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peace

Normal Prophecy

(x = space)

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Normal Prophecy

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And shall we live today

In late fall

To the north

With spring away

Beyond the line

And before the others that

Define our place

For seasons

Though in the middle

I suppose

There must seasons

Too

x

And shall we have our fall

And then our winter

Not discontent

On sledding hills

And over frozen ponds

Our temperate zones

Replete with

Different-feeling times of year

Weather for planting

And for harvesting

As well

The mere tilting of the Earth

And shall Goldilocks

Be tilting

Too

Elsewhere

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The seasons to survive

With food

And beauty

Too

Both for our survival

In a changing world

Until the day

We walk through the valleys

In all zones

And in all zones

We walk in peace

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C L Couch

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“We Shall Walk through the Valley” is a hymn and anthem and is referenced here.

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Photo by Robert V. Ruggiero on Unsplash

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Fake Peace, Truth Waits (2 poems)

(x = space)

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2 poems

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Fake Peace

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We negotiate in air

While the real war goes on

The numbers we’ve collected

Make for

Phantom outrage

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We’ve learned to gather narratives

To help

Though hardness of head and heart

Like Pharoah’s

Or the safe distance of the Czar

The junta in a bunker

Technical commanders at the switches

For computers

Will not help

x

Stop it

We want to say

Though justification

Rationale

To go on while we’re winning

Think we are

Further compels us

x

There are sides

There are protests

There are groans

From hurt

And even dying people

More explosions

Inside walls

Bursting through

That might have been

Our homes

x

And now collateral

More numbers

Say we’re winning

Why negotiate

x

Come home sometime

What will there be

Rubble in defeat

(there’s rubble on the winning

side as well)

Enough to say

For losing

(and for winning)

We are done

With so much of our spirit

Surrendered over to

Waiting

For even a surer end

Damn the legations

x

Everything

Is over

Negotiate the absence

Of our families

(both sides)

Release the pain

And fill in all the losses

Like a journey through

Bomb craters

And we have no shoes

Only garments rent

From running

And now mourning

x

And you

Winners

Want negotiation

Naming the terms

If you can

Through all this

Forget it

I need food

And walls

And separation

From everything

And all of you

Even my own

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And this is war

Universally

With tense peace

After

And new hopelessness

To feel every day

Upon waking

Sensing

And recalling

So much blasted

So much gone

So many

Even those we argued with

Now gone

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Gone people

Name locations

Redraw

The lines

We do not care

The dead

And now

The living victims

Anyway

In war

And after war

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Truth Waits

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And what is true

Knowing that Pilate

Doesn’t wait

For an answer

But consigns the one

He asks

To a rabid crowd

Festered

And fettered

By the empires

And wasted doctrine

Rituals

That do not work

Make nothing better

But a promise

That the next world

Will be better

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Ready to

Tear the one apart

And is consigned to this

By the one

Who asks for truth

And doesn’t wait

For an answer

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The rhetorical question

But for a moment

Left unsaid

By further one

And then the other

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Truth

Suspended in the air

Wafting uselessly

Too far above the crowd

And a governor’s

Own house

And how we govern

Waiting longer

For an answer

Not from Rome

But re-released

From above

Where Pilate’s truth

Was captured

And let go

Refined

And can be received

By him

Had waited

And the crowd

Had it been stilled

Like the truth

Over the storm

In Galilee

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John 18:38

John 4:24

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C L Couch

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Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

(THIS IS WHO I AM)

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nether campaigning

(x = space)

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nether campaigning

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the demon

knows a gun

or a Bible

and what shape

a trench might take

and the cosmic trouble

when a soul is gone

then how to argue

for salvation

of the other

the wide pathway

into hell

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demon thwarted

demon satisfied

a report for

adversaries

smallest of decrees

ringing through

one judgment

or the other

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two kinds of howls

for outcomes

two kinds of retributions

for the work

in afterlife

after a soul is counted

one way

or the other

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they lose

you know

the demons

finally

they have contracted

signing by descent

to grasp for

less and less

until after last battles

when the aftermath

is simply

nothing

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c l couch

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one might read The Great Divorce or Revelation 22 of the Christian testament

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photo by Jani Kaasinen on Unsplash

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The USA President in Israel

(x = space)

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The USA President in Israel

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The President speaks in Israel,

There’s something popping with

Small flames

Outside the embassy;

He speaks mostly in support of Israel

Though he speaks to

Civil and civilian losses

On both sides,

All sides

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Because there are sides

Having removed from each other

Because

There is a war

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Hamas should not have done what it did

To start;

That was sinful

And stupid:

It was followed by

The deaths of many citizens

Around Hamas

(I mean geographically

and also

dis-strategically),

The destruction of homes

In Gaza,

Hospitals

And so many lives together

And the lives alone

x

The Israelis

Suffered

First,

Others underneath

Or beside

The missiles

And the bombs,

All the bullets fired;

And Israel responds with wrath

x

Hamas keeps fighting,

There is a war

x

Are there promised weapons

For Hamas?

Promised philosophy?

The codes–

The Jewish, Muslim–

Say

To love the neighbor,

Welcome the stranger,

Understand that creation

Is an act of love

x

The greatest power

Behind success of nations

As it is behind

The cosmos

And the reason

For the cosmos

x

On the devil’s table,

Looking one way or the other,

Is now a bullet-point,

A mark

For thoughts and plans

Of genocide

Believing that

We get rid

Of a people

Then all shall be well

x

And so the fighting

In this hellish hope

And demons’ cause;

They cheer infernally

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It’s people

Not agendas

Killed:

The abstract, ersatz

Notions remain

Weaving a web

And also caught up in it,

An ouroboros

That consumes itself

To add a symbol

To the metaphor

x

We have nowhere else to go

Said Golda Meir to

Senator Biden

Some years ago,

And it is true

And also true

In fact and spirit

For many Palestinians

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Both of us are there,

Both are home

x

How could diasporas

Be on the table, too?

