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To the One Who’s Typing Now

To the One Who’s Typing Now

(regarding futures)

 

I mistype a number

And it’s 2029

I mistype again

It’s 3029

Maybe 3129

Let’s make it 3159

So each number’s new

Now let’s consider our world

Should we still have it

Should we be here

 

A thousand years to get it right

Maybe we’ve refined

Profit at last

A personal fruition of one’s

Skills

The happiness of that

Is a profitable life

Each one contributes out of joy

Not that we won’t make mistakes

We will

And I’m not sure where

Ego’s gone

 

We’ll need more materials

Stop wrecking Earth to have them

We might be digging into Mars

And asteroids

Still needing to learn

The cosmos is not for digging

And for slicing up

Maybe other leaseholders

Will have shown by then

To live that

For us

 

Despotism might be a deserved

Anachronism by then

Democracy gain such momentum

That we will have it

And no other way

Maybe there was

A final fight for freedom

Last and only monuments

Only to us

And worth remembering

 

The state of the human soul

Might not have changed at all

We might have evolved so that

Ancillary things such as those

At the ends of fingers

And of toes

Might have grown off

Nature evolving, too

Harder trees and rocks

Like crystal steel

Water that will no longer

Be prodded

Nature’s having learned as well

That living with us

Is inimical

We will be peers

If never really allies

We might have learned that

Nature’s soul deserves

Respecting, too

 

As for God

No need for changing there

Immutability required

Maybe Armageddon,

Maybe no one came to play

Maybe God will have reason

To smile a little

All the time

Weep less for Earth and us

Maybe show up, now and then

Because divine invisibility

Will have lost some

Of its doctrine

With its need

 

Will we be happy,

Feel fulfilled?

Goodness, I don’t know

Once everyone is fed

And money doesn’t mean

Withholding shelter

Banks off our backs

Having failed at climbing on us

To deceive with interest

(not only banks—the corporations

so this way and politics)

Maybe when we understand

That lunacy means not providing

Water safe to drink

And we don’t want to be lunatics

Anymore,

The world will, what do you know,

Be a better place

Commercials and song lyrics

Have it right

We’ll still be dying,

Actuarily

But letting go will be done

In a circle

With fewer things to worry over,

After

 

We’ll be a thousand years ahead

Human nature adapting

One can hope

Yes, I know, everything could go

The other way

The devil be in charge, at last

Though that be madness, too

Over non-corporeality

We might have even learned through games

That the body is important

(learned sadly by the wrecking of it)

That matter is

A crucial count of atoms

That heavenward means substance

Hell has none of

Not even an electron

No covalence there

 

Both abstract and solid mean something

Something wonderful

We’ll have our fears

To face

Maybe at last we’ll face them

Some challenges might be greater

Maybe you wouldn’t

(I don’t know)

But I’d like to see, to hear, to touch

To taste, to smell

To sense the future

Maybe it will be part of the tour

An astral orientation

For what truly happens next

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash

Rågeleje, Denmark

 

2

The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives

 

My best for years

Wasn’t nearly enough

I’m slouching toward Jerusalem

The holy city where the ages crash

Enough of sailing to Byzantium

That fell so long ago

 

With what is left

The modern age done years back

What does one call the next age

But the next age, as we have done?

No more girls in water

Sparking epiphanies (ironically through

water)

No more women beating men

To vote to have

The rudiments of politics

And understanding

I think they should rule—the

Women, not the politics

 

New happens with each day

There’s always change

Those who say there’s not

Who want all angles to be retrograde

Know nothing of the physics,

The inevitability of slopes that go

The other way

And energy with them

 

Africa is where the church is growing

And south of South America

Parts of India and Asia, even though

(please, not because)

It’s beaten down

Atheism rises, and why not?

Though I think agnosticism steers

The ship of state

Searching for a port

It knows is there

 

I think formlessness might be

The way,

Since doctrine has been brutal

In its application

And a ruthless form of righteousness

Where is love,

The orphan asked

He sung

And she responded

It is all around you,

Though mortality can end it all

It appears, my dear

 

Therefore go for what is real

Hold on, though not so tightly

The goodness cannot breathe

 

C L Couch

 

 

(title from the movie directed by William Wyler

Yeats is also relied on at the beginning

a musical toward the ending)

 

Photo by Fazel on Unsplash

Mazandaran Province, Unnamed Road, Iran

 

0

A Game

A Game

 

There is a game

To play now and then

It’s called the future

Something blank is all that’s needed

Not even paper

An open book

Or tabletop will do

But keep it empty

Then place a thought inside

And then another

You will lose your way, and that’s all right

You’ve won by then!

