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News for the Nichols Family

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News for the Nichols Family

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The attorney is speaking on TV

And no doubt on line

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Programmers await

The bodycam

How shall this be gauged?

How shall the length

Be moderated?

I can go

Back to the local news

While I decide

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We are happy with

The D.A.’s office

(paraphrasing)

And this becomes our cause

Expedient justice

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I doubt that Tyre cares

Though his family might be bound:

If I found a lost someone

In my life

To cop violence

What should I do

Inside and outside?

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This could happen

It’s happening

We shoot each other

Stab each other

Throw other things with edges

Use our vehicles

And we have the officers

Who work out

Whatever working out

With different kinds

Of crimes,

Misdemeanors on

To felonies

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Our felonious society

There is justice there

There is safety

But in an unjust way

They have become selective

While most of us

Have to hope

Either side

Will not crash into

Our lives

To hurt too much

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And this might be the best

Not to get hurt so much

And to bear the scars

That might be

A science, too,

Into lives we only hope

Mostly unscathed

Day by day

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Then there’s color

That could be a signal

For delight

But totems pain and shame

Instead

Is there an answer?

Bring us in

Bring it in

All of us

Every one

Bury our dead as if

Each one were a victim

In a campaign

Like a war

Wait for the war to end

And fight unweaponed

Save by principle

And rhetoric,

The discourse and the common

Sense

To have it right

To have the land and air and water

Right

For life

In praise of sentience

And of consciousness

Let freedom ring

We sing

(we wing)

Let each one live

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C L Couch

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This is the noon hour on the day after charges were announced against officers allegedly involved in the death of (Ty-REE) Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee (USA).

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Photo by Mr Cup / Fabien Barral on Unsplash

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The Latest

(x = space)

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The Latest

(family things)

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My brother’s in the hospital

I’m not sure what that means

He fell

I know that much

He spent the night outside,

Which I think must mean

There’s trauma

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A body worked too hard

A body with cancer worked too hard

A neighbor saw him in the morning

And called 911

He’s hundreds of miles away

And he’s in the hospital

In downtown Pittsburgh

My sister says the hospital is good

Urban, smart, efficient

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Everyone knows their jobs

And what to do for him

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Now we know

We’re standing by

Something will happen

And we’ll all come in

It doesn’t have to take an ending

He simply needs to be in one place

Or another

For a time

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What contemporary medicine allows

And Medicare affords

A rehab center

For new fractures

While his cancer’s tended

And he

And everyone

Must deal with that

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We’ve been out there

When and where shall we go now?

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I’ve rattled all this off

Because

I don’t know how to be ready

For what’s next

I wish I had resources

Of all kinds

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Family things

Obviously

Certainly (to push on

the conceit) I don’t mind

If you know

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If you pray,

Maybe you’ll pray

I believe the power in that

God bless him

And help us all

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C L Couch

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Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash

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Wake Up, Now

(x = space)

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Wake Up, Now

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I haven’t heard

Or read the news

Seen images move

Across the screen

Or be still

There

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So what happened

Overnight?

It’s Saturday

What high schools

Might be happier

For Friday’s games?

What nations

Changed?

Who might be in charge

Now?

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How many

In the hospital

From one of or some or all the reasons

Who is on the way to heaven

Or purgation

We can only pray

And hope

For good things now for them

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What have I wakened

Into?

How is my home

Of planet Earth?

What’s happening outside

That we only know now

As news,

Carried from light years away?

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And what might happen here

Today?

I won’t know, of course,

Until the hours

Come to me

And I to them

Good morning, world

Good morning beyond the world

And inside

Where things are happening

Cellularly, too

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And can I think of God

First thing?

I don’t think I can

I’m not devout

I’ll get to God

Once consciousness

And the lines of things

The shadows

And the shapes of light

Are seen

And anything to hear

Is heard

Maybe what woke me up

If the timing is untoward

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I’m thinking of God now

For correction

A moment of chagrin

Wishing

(one wish of three wishes,

if there were a story

happening)

Wishing

I were faithful

Like the faithful

Waking up

To hear

And somehow see

Taste and smell

And touch

The agencies of God

And then the world

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Sigh,

Good people

Special people

Waking up

So wonderfully

And usefully

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C L Couch

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Photo by Rhamely on Unsplash

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Death Toll in Kentucky

(x = space)

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Death Toll in Kentucky

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I am from there

I am from other places

Doesn’t matter

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I don’t need to know

The topography

The lay of the land

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The floods have happened

People have died

Many things are ruined

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The count continues

While the water rules

And there’s no good way through

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Forgotten parts of the world

Except in songs

Shows from NPR

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There are storms, I know

And people die

And land is ruined

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These people are one by one

Discovered

And remembered

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There are stories

There will be more

And we should be grateful

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Some places might rise

When dry

Some remain below

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In hollow places

In the Earth

Inhabited

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Uninhabited

For ages

The hollers

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Remembered

Unremembered

We can only hope

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All the counting

Numbers and greater meaning

And their stories

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C L Couch

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Kentucky Flooding Death Toll Rises to 37 as Governor Says Hundreds Remain Unaccounted for

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/01/weather/kentucky-appalachia-flooding-monday/index.html

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Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

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Break, Break, Break

(x = space)

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Break, Break, Break

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I feel the weight

Of everything

And my heart can’t take it

Well, it can

I hope it can

It’s the manifestations of emotions

The effects

Of what has happened

Bad news

Does it get worse

Or does it feel worse?

