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Junior Classic, Illustrated

Junior Classic, Illustrated

 

I saw an image of a dhow

First time in a comic book when

I was young

Good place to find it—

Looks and words of far-off places

Among them those that don’t exist

For that’s what

Comic bookx are for

And for the youth

In any age

 

A small, Egyptian ship

To carry color, set a story

Spark something in the head

And all longing internal parts that

Want the story

To be real

 

Then, I read slowly

I read slowly now

And for my sins became a teacher

Of all kinds of text

But the text that draws me in

Is

 

Once this happened

 

C L Couch

 

 

Dhow in the Indian Ocean near Zanzibar

Muhammad Mahdi Karim – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13092508

 

 

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Solacing

Solacing

 

I’m tired, but it’s the kind

Of tired that comes from sleeping for

A while,

Waking up and wondering what time it is

The clouds and unspring-cool help

This along

But it’s not unpleasant disorientation

I know I’ll rise

And this day will happen

 

Coffee and toast,

The closest thing to routine

It seems allowed

A normal day, what’s that?

I couldn’t tell you

I don’t fear boredom but

I fear being dull

Like the poor boy Jack

 

Life should have sharp edges not

For cutting but for

Carving toward brilliance

As if whittling wood could

Somehow make a diamond

 

Nature says hello

Me, too

I hope we both cooperate

I’d like you to have this day as well

 

C L Couch

 

 

(smoky diamond, public domain)

 

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Rainy-Brained

Rainy-Brained

 

I don’t know what to say today

As our flood waters rise

The water’s in the wall so tall

I see the damage with my eyes

 

But I unlike the waif am safe

Though here or there’s a crack

I will not risk my life (a knife)

Here I’ll be should you come back

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Herrmann Stamm on Unsplash

 

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A Hop Among the Tombstones

A Hop Among the Tombstones

 

Stayed there while I wrote

The graves go back to colonial times

One of the graves is under the church,

Which makes it a crypt, I guess

 

There is a low, stone wall

Everything is gray except

The grass in sunlight

And the robin

 

Brown and red

And still for now

So I might know it better

And, oh, so alive

You are now

I’m thankful

 

C L Couch

 

 

Not the robin I saw, this is a chick.  I like its attitude, if personified (maybe not).

Galawebdesign – photographer (Wikimedia Commons)

 

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Invocation in a Parking Lot on a Saturday in Spring

Invocation in a Parking Lot on a Saturday in Spring

 

I’m here

You’re here

You’re where I was

 

Even when I don’t know

Or might choose otherwise

Such is sin

You do better than the

French

And the Pimpernel

You don’t hide

It was Adam and Eve who hid

For vanity and shame

Pointing everywhere

But to the heart

 

Wake my heart, O God

Goad me to love, as you must

Because I won’t have it any other way

 

C L Couch

(drafted there)

 

 

Photo by Hendrik Morkel on Unsplash

Gelnhausen, Germany

 

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watching an old horror movie

watching an old horror movie

 

was it a wolf i heard

or the growling of my stomach

the monster shrieks

i’m out of popcorn

 

the mummy beckons

a creature is remade

i keep you alive

yes

i do

 

i protest

i’m awake

the sun is up

all nether things this side of oz

are done

time for living color

time for bed

 

until tomorrow

after sunset

when things that make no sense

come out to play

with popcorn

 

c l couch

 

 

 

bunny sidhu – own work, cc by-sa 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59650633

 

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Machine Learning

Machine Learning

 

I should be ashamed to say

I looked them up

Not for contact

No

Simply to know a little

I didn’t learn much

Evidence of lives lived

For which I’m thankful

Penury is not a thing to know

I keep you from mine

 

C L Couch

 

 

Control panel for UNIVAC 1232

Steven Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46966916

 

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Normal Life

Normal Life

 

I wake up early because I’m stressed

It’s dark, and I can’t tell if it’s

Because the power still is off

 

I want coffee

We are in a land of coffee, but it’s

Been hard to keep at hand

Bread?—sometimes what we can make,

When we find ingredients

The children might have school today

We never know

 

Dios mío, I don’t know if we’ll find toilet

Paper—toilet paper!—today

My phone sometimes works;

I’d like to find out how the rest of the

Family is doing

Though if poorly, what can I

Do for them?

 

I might get some news, but it will be all

Bad

And, you know, I want it to be bad

I don’t want to hear how celebrities are

Living, when we live perilously

Least of all, I don’t want to know of politicians’

Lives: they have failed us,

 

And until they live like us

I don’t want to know about them

We used to be rich with oil and coffee

Cacao, plátanos, other

Things

The children learn in school

Angel Falls

I’ve never been

 

Crops, decent houses, and safe cities

Even trying to live outside

Shadows of the carteles

 

I’m almost sorry I remember all

The good things

But I would go mad without

The hope that something good

Will return or something new will happen

 

Help from outside is something

We can’t always

Trust

But today I do not care

I want my family to be safe

I want to have food, the plainest kind

And plenty of it

Too much would be a blessing

I want to go to sleep tonight without

Fear from all there is

To fear

 

I want to know that in the morning

We can have hot water

I can turn on the lights,

The microwave, the computer, or the TV

If I want to

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jonathan Mendez on Unsplash

Caracas

 

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Where V Means Wild Geese

Where V Means Wild Geese

 

I wished I lived in someplace cool

It’s relative, I know

Cool to me would mean, well, cool

A northern clime, I suppose

But cool in the other way

James-Dean cool,

Which for me means a plethora for metaphors

The kind that blesses Mary Oliver

In her turn,

One season followed by another, each day

Therein a chance for some new bird

Or amphibian

Or wild flower, unbidden, that rises

 

I live in my small town with brick surroundings

I like it well enough

And, if I must say, there are worse places

Sometimes the days go gently by

Sometimes there is a thrill

Inside all right angles

 

C L Couch

 

 

Canadian Geese in Spring

Rennett Stowe from USA – Canadian Geese in Spring, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26301433

 

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