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White Night, Black Morning

(two poems)

 

 

White Night

 

A single truck moved through

Last night

With the covered sound a snowplow

Might have made

It is winter, but there’s nothing

Wintry happening yet

I’m fine with that

The problem, you know, is extremes

Zeniths of summer have

This problem, too

That it will be too much

People struggling already

Wrestling more with life

I’ll be inconvenienced

They’ll be killed

Many will try to help, I know

And in the midst of it will wonder why

If there’s an answer, I hope you find it

All of us between

The depths and heights

Should be busy only

In the best of ways

Waste saved for parties

The few dollars and the items it will take

To celebrate

But who can have a party while

Breathing through liquid

Without artificial, which is to say,

Human help?

 

Contrary to our practice

To be poor,

Help us restore the rest

Of hope

Hope for today

Bright hope for tomorrow

Finished for now

In another night

 

The last words are yours

Before we all can speak

The truth through lips

No longer dry,

No longer hungry

 

 

Black Morning

 

You are so beautiful

Yes, she is

He is

You are

In ways we don’t begin to understand

Like the moving parts of diamonds

That don’t move at all

Unless we have some help

To see

 

Somehow, the lovers have to live

The stories try

To make that impossible

That’s what they serve

In worldly expectation

And it’s the twist

The turn in the dark

A sprig of hope

Against the scabbed tree-trunk

That give us spring

That keep us reading

 

That keep us believing

Things we really need can happen

 

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

 

5

two poems about associating

two poems about associating

 

 

(drafted today)

Loony Like a Tune

 

I don’t know much

But I know this

Carson City is the capital of Nevada

Bugs Bunny told me so

I think he was being pressed

By Yosemite Sam

 

I don’t mean to push a copyright

This was the stuff of childhood

I remember things

Associations

My older brother and I once

Ran around the basement,

Making woop-woop sounds because the

Three Stooges were on TV

 

And because I read about the Hardy boys

I found something good in reading

Read other things

And became the English teacher

 

Who owns these associations?

I have to wonder

We own our minds

In spite of agendas toward dystopia

And sometimes cultic ravings

 

I think I still need my

Cartoons and my easygoing stories

Found in books with little weight

We never know when a bad,

Mechanistic idea might

Come along

One response

To act like a fourth

Stooge rather than a minion

 

That last stanza looks like Minnesota

I wonder what cartoons

They need up there

 

 

(drafted yesterday, I realize)

Allusion

(an argument I’m never going to have)

 

You think I do this because

I don’t know enough words

Please

It has meaning

You know this when you use it

Home of the brave

The seventh-inning stretch

Lady Macbeth

She doth protest too much

(who is not that lady)

The referencing ties us all

In ties that bind

Silken cords, I imagine

(and I borrow)

And we refer to Genesis or anything

To say like Whos to Horton,

We are here

 

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mark Olsen on Unsplash

Panther Pond, ME

Mother Loon Shakes Off

 

 

6

a cycle with some silliness

a cycle with some silliness

 

 

Late Fall in the Hall

 

There is a little mouse who comes to call

And I don’t mind at all

Sometimes it brings a little ball

I don’t know where it lives

Inside the wall

 

 

Toothynessnessness

 

He has a toothy grin

He is on TV

I think maybe Andy Griffith had one, too,

With which he meted justice from

Atop Mount Airy

 

There are many such white soldiers

In a line

But I mean

The grin that’s broad and happy

To meet us

With a couple of the sentries

Maybe a little out of line

(too tired from the night before,

these guards)

 

I like teeth

I know we need them

Maybe in the next round of adapting

Not so much

The tearing of

What was foraged in the wilderness

 

They don’t need to be bright

The face together is

More important

They should remember that

 

Chomp away and like the riddle

Champ

Have fun with

What you have

Enjoy the need

 

 

It’s Time, I Need to Practice

 

There is a tune in my head

Oh no, it’s a Christmas song

I think

A new tune, I don’t know the words

Woe is me for falling

And in ignorance

Moreover

I can’t sing along

 

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Duffy Brook on Unsplash

This with the other two shots with Santa hats on puppies is from a shoot I did to promote a local puppy rescue organization: lisaparkerspuppies.com. We’ve fostered over 30 puppies with LPP. The pups inspire me to get out and take pics! Remember to adopt—don’t buy your next best friend.