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What Hamas did

Was stupid

And sinful

Warfare on a quietish,

Tense day

Like any other there

And now there are fronts

Fighting also on mixed lines

With and beside the plans

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People

Ununiformed

And uniformed

Suffering the most

On all sides

Of the weapons

x

There shall be an end,

Cessations maybe

Then the end

And what then shall happen?

Who shall win?

We think there shall be a winner

And with reason

But crazy to believe

Anything shall be resolved

For good

(for good)

In victory

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The losers shall be punished

And might be promised

Through back doors

Into dark rooms

That nothing is over

When there shall be new campaigns

From promises

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Cessation might

Overlay a mask of peace

That for relief

Might be suitable

For a while

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I’m sorry,

I’m afraid,

We are afraid

Victimized by terror and by war

Who pray

Who petition for

Practical peace

x

Out of love that is not sweetness,

Well,

Is sweetness

But wears a skin of wounds

With scars

Still persists

Far more real than

We tend to think

Instead

Of worldly power

x

Please come to the right

Even righteous table

x

End the war

With tense

Satisfaction

Then go for peace for real

On this side of everyone’s

Parousial paradise

Ungained

Maybe blasted,

Might be apocalypsed

But not yet lost

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C L Couch

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Photo by ritesh singh on Unsplash

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1

Dona Nobis Please

(x = space)

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Dona Nobis Please

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God

I wish I knew a round

And had a choir

Volunteered

x

A canon in the better sense

For meaning without questioning

The bias

x

I guess

What I really mean

Is to write the round

For exigence

A canon for the evening

Fluidly

To welcome stars

And thoughts of rest

And afterward

Retire

With notes to welcome dreams

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Amen

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C L Couch

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Photo by Adam Ulrich on Unsplash

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New Shapes

(x = space)

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New Shapes

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In the new century

When everything’s

An artifact

We’ll skew some things

Add our biases

That might be better

Might be inclined toward

An actual

Prosperity

x

In peace

We have declared some things

No more

Metal and blood war

Outside

We have enough

With

Environmental warfare

Chemical destruction

The legacies of hate

On all fronts

Which we’re trying to

Reform

And then re-form

Like plastics

Into spaceships

x

Welcome the new era

Should you

Time-travel

You might

Not recognize it

A universal language

Appreciation of unique

And favorable

A celebration of progress

In unity

While

Yes

We’re working on the hatred

And the other sins

We keep inside

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It’s frightening

It’s new

We can’t be humanists

Not thoroughly

But must try

In alliance with God-parts

With the liminal

The numinous

We are spiritual in part

After all

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Sigh

We have far to go and

We know that

Both open and oblique

Our novelists

Will tell us so

Our poets

Keep us honest

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C L Couch

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Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

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Juneteenth in Days

(x = space)

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Juneteenth in Days

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Juneteenth

Again

It’s coming

Don’t you like the sound

There might be

A proclamation

Somewhere

But we know how it sounds

It sounds for freedom

Ring a bell

On the day

Those who know

Shall know

And shall proclaim

Inside the heart

That this was a good day

A needful day

Against the tragedy

Of people

Who possess the sin

Believing

We may own another person

Other people

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Treating

Counting them

As assets

Treating them

Like harvest

From the field

Or the factory

While building

Cities

Homely or large

Across the nation

In the heart

Of the land

And air and water

So many things

That should be willing

At no cost

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Burn

Then

For freedom

Have good days

And set

Domestic fires

Carefully

For warmth

And for tomorrow

The twentieth

And then midsummer

And all seasons

To be free

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C L Couch

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Photo by Wolf Zimmermann on Unsplash

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“The Smallest Things,” “Peace Relative”

(x = space)

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The Smallest Things

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It’s cold

There is a blanket

There are enough things

For morning coffee

And toast

For breakfast later on

There is sunlight

So our whole planet

Has another

Day

There is water

I can drink

x

I can wash things

I can

Wash me

x

I have trash

Lined up in bags

Somewhere to take it

I have other piles

(boxes)

By the door

That should I have the

Help

Can go away

Be useful for others who

Might need some things

I had

x

My

Neighbors

Beat the ceiling

But there are no literal explosions

We are lucky

We have things

We can share

When

We want to

We can live in peace relative

To what’s inside

But peace for war

All

The same

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C L Couch

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Peace Relative

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Relative to war

And to shutting doors

To keep things out

As if

We hadn’t seen or heard them

Once before

Or every day

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Relative to shining in

With sunlight

Rather than

Explosives

Something negligent

Or something planned

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Maybe not peace everywhere

Not yet

And peace organic

Certainly not remaining

Only

Peace from graves

x

Gravesides are pretty

And they’re quiet,

Mostly

We can do so much better

We should

We must

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We want

To be there

At the end

And how about

A single turning page

Into the story of

Today?

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Be there for that

Lift each other

The greater adventure

Is not war

Or even matter turned to energy

(it should go

the other way around)

But matters

Of the story

Withheld until we know

We have

Today

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Next chapter

Please God

Please

Each other

Please

Let’s have the next

Have the next

Now

x

Now

Now

And now

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C L Couch

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Photo by Nowshad Arefin on Unsplash

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News for the Nichols Family

(x = space)

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News for the Nichols Family

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The attorney is speaking on TV

And no doubt on line

x

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

x

We are happy with

The D.A.’s office

(paraphrasing)

And this becomes our cause

Expedient justice

x

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

x

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

x

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

x

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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