The First for Promise
(1 January 2025)
I
It’s a cold
Gray day
No promise of winter
Say
In the form of
Romantic snow
Not the fearful kind
The same
The foreboding of the same
That for me
Is a bad heart
And
Bad neighbors in
A chilly town
And an existential thinking
About how
To have and read
The next
Passage
Of
Things
And may I ask
What shape and content
Yours
Toward a sound structure
With
The broken beams that
Get majorly
In the way
While you are building
And yet
(for
me
for us)
The pressure’s on
As in
The stultified quality
Of things that never change
And yet
Should
In fact
They must
For the things that should not change
But must
How about in
The promise of new
And then
New years
II
Sigh
It sounds like
Resolutions’
Trope
The things we say
We sell things over
And yet
Will
In the popular
Way
Give up
Say
In a month or so
If that
Sigh
What now
What new way to say it
What way to say
We really mean
It
This time
What counts
What reifies
Well
We have this
The versicle way
To say old things to keep
And new
To alter
Songs
Novels
All sorts of declarations
Maybe and
Maybe which is why
We have these
We grew
And grow these
When
Needed
A new way can and
Does change
And so
What shall our new ways be
And so
Answer in
Your own ways and
Our ways together
Please
III
I guess I think
This needs to be
A year
Of change
Or else we’ll have
The same old thing
Dissatisfying everyone
Some
More if not
Forever
C L Couch
Photo by Wilmer Martinez on Unsplash
Times Square, New York, United States
Beautiful city lights looked like something straight out of the movies. The colors were inspired by the Tron: Legacy film. [What Wilmer has to say.]
(x = space)
x
x
The People First
(Indigenous Peoples Day)
x
Today on the
Convenience of a Monday,
We acknowledge
Indigenous Peoples Day
x
A day for dance
For songs whose lyrics
Most of us don’t know
x
Set before
Except for math in certain years
The arrival of Columbus
On a day
And on that day
First time
Complicit in
The Taino
Vanishing
x
We inveigled
Tricked
Overwhelmed
After learning to survive
Pushed the people
Pushed our teachers
And, yes, first adversaries
Onto arid land
At last
Unless a virtue be discovered there
Then moved farther on
xxxxxArtificial islands
xxxxxAre trending;
xxxxxThe people could build
xxxxxOnto the ocean
xxxxxUnless we wanted
xxxxxSomething under
x
What shall we do this day?
Not give anything back,
I’m sure
x
Feathers
Leathers
Colors
How to live with nature
When even nature’s scant
Colors of the earth
And of fauna
Movement, teaching of the seasons
Life with the Spirit,
The hand of God that pressed
The mountains
And the valleys
Plains between,
Ridges and runnels
Of the fingers
That should be
Filled with water
x
Truths of land and air,
Interesting add-ons for us
Supplements for mortal life
Maybe next year’s
Vacation
x
What is the hope
For a people pushed
And pushed off,
As if unwanted by the created world
Yet placed onto the world
First,
First people here?
x
Well, there is a day
I think better have the day
Than not
It offers balance
Maybe pain with recognition
Suffering with acknowledgement
Especially against
The time to come
In two days’ time
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Mike Newbry on Unsplash
x
I could be sorry for the we-they attitude (and I am) except it’s what we (they) have. Hope for a day to come when we can mesh and moosh the pronouns because the better unifying has happened.
x
The Sun’s Indigenous
A treat
The coffee
I don’t have to load it
In my buckboard
Like a settler come to town
On Saturday for supplies
Too easy to fantasize
My house on the prairie
Or my split-level
In the east
How much did others pay
For dreaming?
I don’t mean pioneers
Though for their dreaming
They gave much
I mean those who dreamed
Of earthen wisdom,
Already here for centuries
Imperfect
But here first
First people
In the world, we don’t respect
Indigenous save for study
(bless the anthropologists
in situ)
The land is there
Just needs some brutal scrubbing
Clear it out for destiny
That we own
I’m white
I don’t mind being white
I rarely have to
I rarely have to think of it,
Unless I want to
Call me a lover of dark skin
I am
I have no way to understand reparation
Except that it’s a worthy thought
At least to seek forgiveness
Knowing that each people
Have done each other
That is no excuse for us
Or anyone
To pick up the rope, the chain,
The sword
To take over for intrafamily rivalry
And sin of war that way
Theirs in the first,
Ours in the last
I think that colors merge into the sun
I think that I’m idealist
And most likely, oh, so naïve
But I’ll take it for my vision
Keeping in the daylight
Dreaming of at night
C L Couch
Photo by Drop the Label Movement on Unsplash
Azukar Coffee, Phoenix, United States
The subject of this photo, Hannah, radiates authenticity, joy, and beauty in her jean jacket laced with various pins and buttons. This photo of Hannah was captured by Idara Ekpoh in south Phoenix, Arizona, at Azukar Coffee Shop.
Older Love
It is in the first Christian hymn
Love begotten
As in created
Dropped like ritual paint upon
An unmarked, earthy plank
Moved around in riotous,
Primal aesthetic
Made for pleasure in the universe
Because God knows
It’s not enough minimally
To exist
In the pushing of all things
There must be meaning
Not in gnostic sentences
Trying to spell secrets in the skies
But something all of us can have
Without exotic training
Or supernal
Scrying
Pointers at best
But knowing there’s a reason
Without the heart
Without first favor
Placed over everything that’s made
Or co-made
Well, that pointing will not
Get us there for being
Easily if not covetously
Sideswiped on the way by
Desires and the vicissitudes of
Living without spirit
Rising from the dwelling of the soul in
Each one
We were built, singly and together
One by one and all
We can perceive a universe
And with earnestness take hold
Who we are
Of anything that’s good and sound and loving
You and me embrace
All things ordinarily divine
C L Couch
https://www.wikihow.com/Capture-a-Big-World-in-Small-Sketches
Psalm 45
singing this song for you
I don’t mean to sing about the
Other, compelling as that value is
I don’t mean a covered-over me,
Secret subject I would rather
Talk about
I mean you, first—my friend,
Lover, maker, and my better
Half (so to say) except that you
Are all
Now, secondly, to you, who you
Are extended from the words
Were it not for you, there would
Be none of this
For all you are and what you are
Not
The rest is not silence (should
Shakespeare wonder), not if
There’s Interacting
We are at this moment closer to
The one who, all-relating, started
The first process, requiring more
Than one
clcouch123 
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