(x = space)
x
x
Measure Twice
(or thrice)
x
Apologize twice
Once for God
Once for other people
And if you’re a polluter
Then
Once more for Earth
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Bozhin Karaivanov on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Join
x
The way a building
Comes together
With everything that fastens
Nails
Glue
Screws and bolts
Certain guns and drills
That drive
The music
And a harmony
Until
Complete
x
I don’t mean
Cathedrals built
To music
Who knows about that
x
I mean the real noises
We provide
The voices of machines
With our own
Collaborations
x
Metaphor
Or three-
Dimensional
The houses goes up
The people
Or some others
If it’s a shelter for
Some animals
Live
Inside
x
There is a game
With fingers playing nicely
That emblemize
A steeple
When inside the church
The people
x
Join
In building
All good ways
To shelter
All creation
Needing cover
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by John Salvino on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Shut the Door
x
My neighbors slam their doors
Almost as matters
Of style
x
I don’t know why these
Concussions
x
Are the people frustrated?
x
(¿)They want to send a message
To me
Or to each other
Or the world
That won’t hear or be
Impressed and
Certainly
Won’t
Change?
x
This is why
I slam the door
(one of these)
Though it’s not my style when
I’m better
Or when maybe
The world hasn’t hit me first
x
I don’t know
x
People are weird
x
I am weird
x
We so easily turn people in
Our heads into
Things
As if we could transmogrify
In the academy
For turning people into things
x
And even objects might
Deserve
Some consideration:
Not be burned
For instance
When there’s value
In the form
Or the condition
x
Or liking
Or an interest in preserving;
x
But objects by and large
No longer matter
When they used to be
People
And now that we’ve changed them
x
And now we’ve changed them
We might
And honestly,
Sadly
Certainly will
Use them disposably
x
Surrender life to
Look the other way
And only
See a thing
Only fit for burning,
Burning
A heat
To match our own
x
And I have made
So much
From a door slam
(all right,
many slams),
x
Though I think you know—peer
Person and
Ersatz (peer) magician—what
I mean
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Oumaima Ben Chebtit on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
take away the confessional and informative emendations and there’s one poem here with endings like certain music selections
x
Processionals
x
I think
Often of David
Of a picture
I have seen
Or made up
It’s when the ark
Is brought into
Jerusalem
And it’s a triumph
A kind of victory
x
And I think of David
Young
(and was he young)
Dancing
Before the ark
Not wearing much
But he’s king
And he arranged all this
And so
The instruments
Let play
And maybe favorites
Follow suit
x
I see light colors
As if this were a desert scene
Done as a picture
With pastels
You know
I think I figure the hair
On David
From the statue by
Michelangelo
x
Processions are important
He and they
Had to have one
Because the ark
Would have a home
Forever
Well
At least for generations
(I should
look this up
it might be before
Absalom)
But what do we know
Today is forever
And the
Ark is here
x
And Jesus came
Into Jerusalem
And a procession
Was needed
And so it was
Arranged
In humility
And somehow awesome
Awful majesty
x
C L Couch
x
x
I worked on this scene before as a draft; I have in mind I didn’t finish it, and this time I did; but if the other work appeared and I forgot, then I apologize for the repetition—CLC
x
and a bit more (for free)
x
a coda
x
David was a shepherd
He was a king
He was loved by God
As either
So are you
Loved by God
For either
Any
Way
x
Photo by Alberico Bartoccini on Unsplash
x
(and here’s the lesson should you need one
coda 2
that was D. S.
this is D. C.)
x
Jesus came
Into Jerusalem
Like the ark
Meaning a triumph
Victory
For a home people
Battling
To keep a promise
x
And like the ark
Is lost
Defeat
And sacrifice
Through lack of faith
(bad kings—you may
look it up)
And so sacrilege
And a new needed
Promise
Follows
(read the prophets)
For restoration
Of the people
x
Turns out
It’s Israel
And all of us
Redeemed
Through this
Second coming
Triumph
Then sacrifice
This time as well
And
Cosmically speaking
Greater
All the world
And how far out
On the edge
x
With destruction
Turned to joy
With all our flaws intact
Until a final resurrection
That will keep
Us and the world
Intact
And better
And forever
x
Stone not only
Rolled away
But smashed
Here endeth
And look
And listen
Smell
And taste
And touch
This is the start
And we might think we do
But we don’t know
What’s next
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Givers
x
I need to speak better
With the Lord
And of the Lord
And of a maker’s love
Of nature
And more so
The people
Living in all mysteries
x
People and mysteries
Of how to number them
In and if
Any propriety
How to count
And within the will acceptable
Of all of us
(three entities)
x
For us
Receivers of all words
Too much is un-understood
The glass is dark
The ideal
Is on the other side
As are the mysteries
Resolved
x
But there is the need
The compulsion
To move, anyway
While
We are here
Somehow to invest
In invisible interaction
That is real
In the sense we cannot count
Or measure
Yet bears salvation
x
A book of hours
Indicates
Yet cannot reveal
As much as, say,
Look or hear into the gentle candle
While we pray
x
Our rites are fine
Many are elegant
With an aim
Toward dignity
Mixed with an agenda of
Information
Clarity
Through what is revealed
Finally vague
And believed
(by me for one)
Vague evidence for faith
As manifested,
Which is to say
As is
x
More elegant
(as well)
Is the spirit
In the sky at night
With its own stillness
And its risks
The careful and the wild
Embodied
And presented
In unmoving blue
Maybe with high clouds
That haunt
Or in the storm
That
Threatens
Or attempts to ravage
When released
Land and sea
And us between
x
The hours we have
Altogether
Organized
Unkempt
The lives we have
With all the unsolved parts
Priests
Religious
(liturgy composers)
Poets
Room for unbelievers
All work
In both realms
Created
Sub-created
And must own
Not in harmony
But harmony
The music of the spheres
We say
With all the mysteries
Set down to solve
And leave or let
Untouched
Unsolved
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Ali Choubin on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Don’t Listen
x
I’m sad is all
And maybe I may say
Who wouldn’t be
It’s raining
There are feet of snow
Out west
And that’s dangerous
x
In the south
There were tornados in the night
Can you imagine?
