(x = space)
x
x
haiku (3) after Hallowtide
x
x
seasons ending in
new seasons beginning to
take hold then let go
x
x
red leaves like children
bright and shiny always changing
into something else
x
x
evergreen until
needles wither due to lack
of water and air
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Red of Fall
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
two poems for young people
x
x
Youth
x
They (you) look so young
Not like those near altars
Of antiquity
Who are forever beautiful
But cannot move
x
These might be cared for carefully
That youth might be preserved
Youth cannot be preserved
x
Youth might invest their own
(your own)
So that the coming days
Are rich
With age and wisdom,
Maybe things put by
x
But (you) run without avarice
Or even long ambition
Become parts of a transitory mural
That is bright
All colors
Shapes
At least three dimensions,
Which will have no museum
Save in memory
x
x
Locksmithing
x
Who holds the keys?
Why are there keys?
Why are their locks?
What is kept?
What must be freed
Up with which
From being locked?
x
Behind the door
Once opened
Nothing might be withheld
But secrets of the arrogance
The avarice in
Withholding
Private parties
Boring,
Frightening without joy
From the absconded powerful
x
There might be secrets
For the young to own
(they, you
should have mentors)
If taught or teach themselves
(yourselves)
How to
Break out
x
This is the story
Of the end of age’s
Generation
The beginning of another
An ownership
That could calcify
So-called in privilege
Or turn around
Turn everything around
Toward all the growth
In revelation
And unwithheld resources
For life
With invention
Food, that is, and challenge
x
Keeping democracy
(boo say some, but)
We need it
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Burned Out at the Salton Sea
Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
Floods, Swords (two poems)
could read the second of them while waiting on the first
x
x
Consider Extra Floods
x
Jackson
And Jacksonville
Puerto Rico
Cuba
Indonesia
Pakistan
Recently, in Europe
Maybe here on Friday
x
The Earth warms
The polar shelves
Send sheets of ice
Into the ocean
Water rises
x
Storms increase
Maybe we should
Appreciate complaint
From our own
Planet
From the core to the skies
And those of us
All of us
On middle ground
Between the hell and heaven
Spirituality
Counting its own cost
In faith and lives
Of our own globe
In a waiting cosmos
x
x
Consider Broken Swords
(Lord of the Rings)
x
Sting was never fixed,
Which would have been bad
For marketing
Though reminding
If not teaching
Us quite rightly
For the story
That the sharpest swords
Don’t have to win the day
And brokenness and heroes
Go together
x
The famous sword
The one that sang for Aragorn
Is fixed by Elven smiths
And ready for the final fights
In Rohan
Osgiliath
Minas Tirith
At the Black Gate
At last
These are the heroes whom we know
The king revealed
Wanderer and healer
The sword
That has a greater name
With supernal persona
Magic
In personality,
In character
As it were
x
But Sting
Is in a box
In Rivendell
Until it’s brought out
For a hobbit’s use
An unknown being
Anonymity its armor
(which had served the king
for a time)
They would sting another spider
Fill with poison
Topping off the stinging burden
Of an eldritch thing
And promises
Nothing healing
‘Til the mountainside
And going in
To face the fire
x
Goodness, there are heroes
There are lives
That serve the world
That sacrifice all pleasures
And promises
To take on one great evil
In front of armies
On one’s own
Inside mountains
At the gate
Of hell on Earth
Of hell on Middle-Earth
For all of us, between
x
The small sword
Is character as well
Four heroes, as it were,
Famous
On the surface
Or unfamous,
Inside holes for homes
Then mines and caves
Tunnels without songs
Until at home again
To rest
When things are done
Awaiting passage to
A healing land
x
Five heroes
Add two more
Then seven
Then many more
And villainous
And in-between corrupt
Great wars to settle things
The hobbits home at last
We close the books
So are we
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Octavian Dan on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
poems about early life
x
x
around the green S chair
(Rick and me)
x
there was an S chair
green, upholstered
with that kind of hard,
bumpy brocade that was
uncomfortable
kept in the basement
and there were other things
as basements tend to have
and around the chair
and through the other things
there was an oval
made that we would run,
my older brother and I,
while the Three Stooges
