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Ex-Temporaneous

(x = space)

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Ex-Temporaneous

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It’s a dark day

Not enough for a

Ritual outside

And there’s rain

The sun tries

To come through

In patches

Dark hours nonetheless

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That might be spent

At midnight

In the loft,

A vigil

And an offering

Prayer life in the dark

Ages behind that

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Maybe a candle

Of the kind

That does not curse the darkness

But slices through it

If in, well, a fuzzy way

Batteries included

Diffuse Light and shadow

Diffuse

With unscripted words

Everything

Partnering

For the message

For the words

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C L Couch

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Photo by Zoran Kokanovic on Unsplash

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A Million Now

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A Million Now

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Two and a half years

A million dead

Shall we count?

We should have time

While counting out the days

For boosters

Should we be privileged

For boosters

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If they were like stars

Then there would be no question

Everyone would want them

Like the bread

That goes with circuses

Is New York still giving money

For a shot?

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People I know are gone

Because of COVID

It’s hard to take in

I might be dense

How could I know a million

Twenty times a number counted

For the city some miles away

Whose rutted streets

For the moment

Have no wagons for the dead

Or another absurdity in

A Python moment

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Try to count

To a million

Try to consider millions of

The dead or fleeing

Thanks to war

Go ahead, combine the numbers

Since the same hate’s

At work

Every time

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There is liberty

In abnegation

Deny the medicine

Turn oneself into

The other side of counting

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C L Couch

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1 Million COVID-19 Deaths in the United States

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Photo by Susann Schuster on Unsplash

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Fish and Bread for Breakfast

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Fish and Bread for Breakfast

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And he does

Jesus loves you

Grumpy we might be

Though post-resurrection letdown

A haze of liturgy

Formal words that don’t match up

With Easter

But here we are

Since the book is ours

Invited to have breakfast with Jesus

Fish and bread

Common enough fare

Or not

The English

And others I’m sure

Have kippers

That is herring

England is an island nation

Israel is by the sea

And by an inland sea

We’re having breakfast

And hearing about metaphoric sheep

From a shepherd who knows the work

Perfectly

And is calling us to do it

What

How can we take from perfection

Well, we can’t

But we’re all here

It’s what and whom we have

We can dine with Jesus

That is the Christian church experience

But then we have to be out there

Out here

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A message from white men

We need to hear from everyone

We need to hear the story

From the lips

And other parts

The parts that move,

That dance,

That look and try to look with love

On a good day

While struggling on another

This can’t be a message of perfection

It has to be real

And what do we know of perfect

That is real?

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And we are loved, anyway

And we must love

And it’s the best thing going, anyway

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C L Couch

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(church with preaching on John 21)

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Photo by Andrew Valdivia on Unsplash

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After Evening Service

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After Evening Service

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We could keep vigil

On toward midnight

When the new day is called

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A horn might be too much

But inside the church

The organ might be released

To greet the day

Subdued for lateness of the hour

Wanting to be good neighbors

Give our hearts some quiet room

As well

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I guess “midnight vigil” sounds

A quiet thing

To us

I’m sure in other lands

It does not go that way

There are noisy fanfares

Calls as announcement

Calls to prayer

Calls to say

(to play)

Even to shout

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This is a new day

Of the Lord

And the Lord’s creations!

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C L Couch

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Photo by Adrian Dascal on Unsplash

Washed Away Night

Midnight in Saint George, Romania

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For the People

(x = space)

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For the People

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We give billions

Might I have a smidgen

Might we all and each

Have a smidgen

Two smidgens, maybe

Our money from our coffers

Save other nations’ people,

Too

It’s mid-month and I’m feeling

Especially impoverished

It’s the thirteenth

On a Friday

And I’m tired of

Anything like

The curse of the day

Or Cain

The penury of Lazarus

Under Dives

I know, L gets to heaven

Where it’s wealthy

Without coin

And through and through

But I’m still here today

And want to be,

Not knowing the other

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I’d like to have

Some easy days

If possible

Summertime

As Gershwin says

As she sings

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C L Couch

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Photo by David Sutton on Unsplash

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Tired Love

(x = space)

