Friday 13

When Sunday Is the First

Tridecaphobes beware
This should not
Be your day

A day for black
Cats
Ladders
Broken mirrors
Cracked backs
(awful!)

Bad thirteens
Judas
The thirteenth follower
Somehow
With Christ dying
On a Friday
Too

Though the bad
Day that pegs it is
Just inside
The fourteenth century
When on a Friday the
Thirteenth
A trap was sprung
Upon
The Templars

Arrested
Tortured
Executed

And the king of France
Who started the campaign
No longer
He decided
Had to pay the ruined Templars
Back

Then again
The origin could be African
Or India
Or from the Americas
Ancient Greece
Or Atabia
Where the numbers were invented

So
Good
Day
Inside
Or should you dare outside
Where black
Cats will be set on ladder steps
To sing in fiddled fashion
Of
The hours

C L Couch

Photo by Zhen H on Unsplash
[not unlike “Croatoan” on a certain tree, also a subject of suspicion]


2 poems about the day


Fish Fry
(check the shape of stanza'd, ichthus undulation)

Friday
Fry day
Fish fry day
At the Catholic church
For penance
I suppose
Though the is
So much
One can’t complain
Of abstemious devotion
And the money
Should go somewhere
Good
And we Protestants
Can enjoy that
Too
Should we think on it
While crunching into fish with
Whatever else
Is
Provided

Yay
Catholics
Thank you for
This weekend treat
You all
Have
A great weekend
Too
After all the cooking
(the worry over getting
burned
while frying)
And all the cleaning
That frankly
We did not
Have to do
Though when it’s our turn with
A rummage sale
We’ll clean up
Afterward
For you


Thirteen O’Phobia

Today is Friday
A thirteenth
Sorry to
Triskaidekaphobes
Watch out
Black cats
They’ll be avoiding you
Which now I think it
Might be the quite suitable
Arrangement

And ladders
Mirrors
Sidewalk
Cracks
Salt containers
All the things that make
This day less
Amenable

And it’s the number
Generally
As well
The lack of such in buildings
Even
Now
And what was it
Crucifixion on a Friday
Or the barbaric
Gory dissolution of the Templars
On a Friday
Thirteenth
Early in the fourteenth century
(1307
look
another thirteen)

And Judas killed himself
Maybe on that
Friday
Being the thirteenth disciple
(once removed)
In some lore

But for me
And maybe I should apologize
I often
Find
The day goes very well
Which might be
Determination
Or
Luck
Half-Irish luck
For my mother’s family

While on my father’s
Side
There are the English
Who most likely
Do not care
About the day and
Date
As long as the flag is flying
Somewhere in a
Time zone
Over Earth


C L Couch
(9/13/2024)


Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Matthias, Paul, Judas—who is the thirteenth disciple/Apostle?  (Rhetorical question--depends on whose tradition's answering.)