Passenger
Disorientation
Getting sick
Trying not to
No, what is it
Trying to get well
Two infections
And did they damage my heart?
Became the overarching question
So a string of tests
Withholding diagnosis in the mean time
Withholding treatment, too
The pain was high
Still is
Less lousy, I can say
C L Couch
A Gift to be Free
It’s a Saturday for God-thinking in
The easiest way possible
No one expects anything at least
In my culture
(weekend in the USA)
There’s mass on Saturday
A smart invention of the Catholic church
But even then it will go easier
Litany from a hammock
Prayers while kneeling
In the garden
What does God want of Saturday?
Sixth day of creation
I think we were made
Though a day to God
Might as well be an eternity
To our thinking
We are the human gift
Invention for our industry
Now limit the hours
Keep it to five days
(four days in Europe)
Send all the children home
From factories forever
(the world waits for this)
It can be a day for thinking and rethinking
For new ways to slide in
Supplanting what needs to be overthrown
Inside,
Confirming what is wise and
Always
Let’s enjoy the first half of the weekend
Tomorrow should be even better
And if your sabbath’s done
Then divine gifting
Is already yours
And if your sabbath’s an invention
Enjoy humanism-giving
In rest or play
In other words, the day is yours
The day is ours
C L Couch
Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash
Cheerleaders
Friday’s Children
It’s Friday
I should say something
About cats
And to be fair
Dogs
And if you have a rabbit
Pet your rabbit
Be careful ‘round the ears
Otherwise, I think they like it
Friday’s child is loving and giving
Cats, it’s true
Are a source of affection
And encouragement
Through seeming indifference
Dogs are obvious about it,
Aren’t they?
Sometimes that’s just what we need
Obvious affection
I’ve spent most of my life
Around both
Not both kinds of cats (though
that’s true)
But contrary cats
And thorough dogs
C L Couch
Image by Peter Morth from Pixabay
Process of Prayer
God
I love you
I don’t know if you know that
But you are perfect
So you must
And know this better than I
What is real
What is faked
What is performance
From a holy script
Or my own from the ground
The dirt, the dust of my own use
Of words
I hope that if I reach out with my mind
You are receiving
So many of my prayers are silent
They wouldn’t have to be, I guess
I count on you for reading thoughts
Is that all right?
Thought is reality
Is has to be
I hope it may also be
Salutation
Supplication
Air into which
I might air grievances
Also dreams
And gratitude
If not for dreams, then for life
Itself
I guess I trust you hear me
That silences still count
So as my words go out
They must go in as well
C L Couch
A nonconformist chapel in Pwllheli, Wales. Unlike historic chapels, this is not attached to a larger place of worship.
Alan Fryer, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12537842
One-Sided Catechism
Lord,
I wonder Tevye-like,
Lord,
When will I be rich
And healthy enough
To take it and relish the
Easy pleasures of the
Earth?
When will I be young again
(and in so many ways
the first time)
To have a spirit free
Of mortal weights
Or maybe a few
To start
Of the more pernicious
To be rid of
So I might leap the
Barricades of illness
And of penury?
When, O Lord,
Will you love me less and
More than enough
That I might walk the world
In ignorance with
Something in my pocket
For a change
(more than change)?
I know you love me, Lord:
Would you make that at least
A little less challenging?
Well
(exasperated sighs),
I’m waiting, Lord
Please
C L Couch
kamshots – Fiddler in Darband, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19976441
Kaptah
Not the thing
That proves to bloodless machines
We are, indeed, human
But a character in
A novel so sad
With beauty,
The sting, the agony of tragedy
He is not the hero
Not a villain
For a foil
He exists, and his motivation
Is self-interest,
Which is to say, he’s like us
A common man
Is he common woman?
Early on, he is a servant,
And he steals enough to keep his job
While his hiding places are secure
The protagonist forgets
About him in the midst of terror
And sadness for the state
And for one’s own
A common man
Is he a common woman?
