Aver
Affirm
As if
To make a pledge about it
We might aver the Lord
And all the works
Therein
Therefrom
Vocabulary
Syntax
Devotion to one’s homework
Enough so that the computers
Might stay running
In
A way the machines might
Talk to us
Share everything
After inputting
At least
Translucently
For spell-check and search engines
Sigh
School is worthwhile
After all
Establish
Learning all the time
As the model
For the way
As
Even Genesis
Continues
Certainly
The love
Made
And spoken of God
Go on
C L Couch
Photo by Sam Loyd on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
machine time
x
repeating numbers
for today
ones and twos
the sun is shining
angled beneath
clouds
mist that has risen
and such
above it could be blue
and then the black of space
with all our trash
and earnest vehicles
in orbit
x
look down
and there’s the floor
to the left
is cooling coffee
right in front
is this machine
with a screen that challenges
endurance
still so much easier to use
than typing through
a master’s degree
on Olympia, Corona,
and my sanity
x
remember paper?
that’s what we used
for turning in assignments
before the imposition
of electrons
paper, sticky stamps
other adhesives
it was a world, then,
that we could touch and hold
and know we’ve used
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Robby
x
God, I pray
The shots go well today
And the check after
At the cardiologist’s
Making sure machinery
Is operative
And optimal
x
A robot lubricated
Taken through the list
Before launching
Into new missions
Into the
Ordinary beyond
x
C L Couch
x
x
Robby the Robot in a poster for the original release of The Invisible Boy.
[image provided by] Reynold Brown – http://wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-i/invisible_boy_poster_01.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25167466
x
(x = space)
x
x
Machine Languages
x
Too much heat
A killing metaphor
But for now
I have the benefit of machines
The kind that cool,
The kind that distract
I’m lucky
Don’t I know it
x
In several months
I’ll need machines
The other way
And won’t I know it
To warm my food
To warm the rest of me
Against a northern
Winter
x
I have to thank machines
That bide my time
That give me time
To heal
To forget
To move through seasons
In a constant state
Like quicksilver
x
Like the cardinal
That, up here,
Flies through seasons
x
C L Couch
x
x
Cardinal diving down from tree.
Photo by gerhard crous on Unsplash
x
3 brief poems for the new year
(x = space)
x
x
May I Sell You a Machine?
(end of December)
x
According to commercials
At this time of year,
We should be losing weight
x
Grinding on exercise machines,
Finding our food in a box,
Engaging meditation maybe
Thirty seconds, maybe
Less
x
I suppose the box companies
Are doing well
And companies that make
Machines—I wonder
That machines are always doing well
x
We lose weight,
They weigh us down
x
x
Contemporarities
(2021)
x
God, help us in new years
Whenever they begin
In calendars,
In life
x
When someone dies,
When someone comes to life
x
Because she or he is born,
Because there is a return
To life
After pain, as she says
x
When the formal feeling comes
And something after
x
x
Our Sci-Fi Lives
x
Now is the science-fiction time,
Far enough into
The twenty-first century
That we may have some expectations
For reverse magnetism
And anti-gravity
x
For cities in the air and mining solely
By machines, enough that humans
Have jobs again
In new alliances
x
But we know how to fix it, at least
I hope we do,
The Earth that we have harmed;
And when we go, the missions we take
With us will not harm
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
I was a suburban kid but grew up in or near mining and steel-making country. And our city fell apart when the industries fell apart. If they could come back in local and safe ways, I should be relieved and very glad.
x
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
. . .
Emily Dickinson
x
Photo by Fabrício Severo on Unsplash
Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Bishop Street, The Lough, Cork, Irlanda
x
Sarehole Mill
The closest he would ever come
To loving a machine with anything
Near intimacy
He didn’t drive a car
He took the train (but did he
love the train, as many young
ones do?)
He was inclined to write by hand
Or so it seems
With all the inky manuscripting
And the drawing
I’m not sure he ever saw a movie
Courtesy of film-projector gears
But there was this mill
Still grinding corn
And did the Gaffer live there?
There were bricks and
Inside burnished metal
I wonder how it sounded
When coarse grain was pulled through
And did he ever try the product
There were trees close by,
There had to be
Or the feelings would have faltered,
I believe
How near to the heart of Hobbiton
It must have been moved, at last
Turned by water
Providing force enough
For humble profits,
All around
C L Couch
view of Sarehole Mill from the millpond, Birmingham, UK
Bs0u10e01 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66147691
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