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June Teeth

June Teeth

(19 June)

 

Don’t worry,

The current administration

Has no part in this

In fact, it doesn’t like you

Very much

Tips outside an open door

While behind it,

All the cronies gamble

For what’s left

 

In the real real, however,

You are wise

And rising

Except for violence—everyone

Stop doing that

There is greater power

In peace

(you know this)

And change that lasts

 

It is an important day

Make tomorrow important, too

And as your gospel roots

Might say

Do say

(because roots can speak)

Love one another

 

C L Couch

 

 

Susie King Taylor, known as the first African American Army nurse

detail, frontispiece of book published in 1902. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003653538/

photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

 

11

Born Ready

Born Ready

 

There are two

Quite often

And some more

We work in company

Best of all,

It seems

I guess we’re made that way

Porous, with no corners

But with openings

Ready in the making

To receive

Atomic intentions

Molecules that move

From skin to skin

One by one

We each remain intact

But space and matter have

Determined

All the places on

Each one of us that

Are ready to receive

Like sponge to sponge

Life like water

Fuller for the moving

And arriving

Tidal pools that live

Along the shore

Of every cosmic

And each metaphoric

Ocean

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Marcelo Rivas on Unsplash

Tide pools, La Jolla, California, USA

 

9

Causation

Causation

 

It’s dangerous out there

I know

(sometimes in here)

Sometimes in

All the things

That do not sensibly

Go together

Illusion of peace

While there is war

Freedom while many

Are slaves

Breathing in

What seems a pretty sky

With all things we’ve put in it

Do you get it?

I’m not sure I do

So many killing things

With industries to keep ourselves alive

 

When they arrive

Extraterrestrials will wonder

What we’ve done to ourselves

And why

Unless they speak among themselves

Yes, we remember profit

We remember cheapened life

Thank goodness

And our gods,

We grew out of that

Discovered what they really mean

To have

And have not

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash

 

14

Summation of the Heart

Summation of the Heart

 

Whites kill blacks

Sometimes blacks

Even the score

But when it’s four centuries

In one place

(there are other ages,

other places),

How can the pit be cleared

And turned over when

What we fill

Never bury

Is horror for horror?

 

Charity

Forgiveness

May we start again?

Will blacks offer it?

Will whites accept?

There are more races

Hatred, fear, and anger poured

Into pale ears

And, yes, sometimes in sable

By a devil poisoning

Thought,

The varied arts in creation

Rather making a mob

(this is not protest)

That has no sight

Or strategy

 

Asian, African,

Australian, Caribbean,

Flesh from Europe’s people

Not white enough, the

Subcontinent

First people in America,

Australia

Any native people whom

Developers have eyed

And power-mongers

Calculated

This is race

The human race

Racing humans

 

There is crime

Sometimes it’s organized

Maybe it’s exciting

To put one’s life on the edge

Of a knife

And live along mortality

Easy money, maybe

For a life

For a life

 

There is disease

The flu, Ebola, AIDS

The virus we have crowned

There is no treatment

No vaccine

There are measures

People are tired of following

Them

So don’t, and the sickness

Spikes again

We cannot learn

We cannot go back

All we want to do

Is go back

 

The children of the world

The world that is our child

Those of us in charge

Fully grown in measure

Also charged

To leave a planet

To the generations after

Who watch us now

Who see corruption, profiteering

(another word for politics)

Cutting, razing everything

 

We should retire

Giving them a chance

With all shame in leaving them

A world they saw us taking down

Our best option

Waiting for another

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Lara Puscas on Unsplash

281 – ATOMIUM, 1020 Bruxelles, Belgium, Bruxelles

The Atomium

 

15

Exhalations

Exhalations

 

I like the process

Glad it’s automatic

So many things can leave the body

Things we don’t need

 

Things in the brain stay there,

I suppose

We need exhaling in the brain

But we don’t get it

We have to learn what to keep

Up close,

What to file

 

The thing about a file, though,

Is that they’re not closed

For good

Mental welding doesn’t help

 

So open up the stacks

From time to time,

Letting air breathe through

The folders

 

We might need

Companionship for this

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Elena Kloppenburg on Unsplash

 

0

Sometimes It’s Penance

Sometimes It’s Penance

 

I’d rather write of beauty

In unlikely places

Alleyways and freckles

Left-handed people

Curved things

Where everything is straight

Wild violets and dandelions

Saved before indifferently

Cut down

 

But there are people doing

Ugly things, who

Must be chastised

If not by me, by someone

And then there’s me

And the ugly things I’ve done

I’m going for redemption

Within my grasp

Like the exceeding heaven

In my faith

And literary tradition

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

St Marys, Tasmania, Australia

A red poppy pops its head out through a park bench in Saint Mary’s in Tasmania Australia.

 

 

9

The Irony of Summer

The Irony of Summer

 

After the first official day

In late June,

The daytime will be

Narrowing toward winter

 

My child mind

Thought the long days

Could not end, and might

We have some more, please?

And we did

 

My grown-up mind

Is, however, taxed

Imposing accuracy and will

Since the longer light of summer

Will go more briefly

To each sunset

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

 

5

Tree-Thinking

Tree-Thinking

 

There are trees

Blues between the branches

Angled yellow lights

Slicing shadows

Day’s possibilities

 

At night,

The shadows, you know, will be longer

Sky’s light will change to silver

Trees will seem rougher

And the buildings,

Though they’re not

The night has

Possibilities

Remembering

Not the daytime but its own

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

Melbourne VIC, Australia

Tree Bark

 

5

Narby Not of Narberth

Narby Not of Narberth

(though his human mother once lived nearby)

 

Narby’s gone

I’m sorry

And I’m sad

He was a foundling from the beach

Community of the Outer Banks

He lived for many years, cat-wise

He was the definition of

A scaredy-cat

New people in the room caused him

Not to be there, anymore

He had a strident yell,

Maybe so that he could cross distances

Telling his human family

Hey, I’m in this part of the house

Come take care of me

 

He was blackish and small

He had an older brother from the beach

A year before

This cat was more a dog

He loved to eat food

For cat or people

Probably for dog

He was huge and round and gray

I figure that

The two cats had the

Jack Sprat and his wife thing going,

Though they were boys

 

Narby received a yurt one year

That’s what it was called

(it was for cats)

He liked to live in it

I think imagining

He was on the roof of the world

In Nepal, that is

Wishing everyone away

Except when he was hungry

 

In recent days, he had declined

And today I got the phone call

He was not my cat,

But I will miss him

Sometimes I cared for him

Sometimes he almost sat

Upon my lap

He had a quiet purr

Sometimes invoked,

Which also quieted the

Catly rebel yell

 

As I say for all I know

Departed

Narby, welcome home

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bekky Bekks on Unsplash

Cologne, Germany

long live the life street art cat

 

3

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