(x = space)
x
x
Gift Exchange
x
A moment for a moment
An exchange for something better
If it had to be a memory
A moment when things seemed right
In the world,
Then I’d have to ask for something better
Something beyond me
Something good for you as well,
And the circle
That we are
And live upon
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Boy Who Knew Something
x
A spark of something
Blown on through the breeze
Of time
What did he know?
Something about dreams, perhaps
That dreams try
To work out something
And something about wandering
That loneliness
Is good
That reactive loneliness is hard
But being on one’s own
As a decision for oneself
Is not so bad
Bicycle
Riding across an empty schoolyard
Creeking
Climbing rocks
Falling
There’s a bruise
One survives
x
The working out of dreams
When dreams are ridiculed
That’s when it gets hard
Harder than the stones
One fell upon
Growing up will help
x
If only there could be an arc
So many things
Could be worked out
x
Call it memory
Call it inspiration
Allowed to last
Let it last
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Hugo L. Casanova on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Nos Temps Perdu
x
Bad memories
Shameful
We wince
But it’s okay
Freudianism aside
(which I guess
we cannot do,
not entirely)
They are over now
We don’t have to
Live them
There should be
Some knee-jerk
Relief in this
We don’t have to live them
More than once,
The once that lived them
x
There’s much to do,
Of course
Therapy and such
And telling those
Who must be told
While learning
Not to tell it again and again
To ourselves
Or live them
Many times more
x
Enough ownership
To say
That happened
It’s made a difference
Here it is
A thing that
Doesn’t have to rule
My nerves
x
Then there are
The good parts:
Learning
Or sometimes simply pleasure
Recalled from
Good things that have happened
If we’re going to live in memory
From time to time,
There are
The good parts, too
And, oh yeah, there is today
Where we are now
x
Hello
Doctor
Name
Continue
Yesterday
Tomorrow
x
Machine memory
Human memory
Both have glitches
Both can be recollected
Let go or kept in health
With clarity
x
C L Couch
x
x
National Parc of Tassili n’Ajjer, Algerian Sahara, near Djanet, rock engravings (7000 years old)
Photo by Azzedine Rouichi on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Ghosts
x
I don’t mean
The kind that haunt
In stories
You know what I mean
That haunt for different
Reasons, sometimes
Only memory
Without any fright
A different kind of pain
In remembering
x
Have I lived too long?
I can’t count
The number who have died
I used to know them well
And they are,
You know,
Gone
Holes in my life remain
Small ones that expand
On certain days
x
I think the question might
Have to do with
How to keep them all
How to bear mortality
As well
So much by default
Makes it happen
All mortality,
And I won’t say I’m ungrateful
I am satisfied to be here
And for you
x
Some things will come in memory
And when everything wakes up
Greeting begins again
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Nolan Issac on Unsplash
Upstate New York Chapter, Rochester, United States
My best friend and I got some great shots in this abandoned place….I miss her.
x
(x = space)
x
x
Imposition of Immortality
x
The tree outside looked as if it were leaning toward the window. I mean big parts, think branches and the bow. Black against a gray sky, it all looked dramatic. Worse, a little scary. Trees have fallen down before. In the back, a large one, bringing many wires with it. In the backyard of the house I grew up in in Pittsburgh, a tall and wide willow. Fell in the night, covering the backyard to be seen in the daylight. The first big thing to fall in my nascent awareness. Will the new tree fall? I don’t know. Who does? The squirrels and dogs walked by? Qué será, será, the Spanish say (and Doris Day). It is what it is, we say these days. All we are is dust in the wind. I guess that goes for imposing trees as well.
x
C L Couch
x
x
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
x
Photo by Diane Helentjaris on Unsplash
Old carved tombstone of a weeping willow tree in a cemetery in the countryside near Purcellville, Virginia in Loudoun County. The cemetery was integrated with the graves of African American and white Americans as was the nearby church.
x
Clean Your Room
I don’t know what was the timing,
But every now and then it was
Time to clean our rooms
My mother said
I don’t recall how long it took
Things looked impressive, after
I never could keep
The look
I’m sure I wondered why
But now it’s people
(imminence and remembrance)
I have to sort
Place on a shelf or in a box
I’m not good at closing things
Walking away without
Leaving open cupboard doors
And drawers
(lids of boxes)
Leaving depths
Invitations
C L Couch
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Colleagues
I heard from my friends about
Their trip to Europe
My cat friends listened with
Me
We enjoyed the stories
Though they’d rather have their bowls
And I was a soft touch for them
While Mom and Dad
Had been away
But life returns to older ways
And all are here
I’ll see the images, go home
I’ll think about my parents
For some reason
How it was not
Easy
And, if vicarious,
The family I attend to
Now
Only tussles over
Unimportant things
So that negotiations never last
Because remembrance is
For
All the needful things we keep
C L Couch
Photo by sarandy westfall on Unsplash
Gunita
Remembrance
Until it might
Slip away,
Tripped not on
Forgetfulness
But rather
On the path to
Now
Then matters
Again,
A crystal
Record;
But while you
And I are here
Memory is
Present for the
Present
Even if we
Stumble over
Nostalgia
In our steps to
The sweetness of
This time
C L Couch
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.
HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!
Gutted
Walking through the house
Was strange: your
House that burned, now
Skeletal and
Perpendicular
Beams and cross-beams,
Bannister askew—rooms
Awash
In neutral shades of earth
And ash,
An appliance here or there;
For all the blackened parts
And where textures are
Impressed with soot and
Shadowed particles,
The house we see
Could be
Rising from the ground
As new:
Save for a generation’s
Life, now endowed only
By memory as legacy,
Which I think you saw
Upon the bones of
Your remembered home,
As we all walked through
clcouch123 
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