Maybe play again

Or realize

Tomorrow

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Wolfgang Rottmann on Unsplash

 

5

Peace for All Time

Peace for All Time

(a three-part cycle)

 

1

Machine Language

 

Each moment’s a decision

To exhale,

To circulate some blood

To let the body stir for a while longer

To let the synapse burn

Brightly with mind-fire,

Transactions between what’s happening

And memory

Much of this is done for us

But there’s a partnership, I think

Between all parts

The automatic will take over for

The temporary

When immediacy of thought and movement

Are tired out

Call it sleep

Call it the second cup of tea

Taken on the porch

When for a time there’s nothing else to do

And this has been invoked

Because needed,

The ending of which we’ll debate

 

Peace an invention,

A transaction

Between all partners

Serving on the inside

 

2

Contrition

 

I won’t take it back

Not yet

I need to know the outcome,

Did I get anything I wanted

 

If penance is a prayer,

I’ll do my part

If it’s in bad feeling,

I’m already there

And counting

 

A return to normalcy

And what is that

It takes me out of this

Otherwise, I want

The special moments back

 

But it’s the future, now

Plu-imperfect

 

Please

Say them with me, maybe

All the prayers,

Then let’s move on

 

3

The Answer Is in Someone Else as Well

 

Inner peace

That’s cool

It’s not enough

If I’m in my chrysalis

And have no sight of yours

Or time

 

Where is my peace

If not in you?

This is cheating an invocation,

For it’s not a talk to God

But to you

The one nearby

And not inside

We need transaction, too

And more

 

You need to carry me

And I a part of you

A magic story in which twins

Keep a gem lit by the light force

Of the other

And there’s responsibility

 

In our story,

We will partner differently

That is, for real

Not to prevaricate conditions

But to say push on

Make peace because

We know each other now

To arbitrate

 

And there’s no other way

To build the day

That each must have

Into a present contract

As the future

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jarrod Reed on Unsplash

 

0

And Now a Word

And Now a Word

 

And now for something spiritual

I wrote about the rain

And something about poets’ politics

But what about ethereal

Ephemeral

The gossamer wings that haunt

My nether vision because I want

To see them now

I want to meet my guardian

And any other sponsors

I want to have Jesus or any of his

Colleagues to visit me

I can make some coffee

And serve toast

 

I want the cross to mean something to me

Or any other totem

Should I have it wrong

Not an item blank against the wall

I bought on sale somewhere

 

I want it to be over

I want it to begin

If only it were only about me

Because what I want is solid

 

No more of a story without ending

One chapter more, one chapter more

Bring on Armageddon but

Only if it’s civil

We know it’s only been a metaphor

All along

 

I’ll call up a gentle apocalypse, thank you

Deliver it on time

Draw up ranks on either side

There are those who will never believe

Too bad

Really

 

I’ll conjure up new places

And activities for the faithful

What, there’s more to do in heaven?

I don’t think so

 

And so apostacy is earned

For simply being stupid

For calling on God

When God’s not ready

When official victory

With concomitant defeats

Must be held off now

Until a better ruler says so

She’ll have the better prophet with her

Who will know what’s what

And how to say it, really

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash

 

0

Hot Spots

Hot Spots

 

It’s close enough to be war

Venezuela, Colombia

The Philippines, Myanmar

Eastern Ukraine

Syria, Yemen, the Sudans,

And Nigeria (thanks to Boko Haram)

These are near enough to war

And there are other places

Do we name Chicago?

 

Are wildfires war? Then we must

Add California

And the violence of our spirits?

Where does that extend the boundary?

 

Is it a cosmos that wars as well?

In terms of matter, we might claim entropy

Or the mustard gas of stars’ annihilation

But where is will?

I think we need to know

 

This becomes our place in the universe as well

Does matter tilt toward intention

Or simple cessation?

Whose woods these are I think I know.

Does it participate,

The maker and the builder—

Does it build?

 

Do we matter,

Does matter matter?

Does a notion of a providence bamboozle?

Okay, I don’t think so, the Calvinist

In me will out

 

We need to talk about this

Let’s think first,

Maybe set something down

Like homework

Then come together, class,

To learn

 

We learn from each other

Dialogic, the style of Socrates

Synthesis, Hegelian

 

On the other side, what then?