One day, when few surprises remain,
Kaptah is found, fat and wealthy
Lording it over his own
All is otherwise destruction
And reimagined chaos
For certain things go on
Only on the next generation’s form
He doesn’t care
He has his own
Glamour, glitz, tastelessness of
Rococo (not rococo itself)
He is fashionably grotesque
(relation to the living is not
coincidental)
There is a promise that comes across
While reading as
Demon-mischief, say,
To those who want to co-create a better world
That Kaptah will endure
Enjoy the excesses of each day
To die in bed one day
Surrounded, if not
Barricaded,
By many wealthy status-things
He might know the illusion
And the lesson
Again, he will not care
For he is the common man
Is he the common woman,
I don’t know
C L Couch
The Egyptian by Mika Waltari
The Common Man by R K Laxman at Symbiosis Institute, Pune.
Hari Prasad Nadig – https://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/5537675936, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38047206
Cat News in Mews
(not meaning stables except I guess as places for cat-gossip)
In a recent study
It was on the news today
Arch researching
(not unlike the cats indifferent
arch that is a pose, I’m sure) Found that
Cats can hear us
They know our names
They simply choose
To ignore us
This is news?
We know our cats know us
We count on it
As they on us
It’s a round-robin game
(sparing the robin)
The supplicants of Bastet
Could inform you
And all the rats on ships
Certainly, they know their names
But what is in the mind
Are silent cues
Scripted by a
God who loves them both
The felines and their victims
Cycles for the ages
Worthy of praise
Like Christopher Smart’s cat Jeoffry
Who will, I’m sure, not hear daily
Anything else
C L Couch
Study of the Virgin and Christ Child with a cat.
Leonardo da Vinci – The British Museum Database, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11231152
“Jubilate Agno”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45173/jubilate-agno
Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Please
God, what shall I say
Of you today?
You are exasperating
You are all hope
You are the center of my faith
You are the labyrinth
I mean to cross
I take my comfort from you
As I take sustenance from food
You are my food
There are no empty calories,
Which on occasion is my deal
I will die
I am afraid
I think I shall meet you there
Or someone from your office
I had an episode last night
To remind me
Though there’s fear
There will be relenting, too
A last litany with Earth
A first step toward
What you deem is next
C L Couch
Froaringus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7633775
A Song for Those Who Don’t Have Much of Anything
I don’t know how to praise you
I am not qualified
I am a ball of sin and regret
Smooth outside, worn
By experience and cynicism
What can I do
That you would want?
What kind of words
What kind of song
What kind of dance?
How would you want me glorifying you?
I can’t see it
My senses dulled
My spirit raw
My hope has fled like the bird who
Is at least is credited with impulse
I have no church organ here
(my neighbors thank me in absentia
for what is absent)
I do not sing
I do not practice
I do not dance (don’t ask me)
Unless you want a waltz
(or, faster, a polka)
I pray in silence, wondering from time to time
How much that counts
I cannot fathom what would please you
I am afraid to think on glory
For my failure at it
I leave my zeal mired below
Maybe I could read a song of David
Or of a prophet—Deborah? Ezekiel?
Tennyson? Nikki Giovanni? Sharon Olds?
Adrienne Rich?
Reaching for these was homework
Still bearing the cachet
Of lack of will
I read them on my own and more
I think they are beyond me, too
I could build something
I don’t have the talent
Sometimes I make something from
What is strewn around
These are on display
And are religious
Maybe extra credit
I could read speculation
Of a world that’s better
Help others do the same
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Word for World
Is Forest), Anthony Horowitz
(Raven’s Gate), Robin McKinley (The
Blue Sword)
Tennnyson again
(In Memoriam, that’s hard)
But the spirit-work’s already done by these
I should give something of my own
For all that it’s performance,
I’m not sure church has it, either
Though I won’t blame for trying
(for being trying, that’s
another story)
Maybe I will in my halting way
Land on something that will last
Enough for praise
And even pleasure
From the maker
Who counts sparrows and stems of hair
And might not reckon me
And mine
So bad
Close enough for jazz
Slender spiral of
What might pass for praise
C L Couch
Photo by Amy Baugess on Unsplash
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