A Game
There is a game
To play now and then
It’s called the future
Something blank is all that’s needed
Not even paper
An open book
Or tabletop will do
But keep it empty
Then place a thought inside
And then another
You will lose your way, and that’s all right
You’ve won by then!
Maybe play again
Or realize
Tomorrow
C L Couch
Photo by Wolfgang Rottmann on Unsplash
If God Then God, If Not
If God is good
Why is the world so bad?
This is not a child’s question
Only in simplicity
And it has taken faith from many
Over time
There will be some number today
There are two things, as is
God and the world
And while we eschew puppetry
We take it right in judging
God by what we do in freedom
Nature’s indifference
I can chalk up to a fallen world
That fell with us
Depravity a Calvinist discretion,
How widespread
(the narrator had it slice through Jupiter
Out of the Silent Planet)
So it’s the need to fall
The interest to
That is decided
Have faith because
The world is falling
Henny Penny, Chicken Little
All the birds that find they cannot fly
By nature or by nurture
(Chomsky, Skinner)
Or by how thick the sky
Has become
We are not the world
And we are
We take it with us
Into our decisions
Which is to say are we at the root of evil
More than the devil?
I don’t know
I cannot notebook hell
But we are pretty bad
And can be pretty good
And, if to be allowed
Either say or way,
Then discretion is not valor but
Needful as air
We don’t make heaven or of hell
But I think we can contribute
And each essence must matter
While we do
Come home to one or the other
The invitations must be that dire
Life must be that real
Real choices
We know
Real consequences
Choose faith
Sometimes in something
Or release it
Take something or walk on
Must be breathing as an option and
Have muscles
No excuses but our own
C L Couch
Photo by Paul Carroll on Unsplash
Jesus Tells a Joke to Make a Point
(brief Bible study, Matthew 7:3)
It’s a joke
A pun
The sawdust in the other’s eye
The log in one’s own
All seeing devices marred
There is no clarity
In judgment
Not without remorse for one’s own,
First
The log, however
Maybe Jesus is laughing, who
Would know how to do that
The log is so difficult to see
Around
Much less through
To start
Might all these wood parts
I wonder
Come from
The tree of good and evil?
If so
Or if not
The stakes are high
The sanctity of sanctity
The holy qualities we have
But might surrender
So much easier to find
(without clear sight)
The problems with another
And I’m confessing, too,
Which does not make me readier
For judgment
That is, to do it
Not yet
(I laugh a little, sigh),
No
C L Couch
Photo by Tim Schramm on Unsplash
Door Prize
Through a door to Narnia
For others, it has been a dream
Or through a wall
Something that opens between worlds
Because we have to be there
There is a story half-done, only
We must change something
And be changed
And someone else will tell
The now-whole story
And we who might not go anywhere
Will go through, too
C L Couch
Photo by Ronald Cuyan on Unsplash
Antigua, Guatemala
Passenger
I don’t care who’s at fault
As I slip from Earth
There will be rage and judgment
From our advocates in heaven
While we are carried
Souls inside
The fearsome (fearful) wings of angels
I don’t care who your leaders are
They’ve all turned faithless
In this, the taking of our lives
I see her, now him
Now small ones,
This is all they have
Yes, it’s glorious
But more time on Earth
Was called for
The ground or air will have my body
But I should be walking, still
Upon the planet
Even a nestling of supernal charms
Is difficult to manage
Though we were caught in time
Too fast is fast enough
Sad, outrageous, peaceful, stolen
Those who are left, caught here
With the search
For conviction
Have got to know there’s hope
If never own it
Or, if owning it,
Feel it
Rather the irony of forced agnoticism
C L Couch
Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash
January 8 Iran plane crash – CNN
edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-plane-crash-live-intl-hnk/index.html
2 days ago · Iran plane crash: A Kiev-bound Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 plane crashed after takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.
Remembering Mohammad Asadi-Lari
Remembering SSP Fellow Mohammad Asadi-Lari, who died aboard the Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 that crashed in Iran shortly after takeoff.
