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After

After

 

When everything is done

With all the apples and the oranges

The sixes and the sevens

All the things that didn’t merit

Placing on a scale

Of our making

 

You and I will look out over

A silver sea

Hoping to see a fin or tail

The nose of something

Welcoming that says,

There’s still living here

 

We’ll hope for the best

Skip fearing for the worst

There will be life or won’t be

Maybe we’ll have

A part in it

In spite of all our peers have done

 

We can live along the edge

Recalling everything behind

Until

All memory has changed

Opposites are lived out

As they should be

Amen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Thomas Lipke on Unsplash

Sailcone’s Grizzly Bear Lodge, Mount Waddington A, Britisch-Kolumbien, Kanada Columbia Canada

Pacific white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens)

 

5

Fahrenheit 151

Fahrenheit 151

 

It’s over a hundred degrees

In the Arctic

Down south, that gets a lethal warning

Don’t go out in this, especially if

One is old or young or has something of

A medical condition

 

This is the Arctic where

Santa dwells

With elves, all making toys

Inside a house and workshop underneath

The snow,

Where mastodon bones are found

Maybe with flesh and DNA once

Inside the permafrost

Science is excited, and

Science is concerned

About microbes

That were frozen

Newly released by melted ice

 

I know Siberia can be

Occasionally temperate

But now it’s over a hundred degrees

In towns

And I imagine the investment in

Air-conditioning has been sparse, over

The years

I hope they are okay

 

After the Antarctic

Falls

(guess what—its sheets of ice

are already breaking, sliding into

the ocean in ways

they’re not supposed to)

Maybe some more will say,

Hey, there might be a problem

 

While the seas are rising

Democracy is drowned

And we are facing

Final, savage years

 

C L Couch

 

 

What a 100-degree day in Siberia really means

The record-setting high is much more than a quick spike for the Russian Arctic, where months of extreme heat may have dangerous consequences.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/06/what-100-degree-day-siberia-means-climate-change/

 

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

 

0

The Monster Speaks

The Monster Speaks

 

One thing the movies miss

Nearly all the time

Is to let the monsters speak

I’m hearing gargoyles talking

They make scary sense

They’re vicious and

Want to be left alone

 

If you want to see Frankenstein

Then read it

It’s not long

The most humane speeches

Are from the creature

Made by Victor

Who abhorred his work and then

Abandoned it

An ugly, powered creature

Left to roam the Earth

A child in a Golem’s body

With no control

Or advice to live

 

But when it speaks

The words are articulate

And passionate

Having been made by a human

Why can’t there be something of

The humans’ own?

The parent’s own and

Something of companionship

The words show us who

The monsters are

We slip into barbarity of action

While the best words remain

The creature’s own

 

No mistaking, the creature-made

Commits atrocities

There is a tragedy in the making

In having been made

In human vanity to make

But forestalling

Or destroying

Might have happened early on

As it is, the monster (so we way)

Is left alive

I know, for sequels

While the human maker

Frankenstein

Pursues his own destruction,

Which is no kind of justice

She knew what she was doing

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Peloton Cellars, Front Street, Avila Beach, CA, USA

 

6

Mystery Unsolved

Mystery Unsolved

 

I don’t know what

I can come up with

Today

I’ve been looking for

A day off

And haven’t quite

Managed it

But we’ll see

I’m watching a mystery

Now, a good one

From a series that I

Like

British, not that the

British do the best,

Though they’re awfully

Good

 

Typically, the

Mystery is a murder,

Which is sad

Typically, the person killed

Is introduced

Villainous enough that

We don’t mind,

Though we might then be

Disposed toward

Sympathy for

The killer, which is

Something writers

I imagine

Keep in mind

While working all things

Out

I don’t know

I’ve written a couple

Of mysteries of

The two-minute kind

 

Mystery certainly is

A spiritual word

The foundation of

Our faith in a

Paradox,

Since faith is something

Clear in its conviction

But not so much

In content

It is the evidence

Of things unseen,

Which would go terribly

In court

Yet must be followed

For belief

And in that regard

Faith is gossamer

Not concrete

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

 

2

Whose Calling

Whose Calling

 

I haven’t spoken to my soul today

Or maybe that’s all I do

Some would say the dialogue is prayer

Maybe so

Maybe the angel is

Listening in,

Which is fine with me

How else will it advise itself

Or send for orders?

Then sometimes I’m only speaking with

My duller, outside self

Closer to the surface, anyway

And this is how time passes, while

I’m trying to keep up

With other things

While part of me in silence, too,

Is waiting for the angel to return

With suggestions

 

Being suggestions I imagine that

Angels cannot understand, since will

By them has been

Perfectly surrendered,

Somehow a war in heaven

Notwithstanding

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jason marquis on Unsplash

Belleville, Illinois, USA

 

10

Fox and Grapes

Fox and Grapes

(the nature of a scorpion)

 

There are so many stories

Out there,

Which is grand

Here’s one story you know

 

The tortoise and the hare

The hare should have won

It stopped to take a nap

It should have finished the race

First

Then had all sorts of time

Appointment-free for napping

But there was vanity

He

(I’m going to say he)

Could not resist

And there are morals

 

If you’re a tortoise

Find and maintain your pace,

For that’s your job

If you’re a hare,

Remember modesty

In a wider world

And turn your energy

Creatively

You could have helped the tortoise,

After all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Scott Rheam, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Black-Tailed Jackrabbit (lepus californicus). Image from public-domain images website.

