Better Kilig
for Rosema
my friends in Tagalog
tell me that kilig means
tingling anticipation
right before sensation
and then the sensation,
too
a good word revealing
prospects of all kinds
of pleasure
God invented this, you
know—and if thinking
about God and pleasure
seems out of sorts to
you,
then let’s re-think
pleasure
Rosema is A Reading Writer,
Art in Anxious Time
I’m anxious and it’s
hard to write
art expressed in pain:
I don’t know how
those artists do it
maybe it’s big fear
and nihilistic agony
that keeps them
going, that prompts
expression that might
change the world
and everything
beyond
the gardeners at
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki must
accomplish this
I have small pains
and many things that
trouble me—yes,
sometimes they are
bad as in raw—
unformed, unfixed,
though I think the
only one that might
be changed through
treating these in art
is me
still, through all
the small-town
clay-house conflicts
I might strive to
express something
new
something that might
relate to you
(the teacher and good
sport in me should tell
you that clay house
is a Puritan metaphor)
That ‘70s Show
The seventies were strange
Times—we were trying to find
Ourselves, though had to be
Told first that we were lost
We were the TV generation;
We drank Coke, the real thing,
And sixties protest signs
Became seventies pop art
I tried TM, tried to find out if
I am okay, because you are; I
Was too young for this, but it
Was the world we had
The generation before had
Failed us not simply for not
Respecting or responding to
Our questions but also for
Confessing that the life it
Would leave for us might and
Likely not be better than
Before (what the earlier
Generations owned)—we
Could protest with polyester
And acrylic, leisure-suits and
Lounge-lizarding; we could
Disco until we were done,
Then pack away our hopes
In a Star Wars kit bag, because
Leaving our universe back
And far away gave better
Light than warring over oil,
Other energies at home and
Abroad in new draft lotteries
Our cordless phones were
Bricks or in our muscled cars—
And something called the
Personal computer horizoned
We left narrow lapels and
Ties behind, prepared for E.T.
Calling, then Buelller leaving
Off the decade’s happy days
For the Squeaking Door I Don’t Have
I make noises like a squeaking door
When I get up from sitting cross-legged
On the bed, where I’ve been tapping
On the laptop surface that sits in front
Of me, there
I make the noises verbally, that is—for
Now, my joints are fine
I don’t know, it’s my way to speak into
The silence and the solitude: a way to
Say, I’m here
For all the world to respond to, which,
Of course, it doesn’t
And Now One Is Found
The Nigerian schoolgirls
(hashtag)BringBackOurGirls
Remember
How would we
Understand two hundred
Seventy
How would such a number
Be taken without our
Noticing
In what kind of truck
And to what place all
Hidden
In our neighborhood-filled
Planet-parts, this is
Hard
From our earthen places
We cannot count
How
But in part we can’t believe
Not because it didn’t
Happen
Tragically, criminally,
Numerically—what transpired
Transpired
And with our questions and
New trepidations here is her
Body
Now we have her with
Child and husband on the fringes
Found
We can understand, now
Perhaps, a new story of
One
MS804
While they were up there
God took them home
Not to be taken as a platitude
Anger remains below
Confusion, aching concern
Managing all that’s in
The brain and
The human heart
That breaks in the world
Around, while more loss
Is measured out
And poured over like
Ashes, reminders that peace
Is not on board
Above or on the ground
War of attack
War of flawed things
The first mark being profit
Safety will never work as second
Psalm 39
a psalm of lament
Why must we kill each
Other, Lord? Why is
Cain more of an
Example than a single
Lesson?
Your word tells us to
Love; yet you have
Commanded war, I
Know—does war work
When you are its
General?
We kill each other in
Small ways as well
In kindness withheld,
All respect scorned,
And in quotidian
Wounding that will not
Subside, such is our
Wayward will
And lack of empathy
Keep showing us the
Better way, O Lord
And when we must be
Brutal, let us yield
The field to your
Strategy and control
This Is What I Care About
This is what I care about
Family—three brothers, sister,
Brother-in-law, sisters-in-law,
Too
Niece and nephews, two
Children in the next generation
Four dogs for now, no cats
I know of (since mine died)
Friends—those who have
Work and those who need it,
Who are healthy and who
Struggle to get through the
Day without so much pain
Neighbors—those who make
Up my community and those
Who try to disfigure it
Peace that hardly yet prevails
Love and grace that it might
Abound
God who doesn’t need me
But regards me as one part
Of creation, anyway
And you
For so many reasons
For I know that you care, too
No Time for Corruption
Hell, no time for disagreement
The Kurds need recognition
Identification as a community
Militias need discipline
If they’re going to exist at all
Iraq needs to find its center
If it’s going to overwhelm ISIS
And not defeat itself
What do we do, we from the
Outside?
We have resources, maybe we
Have time, we have perspective
More importantly, we can care
Stratagems and de-stabling
Agendas aside, sixty-six persons
Died—were killed—in a bombing
In Sadr marketplace
I know we don’t know this place
We might not know how to say
It
But sixty-six
How many families is that
I swear, we should invoke the
Real Isis, god of wisdom and
Brother to the god of the dead
Let her sort it out, if we cannot
Find the wisdom in ourselves
clcouch123 
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