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General Delivery


General Delivery



It’s all for

General delivery

Eventually

These words

Your words

The words of anyone



To our chagrin

It all gets kept

Inside the book

Except when

The doctrine of

Justification

Is established



And then

The sins are written out

No book mark

Or any record left

When we can try again

To draft

Compose

Revise

Edit

Have someone else maybe

Take a look



Then we commit

The words are out there

Once again

Actions

Repercussions

Maybe it goes well

This time

For we are clearer

Then become reliable

For this

To some



Even constituents

Those we serve

Most closely

While in the future

Subject to interpretation

Still



Whom do we know

And how

The ethnologists

Have a way

With story

And might get us right

Eventually



We have today

For saying the right thing

And if we need

To make up for it

(not make it up)

Well

We have our doctrine

Still

To keep us

With our God

And with each other



Say this

Don’t say anything

Restraint

And modesty

Could be our values

Too

With respect to keep a world

From destruction

And bring us to

Instead

A table

Neither polished

Or shaped perfectly

But smooth enough

With people standing

(sitting)

By for splinters

But ‘round which

We have set ourselves

For conversation

The expressions

Of ourselves

The receiving of

The offered words of others



Why

There are models

Of this

Here

And every day

Thank goodness



C L Couch





Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash
2

We Want to Make This Classic, paired with Expanse


We Want to Make This Classic



Two years

Plus three months

Two wars

The ones we know about

Who are the combatants

How much material

Is left

To each side



How much longer

Even supplied

By the bigger thugs outside

Who claim

Defense defending



How much robbing

Peter

To pay Paul

And then Paul

Demands more and more

Of Peter



And it’s us

Is the idea

All us

We lose

We run down

We run out

We manufacture more

To say

It’s good for the economy

While the vaults in

Hell

Or waiting by the river Styx

Are the only things

That are full



And this become our legacy

We lose

Things from the Earth

That cannot be restored

Life in which

We had only given

Love



And there is less

The surplus population

Whom did we not need

And did we push them

Toward the front



Uriah-like



Of course

We wish it over

We wish them done

So we could walk across the fields

And say

This happened here

But statues

And they are meaningful

Fly flags

The same



By force

A fallow field

Unchanneled water

And who knows what

Congeals inside

Our natural

And plastic substances

To raise

Hate

Or something else we hide

Ongoing tries

For greed

Until we say

There

Someone made money

Out of this

Someone got a bit of power

Well

The illusion of it

Anyway

But that’s the best we have

In shadowlands





Expanse



There is the sun

At last

It will rise into the clouds

Maybe into a day

That’s only gray

Until the setting hour

When all these lines of yellow

Turn toward red

Then blue

Then black of night



It happens all the time

And is not

What’s happening

There are orbits

There are rings

Of different shapes and sizes

There are fields of gravity

There is magnetism



We try

To ken it all

To suss the meaning

In the measure

Or get a damn fine story

Out of it



Feature

Human interest

Sci-fi tome

That tells us where we’ve been

And where fancifully

We might be going

Out of these rounded places

Into an

Unbounded expanse

With only our imagination

For a shield





C L Couch





Photo by Krisztian Matyas on Unsplash
0

snow on one branch to start


snow on one branch to start



snow on a branch

then move closer to the window

to see the snow

is everywhere outside

of course



and this is good

it’s winter

and it doesn’t look severe

most of this will clear away

and the temperature

supposedly

reach fifty

by

midweek



it’s the kind

to look at

and to watch it fall

as if nothing else is pressing

even though it is

calls for a drink

with rising vapor

and to sit

at something

by the window



take it in

and also think

and feel

far away



this is hardly farm show weather

it is so mild

but it’s the first snowfall

to note

in a year

and will have to do

being an untroubled visitation

on the first day

of

the January fair



c l couch





photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
1

Epiphaneity


Epiphaneity



Epiphany

Twelfth Night

Also

Orthodox Christmas



Yet in the west

We have the

Magi

Visiting

The child

With the mother

And adoptive father



And since

Liturgy

Respects only its

Chronology

We might mainly note

Today

The baptism

By

The cousin John

Of the child now grown

Now

Authorized by the

Spirit

As a dove



Then the child

Grown

Journeys into

Wilderness



C L Couch





Le Jourdain au site du Baptême, en Jordanie.

By Jean Housen - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11820699
1

Kneeling


Kneeling



I’m sorry

I’m tired

I’m sorry I’m tired

I should have given more

In better ways

To serve the Lord

The people of the Lord

The planet of

The Lord



And shall you forgive me

I think you shall

Because you’re perfect

At such things

And I am punishing myself

And you know that



And yet you love me

With a perfect love

Not to let me off the hook

Any more

Than to let me go



There’s color in repentance

Moving from

The black and white of sin

The stories in which

Color

Wondrously appears

As if we’d never known

Such a thing

Before



There’s texture

There are layers

In the Earth

They have colors

Too



Everything is better

We can hear

The colors

From within

And taste them on the surface

Through and through

We let

Everything improve

As health

After sickness

When we never thought

To feel

At all well

Again



C L Couch





Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash
2

Tollers

I am trying the “Verse” option in WordPress, because in part I think I should; and at least I miss having to type Xes for spaces.  I’m not sure how it’s going; I’m not sure what you receive, even though I proofread graphically as well.  I’ll keep trying.  Thanks for reading.