Peace for All Time
(a three-part cycle)
1
Machine Language
Each moment’s a decision
To exhale,
To circulate some blood
To let the body stir for a while longer
To let the synapse burn
Brightly with mind-fire,
Transactions between what’s happening
And memory
Much of this is done for us
But there’s a partnership, I think
Between all parts
The automatic will take over for
The temporary
When immediacy of thought and movement
Are tired out
Call it sleep
Call it the second cup of tea
Taken on the porch
When for a time there’s nothing else to do
And this has been invoked
Because needed,
The ending of which we’ll debate
Peace an invention,
A transaction
Between all partners
Serving on the inside
2
Contrition
I won’t take it back
Not yet
I need to know the outcome,
Did I get anything I wanted
If penance is a prayer,
I’ll do my part
If it’s in bad feeling,
I’m already there
And counting
A return to normalcy
And what is that
It takes me out of this
Otherwise, I want
The special moments back
But it’s the future, now
Plu-imperfect
Please
Say them with me, maybe
All the prayers,
Then let’s move on
3
The Answer Is in Someone Else as Well
Inner peace
That’s cool
It’s not enough
If I’m in my chrysalis
And have no sight of yours
Or time
Where is my peace
If not in you?
This is cheating an invocation,
For it’s not a talk to God
But to you
The one nearby
And not inside
We need transaction, too
And more
You need to carry me
And I a part of you
A magic story in which twins
Keep a gem lit by the light force
Of the other
And there’s responsibility
In our story,
We will partner differently
That is, for real
Not to prevaricate conditions
But to say push on
Make peace because
We know each other now
To arbitrate
And there’s no other way
To build the day
That each must have
Into a present contract
As the future
C L Couch
Photo by Jarrod Reed on Unsplash
All We Know We Have
The existentialists
Have it right
The Positivists, too
The Deists
(God sets the world in motion,
leaves it go
leaves)
The one thing they know
Is that the present moment matters
As if there were nothing more
There might not be
For conscience, there isn’t
Living for tomorrow
Worse, living for heaven
Was medieval mischief
If I want my serfs to work
For me contentedly,
Then I need assure them
Of eternity
There will be no pain, no sickness
No poverty, no want for
Anything (the present moment, again)
Work now, suffer now
Under my thumb
Heaven’s coming
Lennon’s song has it right
Don’t dwell on heaven
Don’t fret hell
There are consequences now
Don’t put off righteousness
Live as if
There’s nothing next
What do we know,
There might not be
There isn’t
If we go together
That is family
If not, then I’ll have my present
Presence
You’ll have yours
And it is a gift
Too easy? Sure,
And not enough
And it doesn’t mean to re-create
The world every moment
We have standards
And philosophy
This is philosophy
But there is now to apply
There might not be another
Work it in
Walk through
Go on
It’s what we know we have
C L Couch
Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash
We Are X
Dear God, what shall we do
With a new world?
Another planet
Or the realm of antimatter,
Once breached?
Huge or microscopic,
There is responsibility
Not to mention
An awareness come from something
Else, new denizens
To us
Of new worlds
We’ll make an impression
We’ll try to mask the greed
Maybe we will indeed
Send our best people
But everything we are beneath
Must surface
Might we change ourselves
(change ourselves)
In the moment of discovery?
Become better friends
Or enemies
Once someone else
Some entity of consciousness
Without doubt is known?
So supplication while we can
Please watch over all encounters
Keep our explorers safe
And when and how
The universe might need
To be kept safe from us
C L Couch
Photo by Michael Henry on Unsplash
Fall on Your Knees
A new and glorious morn
For no reason other than arriving
Nothing special
Meaning all things are
Look for saints outside,
Dodging puddles
Miracles in coffee cups
Epiphanies while
Sliding on coats and gloves
It’s the oddest day, today
For being normal
It’s stunning and spectacular
For no reason at all
Except for what it’s earned
In being here
C L Couch
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
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