Binary Opposition
‘Levendy-‘leven
A children’s number
Yet
Everything too grown-up
Was waiting
For the papers on the tables
To be signed to
End
The awful
Too grown-up
Thing
Eleven eleven
Eleven eleven
And then
The terrible ritual
Was done and we could say
The war
Is over
Over there
Over here
The horror
Of a heart of darkness
Goes back under for
A season
Inside the shell of all the mortals
And the devils
Who let the horror out for
Four years
And now
To reckon all such times
And all such people
Knowing also
Innocent
To serve
Knowing by country
And by honor
And that was nearly all
Except
The names that each one
Might have known
To bear inside the pockets
And the packs
Before
Each battle
And on the field
After
Until games
As in the most harrowing
Of contests
Call
In-free
Come to base
The dark is on
Go home
C L Couch
Photo by Georgi Kalaydzhiev on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
2 songs
x
x
Song of Innocence
x
If innocence
Means free from guilt
Well, that’s really
Not enough
Innocence must be
Something on its own,
Not the absence
Of anything
Something desirable
A sense of peace
Of grace that we can
Walk with through
The day
x
Substance
Not a reflection or
Wishful thinking
Something that knows
The world, the score
And chooses innocence
Knowing,
Even skeptical or cynical
Strong innocence
Elastic
Durable
That knows the score
Not absence of guilt
The born-with quality
Is fine
But the knowing quality
Is better
x
x
Song of Experience
x
There’s so little
That I’ve done
Enough to hurt some people
To have been used
By people, too
x
Here I am
So tired,
Breathing through
A microphone
A torch song
Emanating
Is that all there is?
x
But it isn’t
I think there’s more
More sufficiency
More grace
More life
x
And if it seems I’m whining
Or whistling through
My teeth
The saddest tune
Well, I’ve been
Around
Some
With so much more
I’ve never known
x
And yet I think
In splinters,
Having this and wanting that
Wishing I’d done that
Wishing I hadn’t
It’s a maddening calculation
At the board
On this side of the gate
x
I hope
The tally’s adequate
Or maybe we could
Toss the numbers
Into the moving water
Dividing worlds
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Hope Valley, Peak District, UK
x
Amihan
(in Philippine, northeast wind)
Where I live,
When the weather
Comes from the east,
An unusual day
Arrives with it
Different time is allowed,
No value yet, not
Good or bad
Will the air be dense
With drenched nuclei,
Will the sky be sliced:
Will weighted water
Pummel us from above
Then, once cleansed—no,
Purged—and dried
Will we breathe
An ameliorating atmosphere
As a gift from no one
We know how to thank
Valued thus rendered
In innocence
With feet wet
From Eden’s tears,
We tread home
To do our best
To make
A heaven here
Word-High July: Welcome!
Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and I [that’s Rosema at rosemawrites] are more than excited to read your takes on the 30 Beautiful Filipino Words.
- Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
- A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
- Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
- Tag your post with WordHighJuly, so your co-bloggers will be able to read/see your take on the prompt. Here’s how you create tags.
- Most important of all, read and comment to your blogger friends (old and new found, we’ll never know).
HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!
Psalm 11
a song of innocence
Lord, I do not understand
Certain paradoxes of the world
Why such terror and so much
Wrong must persist in a
World of our choosing
Why can we not do better?
Why can we not use what we
Have to further human cause
To improve the life on
Our troubled, turning sphere
Make life not only better
But, in fact, a triumph in the living?
Can we not do better than fear
And making a market of that?
Might we not do better than taking
Base desire, such as purchasing
Destruction, to barter in a
Hidden marketplace?
The challenges of life would still
Remain, if we choose differently
Responding to severities of
Nature, discovering redresses
From disease, the right for each
To grow and thrive, even the finding
Of new worlds
We’d still have much to do
If we choose differently
And our accomplishment would
Be of the lasting kind
A legacy of gain
And, from that better living, new
Kinds of profit for all of us
clcouch123 
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