ran on television
and we ran in opposite directions
to each other, and when
we passed each other
we would whoop in high-pitched
voices like the
Stooges whom we thought
must be having fun
in black and white
as we were
around the green S chair
and everything else
pushed to one or the other
in the basement
x
x
a child’s Sunday night
x
everything was difficult
except sometimes on Sunday night
when we were downstairs
after baths or showers
pajamaed, robed
slippers over wrinkly toes
the TV set warmed up
Disney about to start
x
x
the younger ones on Friday night
x
on Friday nights
we often would
gather ‘round the kitchen table
with popcorn
and malted, chocolate candy
playing The Game of Life
sometimes Careers
we were taught Rook
the Southern person’s bridge
x
we played many games
and were okay
as long as my dad was winning
x
x
I never sang for my father
x
my dad took it on himself
to ridicule me
so that he might look bigger
somehow
whatever is in the mind
of the bully
I don’t know if that worked
inside
for him
while inside of me
as you might expect
there was resentment
and it grew
I had to win
and when I did,
I no longer cared
there was next to nothing there
and in the nothing
no relationships
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
I Never Sang for My Father is the name of a play and a film.
x
Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
two poems for July
x
x
x
Watch Your Dogs
x
Dogs don’t like fireworks
Many veterans don’t
All kinds of people
Be with them
Sit with them
Support K-9 programs
Support people
Not everyone likes fireworks
x
x
x
x
x
Hello, July
x
Hello, July
It’s hot and humid here
Not much more to say
But, well
x
There’s a lot of green
And other colors, too
Not like fall
But everything that lives
Does fly and otherwise
Visit us a season
As if
Forever’s come to call on
Bees and butterflies
x
The fireflies
Still have a season
Though, like strawberries,
They flourish in June
Around here
x
Storms appear and fall
Blow things around
Hot and wet fronts bumping
Around
Generally, we say
We need the water
x
x
x
x
Flavor of Hibiscus
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
x
x
x
C L Couch
x
(x = spaces)
x
x
Slow Season
x
1
Lord,
It is Lent
Moving slowly as it should
Forty days or so
In a couple weeks, Palm Sunday
Triumph and then the Triduum
Days of friendship
And of torture
For our Lord
For you
Ignominy
Then death
Then in the earth
Like a seed that has no merit
As no growth is expected,
Behind a stone
In fact
Lent closes over
That way
While we wait
Not knowing
We should wait for anything
x
2
Half the world is at war
My God,
What do we do to each other?
What grace is kept
Withheld
Like a body in a tomb
We’d try not to open
For fear of the revenant
We’d find inside?
Forgive us, anyway
Save us, anyway
By something so, so precious
That in the world we cannot escape
That finds us
Even though we say
Get away,
I want no part of you
Before the rooster crows
x
3
And what is grace
But something sliced
Through everything
That it is as good
As if
Dispensed only through itself
No keepers on Earth
Not the church
(don’t think it)
Or the world
(won’t think it)
God’s surprise
Surprised by peace
And then delight
Don’t think it comes in
Any other way
It is wild
If there is timing,
It only knows its own
It comes to save
Better than a plan
Or pre-requirements met
Don’t ask except
To ask of it
That is all right
It can act as if it hears
The one releases
It can hear
And for our malaprops
And misinformed
Hears us, anyway
x
coda
My people cry
I must respond
They ask badly
If at all
I want to hear them, anyway
I will respond
x
Something like it
Says the Lord
In songs
And other prophecies
And the amazing grace
Of love
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Christina van der Merwe on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Comedy Tonight
(the raven tells)
x
x
Demons
x
I imagine they are
Real,
Waiting for an open
Door:
x
We can dismiss
The fictive accounts
As speculation
But there are
Real reasons
To avoid them through
Prayer and
Spiritual companionship
And there are other rites
x
I guess it can be gross
And feel dark,
Trucking with demons
Always
On assignment
Looking through the fissures
To take over,
Listening
x
Yes, I think they’re real
Not in a
Gothic sense
They are not luxuriant
In empty, mansioned halls
They have us
When we let them
In
I don’t think by accident
x
Maybe by believing
They are means
For desire
Or revenge of
Something like
A genie’s wish
But in the lighted, wakened,
Wounded world
x
x
Hel
x
Is there a place
Of hell?
