Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Tag

joy

Fun in the Foxhole

 

Fun in the Foxhole

 

I can’t imagine the experience

Ever, ever, ever, ever

Being entertaining

There’s death so near

Peril in every intake

 

While death companions

Other kinds of war

Experiences, too

By a design, it must seem

From nature by a

Predation of the elements

 

Then on each other when and where

We first throw down peace

Because parochial victory

Is a shinier aim

Fool’s gold can make that

But there might be joy sometime

Whether or not decreed

 

Decreed it was

The truce that broke out for Christmas

When the trenches could not

Hold hate enough

And must give way to silly, life-

Giving, temporary treasures

Shared in hand-grips (no longer strained

by guns)

And in games

Talk in whatever language

Enmity turned ally for a day

 

Too easy to

Beweep our outcast state

To isolate ourselves with agony

Truly earned, deserved

Loss that will not have an end

To emptiness until all

Waiting

Mortal and divine

Is done

 

Call it or call it after

But might there be some pleasure from

A moment of sensation?

Something to say

Yes, that was funny

Yes, I’d like to share a cup of tea

And maybe eat something

Yes, there’s a holiday

We can have it

Or avoid it

Then make our own

A mischief tyranny of joy

 

I’m not sure what I’m proposing

Cheer, giving over something

Sliding the weight along to let it out

Maybe no one has to know

Only the few who understand

 

Maybe a public moment,

Yes

To say, we grieve

We must

But there’s a turning

Pushed in Ecclesiastes as

The time to dance

And while in ancient times there

Could be dance for death,

Our dances go more joyfully,

I think,

Which is a good modern choice

 

C L Couch

 

 

DeFacto – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48650239

Football Remembers memorial, designed by Spencer Turner, at the National Memorial Arboretum

 

0

Lent 26

Lent 26

 

Sometimes, when I’m afraid

I write

Or when I’m sad

Indecisive

Or frustrated

But if I looked back through my journal

(I haven’t done that often)

I’d find, I believe, expressions of

Thanksgiving

Sometimes for sleep that didn’t go so badly

Sometimes for coffee in the morning

Sometimes for cold water, when

I’ve arranged it

I don’t know how much happiness I can have

But it seems I can have gratitude

Which has pieces, if only whittlings,

Of the larger parts

Of joy and peace

 

I think somewhere in there

Might be an invitation, which is

Why I write about this now

 

Because maybe

You’ll find something in the formula

I didn’t plan, and

I didn’t plan

 

Simply saying thank you

To the universe, to God

To a spirit, to an angel

For some measure of something

That will, if only as a single pea

(sorry if you don’t like peas, for

I know those who hate them),

Yet add nourishment to the day

 

A pea can accomplish something

It makes a whistle work

And disturbs the sleep of the

Princess

 

Something small can move along the tale

If only silent thanks

 

C L Couch

 

 

Mateusz Tokarski, ca. 1795 (National Museum in Warsaw)

Mateusz Tokarski – cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26953289

(still life with peas)

 

0

The Skiff

The Skiff

(Advent, anytime)

 

It’s the twentieth

Now we count for real

 

Will we have peace—

Will Bethlehem be accessible

This year

 

Peace in the heart

Might be all that’s left

Sometimes it must feel that way

And, honestly, it’s a good place

To start

 

Accent on the time

To find the quiet

Or stop the world another way

Pause it now and then

 

Five days

For remembrance

Make it our own liturgy of

Supplication

Over whatever waters we might have,

Still or stormy

 

Reaching for, and as,

A beacon through the mist

That’s joy

 

C L Couch

 

 

By laszlo-photo – https://www.flickr.com/photos/laszlo-photo/110887318/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5948809

In the early morning, a fishing skiff remains docked on the waters of Santa Marta Bai near Soto, Curacao (Netherland Antilles).

