

and I can’t handle the numbness from

exhaustion.  She has the disease, and it’s going

to kill her, but I can’t help but wonder (bad

son) about my role in this.  I try to cause three

meals a day to happen and earn enough outside

to pay some bills.  My father has proved useless.

I guess no one is surprised, though every now

and then I hope.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Robert Gramner

Just a lost key by a popular running trail.

 

 

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Swimming

Swimming

 

My father used to swim the sound

I don’t know what that means, the sound

Since if ever I had seen it

I was two

But he swam it, and I guess

That was a distance

Puget Sound

He was the only engineer not to work

At Boeing

He chose the aluminum company instead

That sent him to Pittsburgh finally

Where the children finished growing up

That was fine

I like Pittsburgh

 

Anyway, to Puget Sound

And boats and ships and sails and I’m

Sure great engines

A life outside

I’ve had some of that, though

I did not wear an open shirt and a

Fedora on my head (yes, like Indiana Jones), stood

By the campfire, near which

Strings of fish were bound to sticks

And lines

Close by all the gear and even some guns

For pheasants and frankly

For rattlesnakes

These are the photographs and

The stories

 

How was he formed

And what did he leave?

And why do I have Northwest

Roots I do not know

 

At two, I picked blueberries for my

Grandmother

A memory I fight for

To conjure

To keep

 

C L Couch

 

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Back Home for Five Minutes

Back Home for Five Minutes

 

I pour tomato juice into a glass

Okay, it’s low-sodium V-8

But it’s like tomato juice

Shake in some celery salt, bought

For the occasion

Then I drink nostalgia

My father liked tomato juice this way

 

C L Couch

 

 

image posted at http://yourlifematterstogod.blogspot.com/2011/12/breakfast.html

 

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