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peace

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(x = space)

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Really

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My wish for you

Is that you know some peace today

Even if you think

You don’t want it

Yes

I’m praying for something

You don’t want because you’d rather enjoy

Vengeance

The passion that comes

In blaming someone else

For all misfortunes

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My sibling friends

Enjoy some peace

Not that I give it though I’m asking

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You might think it’s stupid

Weak and empty

Like a promise that we

Conveniently forget

But if Blake is correct that

Energy is delight

Then

I’m going to add a step to the syllogism

And argue A equals B equals C

(equals A)

That peace is energy

Leading the better way

To the rest

Of meaningful

Always in motion

Life

With all existence

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Peace is energy is delight

Thank you

Mister Blake

Thank you

Power in prayer

Even when

Upstart offered

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C L Couch

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In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake writes “Energy is eternal delight.”

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Photo by Aswin on Unsplash

Tivoli Gardens, København, Denmark

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2

Earthly Revelation

Earthly Revelation

 

Peace,

Let us have peace

The Skeksis pleaded

In The Dark Crystal

I think he meant it, though

The times were changing

And so he couldn’t have it,

Not his way

The way was not to change

To keep power in its place

Let prophecies go by,

Ignore the signs

 

But sometimes things are

Larger than ambition

(Did I say sometimes?),

And the larger things will have

Their way, especially

When, what do you know,

Peace is the end

A lasting kind

Because the sky has willed it

Not violent design

No, never

 

My voice sounds old

Maybe it is

I tire of the ranting

Maybe you do, too

And if you’re young,

Then you have an early start

On wisdom

Good for you

And for the world,

Remembering that fantasy

As dear Jim knew

Can inspire minds

And hearts

For real,

For really good work

Since change is destiny

 

Since change is destiny,

Let’s make it grand

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Justin Kauffman on Unsplash

 

 

2

Elsewhere

Elsewhere

 

Is there war elsewhere

Maybe where you are

But maybe guns were held up

And the loading of them

Fingers withheld from buttons

Launching missiles

Or the switches from grenades

It’s a question that pandemics

Might quiet war, some

 

There will be violence

People shoot each other

Stab and hit with whatever

Nations have agendas against

Nations, this nation

Among them

 

But might the fear of illness

Death from infection

Become an agenda, too

And might our attention be mislaid

From war, if only for a while

So that we might attend to this

Instead, something the world

Should attend to

 

And could it be that noises change

From the usual reasons to

Others: ailments, hospital workers,

Ambulances for the sick,

Mourning from disease instead

Of how we do each other

 

When it’s done

When that might be

We might all take a breath

And then another

And maybe take a salient moment

Then another

To rethink, if only some

The business of war and the

Destruction only we can make

There might be peace in treatment

Let some make it last

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

 

1

The Battle of Antarctica

The Battle of Antarctica

 

The battle of Lepanto

Where Cervantes lost a hand

The battle of Gallipoli, where

The artillery barrage had

Done no good

And so many Anzac soldiers

Died (like those in gray

with gingham inside led

Into Pickett’s charge)

The battle of Antarctica

It hasn’t happened yet

Except in novels, where it’s

Tragic that the last clean place on

Earth must have bomb-holes

And blood and other human

Wreckage wrought

Afterward, to stand as

Life-deserted monuments

For life had fled

We tore it out of bodies

As with the earth and sea

 

It’s what I think about

Today

While branches press on windows

Not invading but in greeting of

The day and even me

With a way of generous beauty that I

Do not understand

 

Conflict is small pain that grows,

Sometimes to tire me

In books

Though writers did not invent it

And readers have to learn

About it, again and again

‘Til nature stops, crestfallen

Due to our mistakes in self-destruction

Or, miracle of our making,

Stunned that we could get it

Right

Welcome “peace prevail” on poles (recycled)

Into

Every foxhole for repentance

And inside craters dug out with

Our bombs, before

 

With grace dispensed

Somehow

By human peace

 

C L Couch

 

 

No machine-readable author provided. Pablo-flores assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=334483

A Peace Pole in the neighbourhood of Empalme Graneros, Rosario, Argentina. The pole has four sides, with the message “May peace prevail on Earth” written in four languages; this pole shows the message in Guaraní and (barely) in Spanish. The other two languages are Toba and Italian. I, Pablo D. Flores, took this picture myself, in September 2005.

 

3

Megiddo

Megiddo

 

We need some peace,

Please

The quiet of a moment

Canceling out the noise of

Satan for a time

Minions, silly, yes

Of hell

We call them trolls and lurkers

So we don’t have to

Take it seriously

 

Cancel conversation

Isn’t that the same?

Not to think about what we say

But to turn and, because

We will not see it,

Ignore the table where

We might negotiate

And afterward have feasted

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Megiddo”

James Emery from Douglasville, United States – Megiddo_0665, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3455383

 

7

Inventing Peace

Inventing Peace

(in three small acts)

 

1

Peace comes from within

And also without

It’s an invention, a discovery

A state of mind

It’s an accomplishment

Takes years

Something always just ahead

Out of reach

Of mortal hands

Means

 

But we make it happen, yes?

