going my way
I might
have confessed already
I used to do my homework
by
Monday Night Football
which ran longer
than
primetime typically allowed
I might
have
paper
pencil
later pen
typewriter
while
on my own
I worked through ersatz responses
to
assignments that I’m sure would have
gone better had I
allowed the proper
situation
such as
a cell in a scriptorium
yet here
I am
years later
with tinnitus
and so
doing the same
as
when Cosell told me
that they won a game
they did
not
deserve to win
which and whom
my brother
Rick
liked
to cite and recite
c l couch
photo by Klim Musalimov at Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
poems about early life
x
x
around the green S chair
(Rick and me)
x
there was an S chair
green, upholstered
with that kind of hard,
bumpy brocade that was
uncomfortable
kept in the basement
and there were other things
as basements tend to have
and around the chair
and through the other things
there was an oval
made that we would run,
my older brother and I,
while the Three Stooges
ran on television
and we ran in opposite directions
to each other, and when
we passed each other
we would whoop in high-pitched
voices like the
Stooges whom we thought
must be having fun
in black and white
as we were
around the green S chair
and everything else
pushed to one or the other
in the basement
x
x
a child’s Sunday night
x
everything was difficult
except sometimes on Sunday night
when we were downstairs
after baths or showers
pajamaed, robed
slippers over wrinkly toes
the TV set warmed up
Disney about to start
x
x
the younger ones on Friday night
x
on Friday nights
we often would
gather ‘round the kitchen table
with popcorn
and malted, chocolate candy
playing The Game of Life
sometimes Careers
we were taught Rook
the Southern person’s bridge
x
we played many games
and were okay
as long as my dad was winning
x
x
I never sang for my father
x
my dad took it on himself
to ridicule me
so that he might look bigger
somehow
whatever is in the mind
of the bully
I don’t know if that worked
inside
for him
while inside of me
as you might expect
there was resentment
and it grew
I had to win
and when I did,
I no longer cared
there was next to nothing there
and in the nothing
no relationships
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
I Never Sang for My Father is the name of a play and a film.
x
Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash
x
Hopscotch
I don’t know why that comes to mind except
That it is a game that can be won
And folk all around
Can take it fine
It’s
Satisfying quantities of asphalt, chalk, and
Small stones
Congenial lines and arches
A game for friends
A game in which core competition
Is with the self
To jump and stay on balance
Dusty chalk
I miss it, maybe you do too
And games whose consequences tend toward
Civility
The garrulous courtesy of children (worth
the risk)
Unlike the fractured day in
A quarreling, gimbaled world
To which I’ve awakened
C L Couch
clcouch123 
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