Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Tag

poem

The Word for Forest

(x = space)

x

x

The Word for Forest

(for Ursula K. Le Guin)

x

We need something that is lasting

Like air

That hasn’t been ruined,

Where a tally of the molecules is useless

Because our calculators break

In the process

A world that is a forest

As in a story I read a while ago

Where the inhabitants cannot perceive

The sense

In wrecking air

And everything life-giving

Breaking a circle they took part in

For ages,

x

For what is profit if not that

A world that has trust in them

The smart ones on the planet

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

Bad Pyrmont, Deutschland

x

3

Yawnism

I lost some electronics last week; the Verizon person replaced big parts.  The new WordPress editor is unwieldy.  I’ve had extra headaches and added issues in the building.  Sleeping has been harder.  I’ve fallen behind and feel sorry for that.

x

x

Yawnism

x

When we’re tired

When we need an extra breath

Impulsive

Expresses boredom,

I suppose

If we could do it on cue

Mainly,

I think it says

It’s time for something new

Getting up or sitting down

Moving

Or less movement

The diaphragm needs to

Push on the lungs

And now;

Waiting would not be prudent

As trying to suppress it shows

Like most activities,

It is a process

Animals, we may believe,

Do it not for show

But smoothly

And in purity,

For real

x

Ingenuous about offense

(or is it ingenious?),

We could follow them

Meaning to signal

Nothing more

(to take away)

Than

Everyone wears out

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash

Mexico City, CDMX, México

Cat yawning on blue bed.

x

6

Friends in Foxholes

(x = space)

x

x

Friends in Foxholes

x

And when it’s tense

There’s prayer;

When it’s calm

There is thanksgiving

It’s discipline

But of a really easy kind

No one to tell us

That we got it wrong

Not for some centuries, now

x

Pray with liberality

Remember whom

We’re speaking to

It isn’t Casper

It isn’t Torquemada,

Either

We are free to speak

To someone who has heard

All of it

Maybe we don’t need to talk

And yet I think we do

It’s not a trick or catching

Of a regulation

It signals our participation

If mostly to ourselves

A genie in the story

Might not

Pull away the layers

Assuming, rather

That all humans

Are the same

And so we are

x

The one or ones

We pray to knows or know it all

Yet will wait beside

To know our knowing

What we want most of all

To say

Gauging will against

Articulation

x

This isn’t a trick, either;

If self-correction fails

Well, God can

Work it out

Though it goes better

With our knowing

Or really simply

Something of

A loving interest

Even badly done

x

And doesn’t that sound

British in a Masterpiece sort

Of way?

Cheer-o, God will

Soldier us on

Well, maybe not

Honesty’s in many

Brogues

And attitudes, I’m sure,

Overall

And we are taken as we are

x

Slight readiness is all

That’s needed for

The feast,

Though if we’ve forgotten

God will take us, anyway

For what is slight

Might be crucial,

An ill-willed sibling

War

Waiting by the altar

x

But sometimes

There is surprise in grace

And anyone is

Welcome in whatever

State come to pray

To ask

Knowing without knowing

(if it comes to that)

That something wonderful

Will happen

x

C L Couch

x

x

by National Museum of the U.S. Navy – 80-G-304819, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70725677

80-G-304819: Battle for Iwo Jima, February-March 1945. Crouching in a foxhole they share in Iwo Jima are Marine Corporal Virgil S. Burgess and his courier dog, Prince. Burgess is giving instructions to the dog which will shortly jump out of the foxhole and carry a message to another point on the battle field, February 28, 1945. U.S. Navy Photograph now in the collections of the National Archives. (2016/01/19).

x

1

We’re Sorry, Monday Morning

(x = space)

x

x

We’re Sorry, Monday Morning

x

I have some toast

I’ll have some coffee soon

And there’s nothing like cold water

To begin it all

Libation and consumption

Lead to liberation

(with les jeu de mots)

We need water

Mine goes through filters

Because we cannot drink what

We have ruined, only

Stave against pollution

Does anyone on Earth

Or above the Earth

(the ETs who are watching)

Think we are lunatics,

Invested of the moon

In an invented way?

And what can we do?

Fix all the water

Apologize to Earth

Tell Gaia that

We won’t do it again

x

C L Couch

x

x

Itto Ogami, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53127564

Piazza del Campo!