 

0

Something for Tomorrow

Something for Tomorrow

 

Some things are pithy

Some things are brazen

Some things are refined

Some wisdom is succinct

(though philosophy is not)

 

Don’t cry into your beer

Unless you want the taste;

Spitting into the wind

(as Croce advises)

Has the same problem with

A taste of something awry

(and maybe disgusting)

 

Love as if it were tomorrow

A gift set on your step today;

Find the joy,

If any joy be had

 

Endurance, if that’s all there is to have

Time is a possibility

(and love always a reminder)

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://pxhere.com/en/photo/789929

CC Public Domain

 

0

Pink Sunday

Pink Sunday

(Advent, anytime)

 

I’m not sure anymore

I first heard it was for Mary

Then for shepherds

Then for joy

That names the whole season

Third Sunday in this Christian season

Hanukkah is replete and resolved

Ramadan is far off

Kwanzaa near off

Diwali happened in colors that were glory

And Holi, even more color-resplendent, not so far past

For all the other days in

Commemorations,

There are all our calendars

We respect them parochially

By denomination, other division

 

We have a single clock, I guess

The one that keeps mean time

That is also Greenwich

 

Did you know

(I learned this recently) that

The first official mark of the equator

Got it wrong?

There is now a smaller one in Quito

That is more accurate

We do know that leap day

Doesn’t fill in the gap quite right

In earthly Gregorian days

And so the clock, atomically, must

Adjust for that,

Now and then

A second here, a nanosecond there

 

The notion of fill-in time is a relief

Because in it we say

That perfection yet again is an illusion

This side of the divine

Even when our clocks are right,

A change of shape in Earth

Or slippage in the sun’s relationship

And what is set is no longer

Set

And that has to be all right

 

It is

We can rest

(we have to)

Knowing

That precision is a neighborly matter

A finite issue with a ragged edge

As most countable measures behave

 

Not to say we shouldn’t strive for accuracy

We must

But even when we design bridges and

All crucial material constructions

We design from a foundation

Of a transcendental number from an

Unresolved equation

 

So nothing solved for keeps

For something squeezes over here

And crevasses over there

We have to fix it

 

Otherwise, we sit once again

At the feet of Ozymandias,

And the feet are clay

 

This is not bad news

For some design, some build, some fix

So we have a village

With the cities and oases on the plains

 

That is joy

That is pink

That is Advent already here

And like the faultless gerund

Always on the move

 

C L Couch

 

 

<a href=”https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/background”>Background image created by Freepik</a>

 

0

Prismatic

Prismatic

 

It’s math, you know

Yellow on blue and green

Make joy

Black and white equals

Good

All the colors are from God,

And they are gifts

That harmonize

The promise of a rainbow

The sign of Noah

A pledge not to

Destroy but leave things

To build

 

C L Couch

 

 

tree rainbow Africa

https://goo.gl/images/WWkhqD

 

0

Better

Better

 

I don’t know much about the world

It seems

I wish it were better

 

I’m offended

And I’m angry

Who really wants to care?

 

We have other things to do, less

Pandering to moods

Chosen when something more promising

Could be selected

 

Another code pressed on the emotion

Vending machine

I wonder maybe we have a number of tokens

And then the rest are gone

For deciding badly

 

For too-small convictions

When being noble in an un-ranked way

Would make the difference

 

Would light the factories

Would illuminate

Pockets and portals of prosperity

Nether (never) world

Intentions hide

 

Give it a chance

A two-step beneath the table

Smiling for no reason

Than

The joy in dawn-split morning

Or romantic night

The splendid times when

In spite of rusted gags and

Chains

Joy breaks free

5

Day 141

Day 141

 

Today is Day 141

In a one-hundred-eighty day

School year

 

Thirty-nine days to go

 

Thirty-nine?

What a drag!

 

Yes, daughter, but can

You not see what you have

Achieved?

 

Can you not feel progress?

How about some growth?

 

Try to find some joy in

Growing through the

Thirty-nine

 

You’re going anyway,

My dear

 

C L Couch

3

Us Icarus (inspired by Jacki Kellum)

Us Icarus

Oops Icarus,
An all-too-fine conviction
Of the troubled ones who
Try too high to fly
And those of us who
Thus fall

I wonder if it helps
That the parent in the
Mythic flight is older
And designer
Of the task ahead

If we learn to fly
Study something of
The design and
Making
Of the wings

Might our take-off
End in a landing that
Makes our flying
Success as well as
Joy

C L Couch
(inspired by Jacki Kellum’s compelling thoughts on balance, https://jackikellum.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/a-case-for-balance-recalling-the-myth-of-icarus-and-daedalus/)

5

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