Most likely
x
Is it flames
And unquenched heat,
Blasts of judgment
Against dissolving
Souls?
I do not know
x
Maybe it’s all
Purgatory,
A final chance
For rescue
x
Separation from God
Is a popular
Definition, and
Why not?
That would be final
Final fate
Worst of all,
To discover something after
That is good
And lasting
And not to be a part of it
x
Maybe Jesus
Walks across the fissure
To harrow, hollow hell—to
Remove all residents
Should they wish
To go
x
Since a gentle God
Even then
Must leave eternity
A choice
x
x
Paradiso
x
Nothing like
Angels on clouds
Holding harps
x
Nothing static
The most action
We have ever known
With energy
And work
x
Only with good bodies
For it all
No weakness
Though the gentle
Supervise
x
Passion
Drama
Interest
Investment of
Our muscles
And organs, say,
Our hearts and brains
Restored
To Eden’s intention
And agenda
x
We’ll have things to do
In action
And in freedom
Nothing less
Only more
x
Impulse
And instinct
Perfected
Everything we want
Is heaven
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Kevin Mueller on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Sci-Fi Goats
x
Goats eat anything
I am reminded
As do pigs
I don’t think goats eat tin cans
As cartoons and other stories
Tell
But maybe
Maybe in the multiverse
Anything is possible
A metal-eating goat
On a world of lead
Might be
Just the thing
While justice of materials
Is worked out on other worlds
x
Not that we’re excused here
We have what we have
To use
To keep
Or we lose ourselves
Without a possibility
Of portals—
x
Maybe goats
They might be traversing
And we never know
x
x
x
Poeming
x
It’s not hard
But it should be honest
In challenging to write
About anything
(say, sci-fi goats, above)
What is the real story?
In not in fact,
Than in judicious metaphor
And maybe both—yes,
Both would be better
So choose the topic
Or let the topic choose
Get to work with
Heart and head,
All the muscles,
All the organs,
All the aspects
(I mean senses),
All the parts
x
Breathe through it all
Let the apparatus work
Once something is set down,
Go over it
And over it again
(not too many times)
Then release it like
Letting go of healed birds
Into the wild sky
Then let the work
Make sense of the world
For a while
x
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Hello, Friends
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel at Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/@rgaleria
x
(x = space)
x
x
Lost World
x
Dumb means mute
Kids are small goats
Am I becoming
That old person?
A semicolon’s
Better than a comma splice
President of the United States
Is always capitalized
Unlike another mention
Of a president
x
Defensive driving
Is a good thing
People should know
The lyrics of the first verse
Of the national anthem
And the lyrics to
One Christmas carol
(take your pick)
All is not lost in lost traditions,
I suppose;
I made that last one up
x
No re-creating the world
In my image,
Thank the Lord
(thank you)
It took me a while
To learn “whom” from “who”
So I’m going to use it
But I don’t mind
If you don’t,
Which is mostly true
x
x
The Lost World is a story first by Arthur Conan Doyle, then by Michael Crichton who used the title as a tribute and allusion, as I am using the title here.
x
x
x
Supplicant
x
Well, it’s early and I’m up
What shall you have for me,
Dear Lord?
What might I do for you?
Nothing, I think, that’s
Worthwhile
All right, that’s worthy
What do I have to contribute to a
God?
No gold, no blood-letting
(sorry)
Nothing awful
That might have been awesome
Only me and the wretched qualities
I have—
That grace has saved
For a wretch like me—
Can offer
Most of the time, I don’t know
What these are
Help me, Lord,
To understand
What I have that could ever
Please, if not
Satisfy
x
x
“Amazing Grace,” a song by John Newton
x
x
x
x
C L Couch
x
clcouch123 
Recent Comments