Maybe I’m enduring

Or preparing

Where is Nietzsche’s strength?

Whatever doesn’t kill us

Leaves scars

Hard tissue

And doesn’t acclimate us

Better than

A more pedestrian process

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No, as it goes on

We might become inured

While underneath

Our hearts

Break and break again

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C L Couch

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“Break, Break, Break”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash

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While I Was Writing

x = space)

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While I Was Writing

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On the news just now,

A hypersonic missile

Purportedly in China

China denies it

We want the same thing

China isn’t evil

Though sometimes

Sometimes we are evil

We all should know better

And we do

We do what we hate

Give it a name,

Security

Secure would be

Not to have these things

In Xanadu,

Kublai Khan decreed

An extraordinary place

And I hope everyone was fed

There

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C L Couch

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Alhambra de Granada

Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash

Alhambra, Spain

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Amnon

(x = space)

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Amnon

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I don’t know what

To say about the women

Who have died

Who were murdered

Or left

To die another way,

Another kind

Of murder

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Casualties

In war or other

Barbarism

Starved, thirsted

Frightened

Or abandoned out

Of existence

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We can do this

We can do this to each other

Men can do this

To women

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C L Couch

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[Image by] Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China – Winged Victory of Samothrace, Marble, c. 190 BC, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101242500

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Lathes and Crucibles

(x = space)

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Lathes and Crucibles

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What shall we say to God

Between sabbath times

Or other times of prayer

Or times when none of us

Are praying?

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Shall we say

We’re rather tired, rather

Busy, rather occupied with

Real things—money and

Mortgages and relationships

(and these are real)?

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When God asks us, in

Turn, what have you for me?

Knowing he does not mean

Money or mortgages

Or relationships (not their

numbers, certainly),

What shall we say?

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But we were busy

But we meant to,

Well, you know

You know, you know the

World—so why bother us?

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Can we not put a peg

In salvation?  Can we not

Reserve a space for the

Apocalypse?  A room when

We hear you have

So many rooms?

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This might tear grace apart

Hope might cry

Salvation might be small,

Smaller in number

Than was planned

The mansion empty

With all our watches

At the door,

Just outside

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Why do we believe in God?

I asked my mother

Because people are afraid

Of going to hell,

She said

And there’s wisdom there,

Pragmatic

Though she had better faith,

I know

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Faith is not for empty wings

But for a heart and mind

And soul

To fly

The rituals won’t answer

When the angels (solid beings

rife with wings)

As on behalf of God

To bar the way with

Flaming swords

And molten tears, weeping

For God’s way

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The narrow way

That wasn’t meant to be

But for our refusal

Widened the other

Set fenceposts of denial,

Left out arrows

Of deception,

Tour guides with toothy

Grins

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Metanoia

Turning as in

Repentance

Paint the other way

(a pun in English)

We have time

For the sake of miracles

And grace,

There might be seconds

For the future

What you are going to do,

Do it now

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C L Couch

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(goodness, this is grim—but so is the news today)

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By H005 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8384955

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Shots Fired

(x = space)

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Shots Fired

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Shooting in Indianapolis

Many killed

Then the shooter

Suicides,

Which might have been the plan

Or nascent horror

In reaction

That what has been done

And how it really looks

And sounds

And smells

All senses bely everything,

The shooter’s truth

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I know people there

So do you

Six degrees

Less

Five for being

Human

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Now there’s talk

About the weather

As if there were

No separation

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We can graft it all together—

Watch, we’re doing it

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I don’t want

To know, either

It’s gross, and I’m trying

To deal in closer things

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But there it is

We do living color well

In irony of tones

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The coffee’s late

The toast is early

I’m not cycling well with the news

And please

Sell windows at another time

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In Europe,

I understand

They used to add them up

The advertisements

To show them at one time

A day

And give awards for them

That everyone would follow

In gratitude, no doubt,

For separation

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That we can do

Ecclesiastes says so

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C L Couch

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/16/us/mass-shootings-45-one-month/index.html

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Photo by Zinko Hein on Unsplash

Yangon, Myanmar (Burma)

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