It starts and ends with me

All right, maybe another

A small circle

Dedicated to agreement

But that’s it

We get a place of comfort

And we decide

We have it

 

2

And then the big barns of the wealthy

Look useless for God calling up

The builder before

Any more was put inside

Oh, so someone must be involved

That person

I should pray

And go to church, now and then

And give something to the poor

That taken care,

I’ll have earned

Beatitude

 

Well, no

In this dialogue with me

Since you’ve gotten me involved

Through invocation

I must tell you

Peace is not for you

It never was

What!

 

3

Peace is for the poor

Don’t worry, the poor can own many things

But they can’t be you

You disqualified yourself

Almost at birth

That can’s be

You’re not fair!

 

Not all the time, no

But I’m just

You’re human

You, your people, asked to have it so

And so it’s been

You live in will

That means you live with sin

Beneath the skin

Your parents might have done it for you

But you owned it, soon as possible

Oh,

 

Okay, I see

What do you want?

Much

But that’s another conversation

Call it prayer, call it confession

I’ll call it pardon

Repentance and then reconciliation

Look there, I’ve given it all away

You want peace?

Do that

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Sparrows on the Snow – pictures edited with my presets that you can find on my website in BIO

 

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Peace for All Time

Peace for All Time

(a three-part cycle)

 

1

Machine Language

 

Each moment’s a decision

To exhale,

To circulate some blood

To let the body stir for a while longer

To let the synapse burn

Brightly with mind-fire,

Transactions between what’s happening

And memory

Much of this is done for us

But there’s a partnership, I think

Between all parts

The automatic will take over for

The temporary

When immediacy of thought and movement

Are tired out

Call it sleep

Call it the second cup of tea

Taken on the porch

When for a time there’s nothing else to do

And this has been invoked

Because needed,

The ending of which we’ll debate

 

Peace an invention,

A transaction

Between all partners

Serving on the inside

 

2

Contrition

 

I won’t take it back

Not yet

I need to know the outcome,

Did I get anything I wanted

 

If penance is a prayer,

I’ll do my part

If it’s in bad feeling,

I’m already there

And counting

 

A return to normalcy

And what is that

It takes me out of this

Otherwise, I want

The special moments back

 

But it’s the future, now

Plu-imperfect

 

Please

Say them with me, maybe

All the prayers,

Then let’s move on

 

3

The Answer Is in Someone Else as Well

 

Inner peace

That’s cool

It’s not enough

If I’m in my chrysalis

And have no sight of yours

Or time

 

Where is my peace

If not in you?

This is cheating an invocation,

For it’s not a talk to God

But to you

The one nearby

And not inside

We need transaction, too

And more

 

You need to carry me

And I a part of you

A magic story in which twins

Keep a gem lit by the light force

Of the other

And there’s responsibility

 

In our story,

We will partner differently

That is, for real

Not to prevaricate conditions

But to say push on

Make peace because

We know each other now

To arbitrate

 

And there’s no other way

To build the day

That each must have

Into a present contract

As the future

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jarrod Reed on Unsplash

 

0

Don’t Mind Me

Don’t Mind Me

 

Oh, Christopher

Christophoros

So you’re nothing

Nothing’s good

The mystics would be envious

I don’t mean annihilation

That would be bad

But death to self is something else,

I think

Because you do not go away

As if there were nothing left of you

You are woke into a different place

With people you might know

Some kind of belonging

We might call it a heavenly host

But you are retained as you

You are even loved

Now and you know before

As it may have happened, then

 

The death to self is prayer

So cleansed and clean

As to have nothing left but righteous intercession

Something to be gained

Such a death to self so that

There is only prayer for others

Disinterest in agenda

But the willingness to bleed some more

If like a transfusion

It might bring some living to another

This is sacrifice

Not immolation but

A gift of love

From which nothing will be returned

 

A love I do not understand, for now

Or the peace that passes it

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

Santa Barbara, United States

A shot I captured during dinner with my Grandpa and my niece.

 

2

Secular Gospel

Secular Gospel

 

We cannot save ourselves

Though there is something for us

In soteriology

 

There is a cracked notion

(I tried it once in college

as an exercise)

That a ruinous approach to everything

Will hasten Armageddon

As designed by God

 

To think that we can hasten divinities

Is vanity

That aliens would not presume

In visitation,

Our unbelieving version

Passing for so much heaven

 

We must do what we can

We should

In tandem

Propelling our machines

That forward health

(that kind of prosperity)

Dismantling others

 

Swords into ploughshares, maybe

Cooling off the world

For fuel and forward-thinking

The gospel that’s enough

For now

Securing then beginning

The next chapter

 

C L Couch

 

 

Arts of Peace in Washington, D.C. Sculpted by James Earle Fraser.

Dan Vera – Photograph of public monument, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6616749

 

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