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Process of Prayer

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

 

3

One-Sided Catechism

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

 

0

Kaptah

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

 

0

Cat News in Mews

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”

Christopher Smart

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45173/jubilate-agno

 

0

Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Please

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

 

5

A Song for Those Who Don’t Have Much of Anything

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

 

0

How Fast a Dream Fades

How Fast a Dream Fades

 

There was something

It was Christmastime

I was arguing with my mother

Over singing music I didn’t know

We went to church

Tim Breithaupt was there

He pointed toward a casino

On the hill

I said we have those, too

(casinos not hills, though we

have hills)

There’s not much more

And there was more

I feel sad about it

I was angry in the dream

I cannot argue with her, now

 

C L Couch

 

 

Tom Barrett

@wistomsin

This photo is taken from my flight to Panama. We flew directly through a storm, and this is what I captured.

Unsplash

 

0

Last of the Dog-on-Porch Poems

(3)

 

 

A Lesson from the Story

 

In The Horse and His Boy

A young person is punished

In the way she caused

The wounding of another

Aslan is very present there

In Narnia

Potent and immediate

The good thing is that

Judgment’s taken care of

Neither need worry over it again

 

A moment’s wrong

Another’s retribution

And we are clean with God

Again

Not bad, pre-Apocalypse

Before the book is opened

One last time

For good

 

 

A Grown-Up Narrative

 

Some adults with ADHD

Say they don’t like the medication

I understand

They feel the edge has been

Worn down

Lacking what is needed

Sharp awareness to get through

Each day

I understand

And, seriouser still,

The feeling that oneself has

Been worn down, too

Filed in every way

 

I have a medication that

Calms me down

Cools me

I’m thankful for it

Am I less of me?

I think parts of me that haven’t

Got to surface very much

Now have a chance for rising

And for air

 

Am I less of me?

If I am, is that so bad?

The peacefulness, it might

Be worth it

For the fuzzying of awareness

(I know what’s around me)

The challenge of the

Deeps of spirit I must swim against

I feel for those like me

Like themselves

Who favor the back stroke or the

Breast stroke

When one should not have to be

In the pool

I know it’s more than metaphor

Metaphor’s a pointer

Everything gets real

After that

 

 

Not Tonight, I Have a Headache

 

I’m sorry

I never got it right, you know

I must have a life

To offer it

I must have built something

And I didn’t

Praise and all impressiveness

To those who have

Who found enough for themselves

And to share

That is the way

That is the way of life

It secures the present and

Leans into the future

 

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by creisi from Pixabay

ecumenical?

 

1

Some Dog-Days Poetry

(3)

 

 

Unplanning

 

I’m not sure why

A cool breeze

Always comes across as surprise

I’m thankful, really

I think if I arranged it,

I’d be particular in the wrong way

Overly concerned (if at all)

About temperature, humidity

Air pressure

Something about millibars

 

I’ll simply sit here

In a chair I hadn’t planned

If it rocks, that would be another boon

And if silently,

Would be relief

For my neighbor’s sake

 

 

The Only Kind that Matters

 

Bread used to be square

I saw it in a movie

‘Course then I’d have to say

Bread was black and white as well

I’m not how they pulled it off

What kind of protractor

Tyrannized the baking pans

 

I guess someone decided

That homey bread must have

A curvy bunch up top

But then began the crust wars

We’ve been waging ever since

Maybe after ends of eggs

The Lilliputians take this on for us

 

We’ve got toast to make

And victory in croutons

 

 

Squared

 

I think I sat in churches

And at funerals

For which paper fans were

Handed out

For trauma’s or heat’s

Sake I am uncertain

In our machine age

And cushioning our chairs

The paper fans seem to have

Gone away

Until the other day

When a friend presented me with

One of these, I’m not sure why

 

I hold it now, and I recall

It was the day of our town fair

And we’ve had record-breaking heat

This year

So folk wandered up and down

The street, bearing square

Reminders of mortality

 

You see, the name the favors bore

Was of a certain

Local institution

 

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Nathalie Ehrnleitner on Unsplash

 

2

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