(public-images.com, Wikimedia)

 

6

When Day and Night Knew Each Other Well

When Day and Night Knew Each Other Well

 

We had a solstice over the weekend

And a new moon

 

It was easier

To live in the dark

A hundred years ago

And a hundred more

Maybe a hundred more

Not to equate darkness with ignorance,

Not at all

 

Imagine how the stars must

Have been,

For certainly they’ve changed

How secret was a secret

When extinguishing a candle

Could blow out the gathering

Make unreadable

An agenda

To send us home, instead

 

The greater darkness

Wasn’t bad or good

It was

It was the setting

And the means

Maybe we paid more attention then

Our night-vision was better

When ambience was lightless

In the distance

Or up front

 

It might have been generally possible

Not to see the hand before the face

And not to be afraid of that

Maybe darkness

Was a friend

To the criminal

And carpenter, alike

The darkness said

Slow down

Don’t move without

Knowing where you’re going

 

It was a signal

For the rest

For rest

(yes, maybe in a forest)

Maybe for rehabilitation:

Come the new day

You will be needed with

New muscles

And a readiness

In attitude

To contribute to

An ever-new, new world

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash

 

12

Oh, Dad

Oh, Dad

(Father’s Day 2020)

 

Hey, Dad

Poor Dad

We’re changing your lifestyle

And we’re feeling really bad

 

It started about five thousand

Years ago,

When fathers learned

They were responsible

For physicality in the home

And something more

That something more kept catching us

Feelings for the children

Dynamics in the group

Be it hunting or the farm or town

Obeisance to the seasons

To leave some art behind

Find something called a god

 

Where were women in all this?

Except for vulnerable times,

I imagine they were hunting, too

Foraging

Protecting the home

Feeding the family dog

Making allowances for the cat

And were left

To home the home

While men were charmed by

Exploration

Or other commissions taking them

Away

 

If you watch Hallmark movies,

You’ll find women are sharp

And adaptive

While men are typically dense

Making five thousand years

Seem not that long ago

You see, outcast Eden laid upon the men

Something by Freud called ego

A promise to break promises

So that the wrong part

Of the spirit might

Be sated

Women have it, too

And sometimes play like men

Though their spirit, good parts and bad,

Have been wounded over ages

Now coming into their own

 

Call it a hundred years ago

Men fought in war

Discovered there was no romance in it

And needed something more

Jobs were lost across the world

There were plagues, too

No provision for the family

The older means, mostly trusted, gone

How does one keep another

On an arid, empty farm

Or in a city walled from caring

About applications?

 

There was dire need

More war

And on the other side of war,

Those not of the millions who were dying

In the outside battles or the inside

Found jobs

Some schooling

Identical homes along the street

Marriage and children, once again

But this time with differences

Our children got some schooling, too

And were well cared for

Relative to depressing times

They got smart

And started asking questions

War had gone underground by then

Undeclared though the dead were just as dead

Bad time to be secret

Sending youth to die

For an abstract against

Really dying

So our asking youth

Receiving no good answers or

Tissued assurances

Began to protest

 

Look around now

Our fathers and our grandfathers

Wouldn’t know the place

Surprisingly primitive in some parts

Even and especially

At home

Sophistication breeding self-interest alone

A time of hate and anger

Fanned by the group that wants

Distraction so secret profits

Will out

 

Lifespan is longer

Healthcare is better

When not strangled by those

Who think it’s fun

To string along the funding

Awareness is more possible

And potent

Though democracy is threatened

By control

Who has it, who wants it

Who might relent not to talk about

But really go after peace

Before the crust is melted of the Earth

By insanity hovered over switches

 

This is your world, Dad

We’re sorry

Be angry, be frightened

Or, better, rest your ego

Allow yourself to love

And be loved

Even in what must seem a maddened place

A paradox to ask for

But here is still where the magic happens

Brought down to Earth by

God in many names

And no name

Who says, go for peace

And don’t neglect to play

When there are pauses

In the action

 

Mom must have her day

But here is a day for father

Here is a day for you

Don’t forget the other day

Remember all the days

 

C L Couch

 

 

Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad: A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition

by Arthur Kopit

premiered in 1963

 

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

 

9

The Originals

The Originals

 

We create and re-create

We must do this,

I think

The way animals return

To reproduce

It’s close work and

Intimate

Actions in a studio

Or on the line

What might tragedy encourage

Into making

Or a comedy?

I’m not saying it’s a law

It’s not

Sometimes a commission

Even patronage

Sometimes, though, merely

A happy accident,

As is said but really happens

 

Call it invention

Or an invention

Making and remaking

What is made a complement

And compliment

To a living and a breathing

Sometimes fierce, sometimes

Fanciful

Planet Earth

 

With places in the cosmos

When we’re ready

Though we’ll probably

Leave too soon

To find the faces

That have been

Quietly challenging

Wizening with age

Maybe waiting

For the far more mortal

Upstart young

To launch

To find our way to you

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jenna S on Unsplash

“Painting the Summer”

 

11

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