(Fonte Gaia, Siena)

x

2

Keeping Hours

(x = space)

x

x

Keeping Hours

x

Devotion is a yearly task

Admiring the seasons

The reason that it works, I think,

Is that there’s love inside

And another thing

Is that it’s shared

You might not be in the room

With me, but I know that

Somehow you are there

With the presence

That arcs over us

The time, the candle flame

Adapted for occasion

The page that holds

Eternal words and worlds

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

x

2

Blessings

(x = space)

x

x

Blessings

x

God is good

We say this

I think more people have more

Ways to say that

God is great

Maybe that sounds too much

Like a battle cry, so

USA suburbanites say

At grace

That God is good

x

We like the notion of

God as our friend

And God is our friend

Jesus has said so

Maybe those with God

But without God as a person

See this attitude

As thankless

Even while we’re thanking God

x

We lack perspective of

The God who leads us into

War or will take us to

A majestic place called paradise

When our impersonal

Services are done

x

It’s hard for us

With God as a person

And a friend

To think about torn flesh

In crucifixion,

Muscles pushing the lungs

To breathe

Blood flowing everywhere

And visceral humiliation

But this is what we did to God

Don’t try to place it on a group

We all took part

x

God our friend

Jesus whom we love

We killed him

And forgot the resurrection

Buried him away

And felt satisfied with that

Or mourned

x

So desiccated doctrine

That while hiding

Satisfied or scared

We wouldn’t take a drink of news

That it was not all over

Never had been

x

The women and a man

Were first witnesses then heralds

Met with skepticism

Most likely scoffs

Maybe cursing

Sanhedrin and the Romans would

Have strategized

Large human spiders among webs

While closer disciples

Struggled (badly) to perceive

To understand the words

That spoke to sights and sounds

And all sensations

From the encounters at the rounded

Tomb of Joseph

Whose first resident was gone

An absurdity, if not a crime

Of action

x

Our rabbi

Our teacher and our friend

By his own words three nights ago

Has been taken

That’s the best disciples’ thoughts could do

Modern minds would have done no better

Except to maybe add a layer of

Arrogance to it

Because in the here and now

We know better

x

Well, there was a disappearance

Then the appearing happened

God with us again

Immanuel

Where had God gone?

Nowhere in particular

Maybe to harrow hell

x

God with us again

And, by the way,

Is God

Majestic and inventive

Fear and love beholden

From souls and minds

And anything that moves in us

That breathes

That has being

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

Harissa, Lebanon

Tomb

x

1

Dear Next Page

(x = space)

x

x

Dear Next Page

x

This isn’t a diary

Dear Poem

Or what have you

Diaries are for

Confessions

Apologies in the old-fashioned way

As in explanations

Defensive explanations

And wishes

Wishes maybe

For the world to change

x

I keep a journal,

Which in the definitive way

Is dull

Why do I think the way I do? is

Taken on

And why is there breath

Or anything

But here’s the thing,

There I often write about

The way I feel

Not asking why I feel this way,

Simply saying

x

Maybe it is a diary, after all,

In the tradition of

A lock and key

x

I have a password

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Drahomír Posteby-Mach on Unsplash

Trollenäs 104, 241 92 Eslöv, Sweden, Trollenäs

x

2

Treasure

(small x by itself = space)

x

x

Treasure

x

A tower in a forest

I’ve never come upon one

The tower

Maybe not a forest

There are woods around

But old-growth trees,

Wide trunks

Branches that go the distance

Tangling with sunshine?

It’s old magic, really

That I’m looking for

Maybe in a crystal cave

That better have tall windows

Or on a ship

Over a rounded sea

The only way to get

To the X island

x

There can be new magic

Bright and shiny

But sometimes burnished gold

Has all the answers

With a reason

For discovery

The old informs the new

And we are reminded why

The treasure hunt’s important

Everyone should seek something

With an impulse,

Suspended between

Heart and brain

On strings that play of life

And invitation

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

Silverthorne, United States

x

4

The Nightmare Merchant

(x = space–and the expletive thought I have for the new WP editor)

x

x

The Nightmare Merchant

x

I don’t like yelling

At people in my sleep

I wake up

Remembering

Feel the anger

And the uselessness

Wanting to fix things

By the light of day

I’m working out things,

I guess

Letting my subconscious

Wander freely, too freely

Maybe

I wake up with a headache

Worse than usual

With no revelation,

Either

Wondering why revel

Is in revelation

There certainly had been no party

While I slept

And dreamed bad dreams

The last dream to remember

While I’m awake today

Between the sub- and the con-,

I’ll be working on it

Still

Half-part wanting to repair

Everything,

Half-part wishing that,

Like Bartleby,

I’d really rather not

Or like Bartleby

Deal in nightmares

x

C L Couch

x

x

Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11231/pg11231-images.html

x

Photo by Timothy Muza on Unsplash

Iceland

x

3

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