We live more fully,

Fed on coffee, pastries, wine, and cheese

Civil plates’ discussion

Offering cups of cold water

Never forget that

A metaphor made real every time

Even a commandment

 

We live better together

Each one has one’s own

It is a choice

It is a pleasure

A present

And a future

 

C L Couch

 

 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

0

The Autumn People

The Autumn People

(title and litany inspired by R. Bradbury)

 

World of stone

Ancient, difficult wood and sometimes glass

Though passageways for

Light and air are

Mostly shuttered nowadays

 

It is an age beyond the last

Ancient, classic, invasion, modern, after-modern

Mires of agenda

That refused to die

So that the next time had no name

No one after, either, to name in distant reason

This last time

 

In anarchy, all freedom’s lost

No one in safety alone

In groups of tribal bands

Joined for number

 

There is no core

Nothing on which to ride an atom or to

Split its parts

 

We came together as we could

Or nothing

 

Nothing, nothing, nothing

To have into grey days

 

Summer without

Winter long past to be accounted

No one remembers spring

 

This is what we are

This is what we left one season

Now only one time of year

 

Forever fallen

Ever falling

 

Who are we?

Once we were leaves

Attached, belonging to the binding of

The book of life

 

Where did we live?

In colors, living textures

On a primal world

 

What is left now?

Ghosts of patterns

What might have been

 

Why do we live?

It’s all that’s left

The spine is broken

 

We exist, barely assembled

What is left of

Dark matter, once

All light has been erased

 

The litany has ended

We return below ground

To sleep uneven with rude weapons

Close to our faces

 

Failing eyesight

Hands no longer trustworthy

In holding what is left

Into the evening of the Earth

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://schietree.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/imagefeeling/

 

3

Imagine

Imagine

 

I heard the song last night

And now read the story in the morning:

 

Forty percent of vertebrates gone

From planet Earth,

Sixty-six (the number of books

In the Protestant Bible) by

The middle of our new century

 

Why do these die?

In part, because they do

 

And in part because we kill them

 

There are two ways to feel convicted,

Each way requiring a life

 

Will we let our world live?  Will

We let our charges thrive

Or maybe better yet

Simply leave them be?

 

We have pushed living

Over the cusp of extinction

 

Pulling back destructive practices

Under the edge again

 

Might hurt

 

But it’s pain we’ve earned,

The cost of killing kingdoms

And the genus

 

Try feeding creature kinds

More like kindred we respect;

Tend if only for a while

 

Then we might inspire

Conclusions for a future

Place

And process

 

C L Couch

 

“Imagine a world without animals. You’ll soon see how much we need them”

Jules Howard

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/world-without-animals-pollinating-crops?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+morning+briefing+2016&utm_term=197334&subid=16706344&CMP=ema_a-morning-briefing_b-morning-briefing_c-US_d-1

5

Liftoff

Liftoff

 

Late

 

I’m driving home,

High-beams

Looking out for

Deer whom I

Might then drive

Around

 

Yellow center

Lines with white

On either side,

 

Bushes and trees

Farther off still

Line the road,

Marching back

In layers of green

 

And black that

Make up the

Horizon, too,

Which I see in

Front of me

 

Then—I hadn’t

Thought of

This—the moon

Rises in my

Direction (that is,

 

The way I’m

Going) behind

Dark verdure

Rows

 

Half-disc bright

Red-orange

Startling the

Sleepy countryside

Into becoming,

As if in an

Astral spell, a

 

Rising plain of

Backlit silhouettes

 

Sentinel at night

Ascends like

An ancient mother

Ship leaving

The quiet earth

Where it has

Hid, now taking

Its watchkeepers

Home;

 

Maybe, too,

A matriarchal

Ark as well, bearing

DNA of flora

And fauna,

Gene-tracings

 

In chromosomes

Of mitochondria

 

Lifting all toward

Freedom of

The Earth, carrying

Our errant

Molecules through

To what we say

Is outer space:

 

Passing other

Spheres of cosmic

Condensation,

 

Asteroids and

Planetoids and

More substantial

Yet nascent

 

Un-wakened

Denizens of

Rock and fire

 

Cradles for

Star-making,

Entering nebulae,

The vessel-charge

At last and

With a knowing

Satellite’s prophetic

Discretion,

 

Diffuses organic

Atoms inside

 

Entropy-laden

Stellar capacity,

Static potential

Wanting alien

Life

 

To incite and

Render systems

Viable for carbon

Habitation;

 

And so

 

Our lives together

Evolve into

The future of

World-making

3

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