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The Twenty-Sixth

(x = space)

x

x

The Twenty-Sixth

x

Now is the time

For peace on Earth

When there is no binding holiday

No slogan

No official reason

We must slosh inside the ordinary

Mind

Hope for the best

With hoping

Because there is a job to do

Gift wrap to amass

Maybe hope

For extended appreciation

Of the gift

x

Here it’s cold

There is no snow

What is a child to do

Outside?

How is it where you are?

Well,

There are screens

And some controls

To occupy

Maybe made up of more

Than metal

And plastic

x

War goes on

That’s literal

And horrible

I don’t think it paused

For the official reason

Yesterday

Aiming for infrastructure

Destroying daily need

Aiming for

The sanctity of home

And then the nation

x

I mean Ukraine

Of course

But ask around

It’s happening elsewhere

x

Maybe it can’t happen

I heard the bells on Christmas day

When the pastor had no hope

Except to write

x

But today

Is the twenty-sixth

Only ordinary reasons

Will compel

Though that’s the only kind of peace

That lasts

The kind beside the holiday,

Lacking cachet

That’s global

Or across the street

x

Peace in normal living

Pericardial

Beneath the cranial sutures

Satisfying daily muscles, too

x

Yes, there is a Boxing Day

And turtles doves are due

And Hanukkah

The Festival of Lights

Completes

Its wonder

And bestows

x

And there are other dates

In other places

We don’t know

And they matter

With or without the nations

Knowing

Or the neighborhoods

x

What might be happening

Where you are

As your own

And annual thing?

x

But with all lack of ritual

We have

There were storms

Taking lives

In New York

And in the South

There is the danger in

Deep, freezing temperatures

x

And that’s here:

What’s happening with you?

x

Lights are on in capital cities

Not lit for holidays

x

There is no peace on Earth

The pastor said

And then the bells were heard

Through winter windows

x

Bells can ring a lot

As angels can call

Inside desert skies

It doesn’t have to take a day

Or twelve days

Or their nights

x

Listen

In undesignated times

x

Through the daily and dark glass

We must

Practice

Belief in clarity

There is real peace

In store

Even after falling

(after Eden)

Perfection not required

No more than fancy dress

To come inside

To keep the outside, too

x

Let’s have peace

Beyond the demons

Even the Skeksis

You might know

That’s also black

And brown and gray

With splashes of

Bright colors

That mean promise

x

Inside our kitchens

And our resting places

x

Where we study

Where our children play

Where we have our jobs

For pay

x

Cessation

Then a waging peace

Everywhere that’s

Unextraordinary

x

We may claim a season still

Or simply have the one

We have

Without an ego calling

x

Ordinary peace, of course

Start with restraint

Then offer simply

Globally

On many worlds

With all groups

All numbers of inhabitants

x

The words of love

Then actions

That profit nothing

Like the world

But keep the world

x

Practices

That work in capitals

And under smaller domes

Homely contentment

In the happiness in others

Yes, that prosaic

x

Don’t worry

If you must worry

The effect

Without expectation

Cross lines

Or move in shapelessness

Of time and place

Over, inside the world

And on all worlds

Like the song

Great and small

x

C L Couch

x

x

CNN

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”

The Dark Crystal

“All Things Bright and Beautiful”

x

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

x

0

I’m Taking My Break

(x = space)

x

x

I’m Taking My Break

x

The haunting rises from

The coffee cup

When the liquid’s hot

Enough,

Aided by the air

That might be just-right cool

x

A spell upon the world

Not cast by anyone

Not by un-sentient machines

Or by any eldritch

Part

Of us

x

Like morning fog

There’s beauty in the vagueness

Indefinition

Wonder, too, as we look

Through

To the same as ever

And it’s not the same

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Ayaneshu Bhardwaj on Unsplash

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2

Remember the Sabbath

(x = space)

x

x

Remember the Sabbath

x

To keep it holy,

That is,

Set aside

For a spiritual purpose

Take ordinary things

Like the materials

For temple and for church

x

Like rest and relaxation

Contemplation

Talking about easy things

As well

Easy play

The pleasure of your company

Ordinary things

Set aside in honor of creation

And creator

That’s all we need to do

One commandment kept

x

We may interpret;

We’ve denied it

And the consequences

Having been directed

Over ages

x

Ordinary set aside

It should be a good day

On another day, when scheduling

Demands

I’ve said before, but I didn’t

Make these things

That go on being made:

A new set of six days follows

Then a seventh

A new chance

Almost absurdity

Of reason

ETs will ask,

And you didn’t take the free

Day that your God directed you

To take?