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Tired Love

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Everything should stop

You’re tired

Haven’t quite hit the wall

But everything’s okay enough

And you’re tired

Time to snap

Like upper and lower crocodile teeth

But don’t

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Give everyone a break

Sorry if the world does not agree

But you have to

Have a drink

Water’s good

Be still

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From within, get to know

The bones and muscles

The rest of you

And rest

Some minutes of this will help

If you can retire for the day

Like a vacation

You can feel that good

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Maybe not less serious

All issues remaining,

After all

But better in a somber way

That matters

Then go back to it

To her and him

And them

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C L Couch

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Photo by Simon Watkinson on Unsplash

A crocodile jumping from a river in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

Darwin NT, Australia

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Three-Syllables Agape or Two-Syllables Agape

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Three-Syllables Agape or Two-Syllables Agape

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Sigh

And what does love way

After all the vituperation

All the blame-casting

All the metaphoric bile

In the hate we bear?

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I don’t know

That we should care for ourselves

And each other

That if we loved God first

Everything else would work

Respecting those who don’t believe

There are good atheists

And good agnostics

Who treat believers

As a crazed minority

And to look at the evidence

Have a case

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But it’s sin, I guess

From within and without

Our choices, the choices of others

Choose to love

Choose to hate

And who cannot be struck

Without saying OW

That’s natural

It’s impulsive

And deserved

Though it’s not the end

It does not have to rush

To blame and retribution

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Take a moment

Choose something like a star

Stay inspired through the hurt,

Which is not masochism

But allowing thought

And heart to keep a hold

From everything turned over

Into the nether realms

Of rusting feeling

Gnawing hate

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Give peace a chance

Can’t we all get along?

It must be so much better

Than saws

And satire

The darkness follows light

Then there’s more light

Illumination

We are better than our hurts

Better than vile agenda

We could make agenda brilliant

And ambition

And profit

And plans

And when there’s a crash

Of accident

Or wills

We could act as EMTs

And then allow a moment

To reconnoiter

And to reckon

How to heal a rending world

Bring it back

To one whole thing

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Yes, I mean the war

And wars everywhere

But I also mean the virus

We forget

Unless we’re sick

Or around

Those who are sick

And inflation

And corruption

We can do better

To keep the world from burning

We must

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I should end on a note of love

A song of peace

Measured by hope

But there are questions

To be answered, first

That we must put to each other

Questions

And answers

Reactions and worked-out actions

A process for our accountable part

Of the universe

Yes, that much

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C L Couch

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“Choose Something like a Star“

Robert Frost

. . .

So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

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Photo by Aldebaran S on Unsplash

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Idea

(x = space)

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Idea

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Here’s an idea:

Leave Ukraine live

Leave Russia live with remorse

While rebuilding

Its neighbor

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We know

There is no recourse

For life lost

Beyond revenge,

And there’s no point in that

Since taken to extremes,

Well,

Our planet burns

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But Russia can retreat

Tying up its turrets

Into shoelace- or ribbon-chapes

Send rubles back

With many, many helpers

My guess is

There would be volunteers

Among the soldiers

And the uninvolved

Back home

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Let this be a pattern, then

Let the Rohingya live

And South Sudan

And blacks and whites

In the USA

And elsewhere

And the other colors, too

Let there be colors

Let there be textures

Let there be sounds

And smells and

Things to taste

The best of these

Makes an amazing world

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Let there be self-competition

Dreaming

Without nightmares

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In the living

Let us be fed and watered,

Educated and secure

So that when heaven comes

We meet each other

Easy, unexpected kindred

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C L Couch

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Photo by Tobias Schlienger on Unsplash

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Conjuration

(x = space)

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Conjuration

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By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes

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Was it

A curse

Or a conjuring?

Did she invoke

The wicked thing

Of was she

Foretelling

Simply telling

Sisters

And us all

What would happen

Next?

Are they

Prophets,

Soothsayers

Commenters

Like the chorus?

Or worse,

Are they

Seed-planters

Giving Macbeth ideas

That were unformed,

Half-formed,

Fully-formed

Ideas as

Ambitions?

Who made the heroes

And the foils

In context

Of the story?

Who is our

Storymaker,

Storyteller?

Glamis, Cawdor

King

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We who can

Who are allowed

To rise in thought

Have plans

From our ambitions;

Pray we do not meet

The made-up

Or implanted

Witches in the mind

But choose to walk

In other parts,

Another way

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C L Couch

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Macbeth Act 4, Scene 1

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Photo by Marc Schaefer on Unsplash

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