Tollers



Yesterday

His birthday

The day before

My brother’s

For who shall be

My brother

Well

My brother

Though I could meet

Him

In the Bird and Baby

As in a pub

He met

With Dracula

(a good story

that)

And I shall send a card

To my brother

Through electrons

And there shall be

Good wishing

In a meeting

With him

Too

That may

Or may not happen

Though we know

We can’t see

Tollers

Save on pages

And having seen

His son

Once

At a conference

At which I read

A paper

About riddles



C L Couch




notes


Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3.18 ff

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973

Steven Eric Couch, 2 January

Photo by Tarik Haiga on Unsplash [kind of mixing up Tolkien’s use of dragons with the Year of the Dragon approaching]

2

photograph of one who stands different

photograph of one who stands different

(flash fiction challenge--the photograph reacted to is at Melissa's site, link below)



she’d like to talk

I think

she has things to say

and has invested in earth colors

and a visible presence

in a crowd

inside a city



who might keep her from talking?

well

she’s surrounded by black forms

hoods

perhaps hijabs like hers

(though hers is kindly brown)

and on the other side

black uniforms

of police

who also wear

visors hard to see through

and though we cannot see them

there must be weapons

somewhere



she has no actual platform

for her platform

there is a sign close by

she might be holding it



ironically

it says

SILENCE IS VIOLENCE

because

well

it is

silence is violence

if the silence is words

frightened

or (otherwise) brutalized

away from utterance

out of consideration

for fear of weaponry

arrest

and isolation

which would

once again

be silence



and this is a message

to the rest

that keeping silent

is through indifference

or only taciturn

approval

a kind of violence

in and of itself



we let it happen

let the wrong things happen

or keep

the right words

the protest words

the revealing words

get out

it’s like the leave to vote

and then

not bothering

infantilizing values

of democracy



her mouth is covered

I don’t know if

from cultural requirement

protection

from infection

or to illustrate her point



she is not tall

which is to say

everyone is taller

all around her

though she (or whoever)

holds the sign high

higher than everyone

to make her point

and maybe find

an invitation

to speak out

from up higher

sometime



she is not subjugated

yet

she’s there

she’s standing

and the sign is standing

not to mention

that the line

of her suit jacket

sends a message

of some fashion

something lined

through razored words

through silence

after all



the eyes are windows

clearly open

though the message

of a moment

might need more

some exchange

some blinking

we could get

from being there



but she needs to talk

everyone there

everyone here

needs to hear

and heed

what she has to say

the need is ours

outside the frame

to find her

and the source of words

and more

in principle

and action

to take away



C L Couch



(for) Melissa’s Flash Fiction Challenge #249

https://melissalemay.wordpress.com/2024/01/01/melissas-fandango-flash-fiction-challenge-249/

(tag #FFFC)



Photo by Priscilla Gyamfi on Unsplash

Chalk writing on the street near the George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis. "Together we will change the world."

4

This Is the Song that Never Ends


This Is the Song that Never Ends



Or would you like to

Swing on a star

Carry moonbeams

Home in a jar

And be better off than you are

Or would you rather be a—

(verses for blanks)

Which is a kind of song

That loops

So easily

After the movie

Then throughout the day

And we might wake with it

The next day

I just checked

Jimmy and Johnny

Made the song

(called Jimmy and Johnny

as James and Jonathan

tended to be

back then

like Johnny Williams

in the sixties

before Jaws

and Star Wars)

I think

I heard it once

On Captain Kangaroo

It really is a pleasant song

Existential animals

Notwithstanding

And I think they might excuse us

For our foibles

Symbolized

And what is a song for you

That goes ‘round

In what you wonder

Might become

An attitude

Frustrated

Though for now

As you go through it

It goes through you

(and it might be a long song)

Inciting joy

To go with something else

A chore

Or bigger thought

That occupies

Reminding

Or informing

You are better than you are

Swing on a star



C L Couch





Photo by Oleg Sergeichik on Unsplash

(out of) Gomel, Belarus



“Swinging on a Star”

Writers: Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke

Publisher: Kanjian Music, Music Sales Corporation

https://songfacts.com/lyrics/bing-crosby/swinging-on-a-star



"The Song That Doesn't End" (also referred to as "The Song That Never Ends")

written by Bernard Rothman

for Shari Lewis

(1988)

Wikipedia
1

the wanderer


the wanderer

(after losing everything)



winter arrives



there might be a storm

of ice and snow

in days



I’m not ready

but I’m never ready

not when I have so little

with which

to endure



I’d sell my soul

for food

and warmth

but God won’t let me



there is still the notion

of my soul

that is

assayed as worthless here

but might

be worth something

set on a scale

for heaven



so I shall

persist

until my spirit

has run dry

of blood

and will

and pray to God

that I’ll be taken easily

once warmed before I die



and only so much

before

having arrived

I’m washed in comfort

and apology

in paradise



c l couch





inspired by “The Wanderer,” a poem from a millennium ago at least, and by pressing issues now



photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash
0

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