We’ll be leaving now

x

Have the sabbath day

It’s good, clean fun

Let’s hope we could manage that

Against ongoing, human depravity

The other days

It is the easiest of hopes

And means

A sabbath

For salvation

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

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1

Not Unusual Sunday

(x = space)

x

x

Not Unusual Sunday

(which is to say, ordinary time)

x

Lord, help me

To be ordinary today

To be faithful

In the usual way

To go to church

Think churchy thoughts after

For a while

To play a little

Finish my homework

Get ready for tomorrow

Monday,

You know

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

x

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Ultra People

(x = space)

x

x

Ultra People

x

I’m not an action figure

Never was

Don’t need the cape

Like Superman

Or the long coat

Of Doctor Who

Don’t need a phonebooth

To the stars

Unless I really, simply want

To explore

x

Don’t have powers

Death rays from the eyes

And such

Don’t need to fly

Without an airplane

Or balloon

(though I really, really wish I could)

Don’t need to have

My brain increased

Extra organs

Added

Preternatural strength for

Fighting vampires or

Solving the universe

x

I am me

You are you

Without the uniforms

Or leagues

We’re still okay

Viable for God

And planet Earth

x

C L Couch

x

x

Puerta de Alcalá by Night

Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez on Unsplash

Madrid, Spain

x

2

Missing Magic

(x = space)

x

x

Missing Magic

x

Well, that was a clutter

Messages, groceries by the door

Coffeemaker, toaster

Mail

And nearly all of it

I slept through

Catching the final beep

From the phone

Signaling that

So many things had happened

In my Prufrock world

I don’t have a peach

And the part is in the middle

I’ve only heard the mermaid sing

In the Disney movie

But there is color outside

And cool air to breathe

x

And I shall go

Not

To strive or find

Yes, not

To yield

I doubt there will be a grail,

Either

Or a dragon

And if a dragon, we should

Become acquainted

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Artiom Vallat on Unsplash

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0

Protocol

(x = space)

x

x

Protocol

x

Sorry that this must be news

This should be ordinary

x

There will be a shot today

Not heard ‘round the world

Simply a needle into skin

With the release of

New chemicals inside

The body

x

Then another shot, as is the

Protocol, in a while

x

C L Couch

x

x

Image by Markus Distelrath from Pixabay

x

1

The Ordinaries

The Ordinaries

 

The dog is old and that concerns me

It should concern me for me, too

But I am inside and have some idea of

What’s going on

What’s going on with you?

 

It is in ordinary time

Running long between Pentecost and

Advent

With special days in between, such as

All Saints’ and All Souls’

It is our time

As Sean Astin’s character in The Goonies

Says

Down here, this is our time

 

Down here, we are ordinary

I have little idea how time in heaven goes

There was a war there, so we think

Our lore recalls a third of heaven fell

Maybe Eden was

A strategy for getting back

 

What we know is

We have this day

For our old dogs

An aging Earth that sometimes

In whirlwinds

Acts as if it knows no limits

And will live forever

In wildness

Without rules or counting,

Which is amazing

And is dangerous

 

Down south where I am now,

Folk really like their porches

They sit on special outside chairs

They rock, they glide

They tell stories

Sometimes it’s only the weather

 

But tell me there isn’t gospel in this

Good news that after storms

We will recover

And we will meet each other at least twice

Here and in extraordinary living

There

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jason Chen on Unsplash
3

Every Time I Feel

Every Time I Feel

 

Every time I write

I might mean to do the spiritual

Thing, idea, icon

Proposition

(I know it’s okay if I don’t)

Not to moralize

Though I suppose there is that, too

Not question training, either

 

But to say the numinous is here

Real as a knife

Diaphanous as insect wings

Forever as gravity

(there are fields in space)

Earth itself a lesson for

Eternity

And the need for choice

To have it

 

I think God is present

In the grocery store

Between the dog’s shoulders where

I rub

Riding on the new back bumper

Installed after the accident

 

God is inside the mosquito

Next to the disease

Maybe to apologize

As if to say, you chose this way

Back in the garden

Though maybe you hate me for it

Maybe you want to know I want everyone

To be well

Maybe you don’t

 

There is the book, the letters on a page

The mountaintop, the solid roots

Beneath

God is not these things

But is with them all

And with us in the shallow or the deep

In something no one knows

And the everything under the sun

That no one’s ever overlooked

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Chen YiChun on Unsplash

 

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