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A Kindness

(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

4

Invitation to a Wake

(x = space)

x

x

Invitation to a Wake

(with a toast)

x

We invite ourselves to

A meeting of ourselves

To celebrate a life

No longer with us

With all the possibilities

Frustrated to resolve

This side of things

And we can’t drink ourselves

Into oblivion

Because oblivion has form

And so frustrates annihilation

Of our senses

Besides, we want

To remember

And with gratitude

Share memories,

Enumerate mortality

Until the count and everything

That counts

Is ready on both sides

x

To one or those no longer

But an absence,

Here are drinks

(one of these

per one of us)

To aid sensation that

We hope will aid selection

Of desired sun-and-shade

Remembrances

Of memory

To tell

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

x

2

Live from Punxsutawney

(x = space)

x

x

Live from Punxsutawney

x

Knob

Hollow

Gobbler

Turkey

Groundhog

Burrow

A manufactured life

Goes on tour

Speaking engagements

What is its thesis?

Moved in a cylinder

Men in hats

With groundhog faces

Thousands and thousands

I guess they have

Places to stay

TV, computer cameras

How it can it not

See its shadow?

Phil is not that accurate

Need we wonder

Why

Enjoy the day

Laughter

Celebration

Into spring

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Ralph Katieb on Unsplash

Groundhog didn’t like the late April snow (she was in the middle of nest building when it hit).

x

6

Till We Have Faces

(x = space)

x

x

Till We Have Faces

x

Black History Month begins

Black experience

Recorded

Call it Black experience month

Black testimony

Black story

x

Till

Evers

Amistad

Empires in Africa

Black and white

Greedy

Murderous

Raid

Take

Transport

Sell

And so begins a nation

You may say that others did it, too

So what

So fucking what

x

We have a month to cringe

A month to listen

Get it right

Fix something small

Fix something huge

Enormous

Like a nation

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

HDR shot of a sunset over downtown Memphis with the pyramid and bridge.

Memphis, TN, USA

x

0

Twilight Narrative

(x = space)

x

x

Twilight Narrative

x

Long dream this morning

The kind when I wake

Then fall asleep again

About Bill

We took a trip together

Which we had never done

Some kind of blazing thing

A celebration of

The Midwest

Though we knew each other

In school

In the East

x

I got mad

And sad

Because I wanted to talk

With Bill about something

Happening to me

That I didn’t like my life

In Harrisburg

Wanting to say so

Wanting encouragement

Even advice

And he’d said nothing

x

I challenged him on that

A while later

(long dream)

And we got nowhere with it

We could perform

But we could not talk

Not for real

x

I woke up, realizing that

Bill would not go on another

Trip with me

And that was doubly frustrating

Mad

And sad

And then I remembered

That Bill

Had died

A brief while ago

x

My college roommate gone

With earthly friendship

Following

And I am sad

And sad

And sad

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

x

Bill liked root beer, Dad’s; root beer is brown and dreams are wavy

x

5

Pointers

(x = space)

x

x

(x = space)

x

x

Pointers

x

What shall we say

That life goes on?

It does

Life goes on

As we say a lot

Without the import

x

Better over there

That is the promise

There are hints over here

Should we see them

Should we not

Or choose not

They are there, anyway

x

Funny thing

About the faith

Almost in anything—

Nothing is presumed

By our believing

If it’s big

And good

If it’s small

And good

It is there, anyway

x

Our choice does not affect

Its existence

Or its offering

Nature still spirals everywhere

And persists

In mysteries of hexagons

x

Nature does not predicate

Or faith in that

From that

Or anything

Or ask for

Our predication,

Either

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Kevin Bergen on Unsplash

x

0

Five in Five

(x = space)

x

x

Five in Five

(memoriam)

x

Out, out, brief candle! but

A candle isn’t brief

That’s on us for

A metaphor

Sometimes a real one, I guess

Sometimes the candles

In the church

Are pretty short

And thus available

For show

x

But the candle length

Is years,

I guess we know

Three score and ten

In made-up inches

Or in centimeters

Or real ones

(as in church)

To illustrate

x

You see, they are ubiquitous

Both real and imagined

x

The length may vary

By abstraction

Fate

I guess

And relativity

Macbeth’s flame is undone

Too soon by happy counting,

Not as an end

To tyranny,

His tragedy of making

x

But this is not a nation

Or a clan

Though Scots be in it,

Great text

Or a metaphor

(sorry to mention

then dismantle)

Simply a life

As it was

And as it’s gone

Always

Every hour I think on it

Too soon

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Rob Wicks on Unsplash

x

0

What Become Our Favorites

(x = space)

x

x

What Become Our Favorites

x

We shall turn the page

To Thursday

Inside the good book

Of our lives

x

One book

Or many books?

I am unsure

Yes

No

Sure there is a book

And there are books

There is a book

Of wisdom and delight

We each part

Or we each have our own

I like to think we have our own

And there becomes a library—imagine!

Such a thing

x

The new page

For each one

Or more

On Thursday

Might be written over

Or unmarked

Waiting for experience

And then a recipe

For those who share

These pages,

After

x

Or finding birds upon the page

In the medieval way

We’ll scare up the ingredients

To try ourselves

Each one

Each with an assist:

Success in old

Meaning

In what’s gone before

And also

Maybe only

Thursday new

x

C L Couch

x

x

[sorry for the English-only, and I don’t know what’s being made]

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

x

2

Hour of the Gun

(x = space)

x

x

Hour of the Gun

(I don’t like writing this)

x

I don’t know

Maybe killing with a gun

Is just close enough

And far away

To feel wretched accomplishment

And to objectify

x

There is blood

Do we know that?

Do we anticipate

A little

Or a lot?

x

The organs that will stop

Inside the perpetration

The time of life

That’s ended

Before time

Allowed

x

The evil that may celebrate

While there’s scurrying

To get away with it

Or another resignation

Takes over

x

As I say,

I do not get it

But I don’t have a gun

Though I have been driven

And I’ve known

That things

Overwhelm

x

C L Couch

x

x

1 killed and 7 injured in shooting in Oakland, California

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/us/oakland-shooting-california/index.html

. . .

Just hours earlier about 40 miles southwest of Oakland, seven people were killed and one was critically wounded in shootings at two locations in Half Moon Bay, officials said. A 67-year-old suspect is in custody.

And in Southern California, 11 people were killed in a mass shooting Saturday night in Monterey Park.

x

add Idaho and everywhere else

x

Photo by Luis Domínguez on Unsplash

x

4

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