Too many don’t have to
You wouldn’t see it
You hear the train
If you can hear
The sounds of what you know
Changed into splinters
Horrifying
x
You might go dark
Deeper in, that is
Or might be missed
(tornados leap this way)
Or under things
That fell
But living
Needing to be found
x
And a factory nearby
Exploded of all things
Also last night
And people inside
Sorry
Some were killed
Others hurt
And people missing
While searchers search
Press conferences are held
Because
They have to be
x
Another factory
Not so far off
Went this way
Some days ago
I don’t think
It’s a conspiracy
But these destructive
And frightening
Severities
Must be taken seriously
x
Last night’s inferno
Costing
Families
The ones torn up
For good
And those in the community
Losing, too
x
You see,
The people in this factory
Made candy
Of all things
In fact for decades
And should have been
With all the chocolate offerings
Just in time for Easter
x
Now associations
Snow-driven winter
Romantic Southern nights
Anticipation of confections
Well,
The fears will have to go somewhere
Coping mechanisms
Mechanized
(as in ready to go)
Let hope
Like grace doctrinally
Abound
x
So I’m sad
Maybe I don’t know how
To take it in
To breathe vicarious
In addition to my
Own intake
For, well,
My own
Somewhat depressed
I deal in this
And have had counseling
And medication
x
The day’s been gray
With rain
Not life-threatening here
Persistent
Cold and dull
Is all
And enervating
x
I thought about errands
And such
Then thought better
Thinking it better
Or maybe better would have been
To go out
Get wet
Do something
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Peter Jan Rijpkema on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
On the First Day
x
Ash Wednesday
Let’s have ash
Upon our foreheads
Crosses that will smudge
And that’s all right
Throughout
The day into
The evening
For the season
x
We say it’s for remembrance
Of death
And our mortality
But our foreheads are warm
There’s temperature beneath
And all the little crosses
Bearing small,
Smudged,
And living
Testimony
Everywhere
x
Not bad for evangelism
Contraindicated for a show
Rather a story of
Black, loving humility
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Kindness
(Rosa Parks)
x
Because she was tired
And had enough
Of being tired
And the bus was not a charter
It was public transportation
She paid her money
Not a special fee
There was a seat
And she was tired
And had had enough
Of being tired
x
The kind of pain
Inside and out
And all she wants to do
It have it
Live it
Normally
The way
Anyone might bear
The pain
Of living
x
Though especially
The colored people
Colored brown
And paying for it
Without payment
In a place they did not sail to
Like Europeans
Who told the stories
Of their difficulties
Forgetting
(looking away)
About the holds beneath
In which the colored people
Had been pushed
And chained
And many of them
Died
On a journey of abduction
x
Can you imagine
Starting out this way?
This is their legacy
So let her have the vinyl seat
That she had rented
For a while
x
Let her have the whole bus
A fleet of buses
Let the people ride for free
And charge admission
For the lighter folk,
Which might began
To pay her back
And all her people
Who had the worse luck
Like the Indians
Already living here
x
Everyone with un-pale skin
Who met the Europeans
x
Not me
I wasn’t there
The rejoinder
Fair enough
But you’re here now
We’re here
We’re all here
Now
With small choices
And enormous ones
For how to live a country
Filled with all the colors
Hearts
And minds
And souls
x
You know,
Sometimes we stand
To let the lady sit
Or someone older
Someone bearing burdens
Or simply to be kind
Call it
Chivalry aside,
We can live this way
Kindly and civilly
Again
And for the first time
x
Might bring peace
(yes, there will be disgruntled)
On the bus
At the doorways
Going in
And going out
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Peter Orsel on Unsplash
Intersection in the Middle of the Desert
x
(x = space)
x
x
dispersed
(from the beginning of the book of James)
x
we were together, Mom and Dad
(physical or meaningful)
now we are spread far
we can always say
the Romans did this
but there is our own
polemics
stranding us
separated
in a world driven by
its own prince
that drove Jesus
in the wilderness
from one arid part to another
x
I’m sorry we are no longer
together
though we have letters
we are the legacy of David, still
we are a people
and, as always,
we are family
I hope you are well where you are
I hope that work and food
come easily
I fear, because I know
such things are never certain
we came away with what we had
some maybe had accounts
and interests along the Mediterranean,
generally
x
we live today
and in the Messianic time
and must take hope in that
God will return
God also waits for us
like the shepherd by the
clear stream,
both to beckon
x
and God is with us, now
with love
x
with love,
this note from your child
we all are children now
again
x
c l couch
x
x
James is a brief letter in the Christian New Testament; the pastor preached on James this morning at Covenant Evangelical Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, Indiana (USA)
x
x
clcouch123 
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