sorry, dog (for the hat—maybe you like it—nah)

but Duffy’s right—the message is not silly

 

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

What We Can Give

What We Can Give

(and following)

 

Grace to you

And mercy

Though I cannot dispense them

(even mercy is borrowed)

I am not the source

 

And not to splinter things too fine,

Neither I think are you

But we know the one is

Source and giver,

Who releases memory to us

Of past performance

And of gratitude

 

As a surrogate, I can offer blessing

(so can you)

Though it is not mine (not ours)

To award

But mercy we can show

Maybe not as miracle

But hard work can come across

Splendidly,

Especially without invoice

There’s grace in that

 

 

Grace Act II

 

And now, the sequel

We can give grace

Our own kind

A human sort that is not

Of the Spirit

But which it approves

 

A love that doesn’t

Think of it as gift

Nothing to consider on

The page

But that which cuts through mysteries

To ponder,

Nighttime, candlelit considerations

No, in this light of day

We don’t deliberate the question

Simply provide the act

In, you know, action

That, aside, is enough of an answer

 

Maybe we own our kind of mercy

As well

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

“music in the air”

 

0

haiku

haiku

(stand alone or maybe work together)

 

Today is what I

Have.  Tomorrow is far off.

The wind will take me.

 

I’d rather have the

Cool breeze and warm air to take

Me to tomorrow

 

Will you join me in

Tomorrow?  We’ll need each other’s

Company today.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Dirk Ingo Franke – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2355854

Buller, Erin (11 July 2008). “Capturing the Wind”. Uinta County Herald. Archived from the original on 31 July 2008. Retrieved 4 December 2008. “The animals don’t care at all. We find cows and antelope napping in the shade of the turbines.” – Mike Cadieux, site manager, Wyoming Wind Farm

 

0

three poems about light

three poems about light

by C L Couch

 

 

The Light We Make

 

White lights

Illuminate too much

I don’t like them

In headlights or in overhead neon,

Especially

Where is the dawn

That softly cascades on all

Things below

If it’s an emergency,

That’s one thing

But for day-to-day, why

Can’t we have gold

Freely delivered from

Heaven’s treasure

Or more homely manufacturing?

 

Better the dawn, I think,

For inspiration

A glimpse of visioning like

Angels,

A reason at the start of day

 

 

 

Galadriel Comes to Rivendell

(a Middle-Earth lyric)

 

In a penultimate age

Galadriel comes to Rivendell

To toast with Elrond

A Elbereth Gilthoniel

Whom shell they be meeting soon

On the first shore

Of unending

Once upon a timeless time

And everlasting

 

Well done, the half-elf declares

I knew you were hiding by

The gate

Hidden by my host, she corrects

They would not bear

To evidence my presence

So far from the

Golden wood of home

Where, alas, Celeborn remains

 

But ready, comes the declaration

From the host, back to the

Final battle,

Always ready, and she smiles

 

All our allies had not yet

Arrived

I would have gone to them

 

You would have commended

Or commanded all of us there,

I wonder

 

I would not have said a

Word

 

The authority of your magic

Is the message

In elvish silence

 

Even better, I think?

She sipped

 

And so they talked, old friends

As much as majesty and crusade allow

While the night inside faded

Outside a new day already

Transpiring

That would no longer know them

Might they leave

 

Yet a hint of Hollin

Goodness might remain

Where they once passed

 

[all the rest is benediction and epilogue]

 

So their time

Our time

An age between

Rises at dawn

Under a yellow, mortal sun

No longer blessed

By characters

And presence

 

A benediction before

They leave

All doors open wide

To welcome gratitude

Or rudeness

Mortals’ choice

 

An eagle’s blessing

Then all the keepers of blue flame

And light we cannot bear

Are gone

 

 

 

Misfit

 

The lights of heaven

Are too much for me

I cannot manage

Pure light that has other

Texture

 

I need light gobos through wisping clouds

And trees,

Dressed in motley by

All earthly forms and shadows

 

In the shade

Is fine for me

Though not in formless dark,

Please

 

Readiness for paradise

Means new lenses, I suppose

Like focusing kaleidoscopes

Or tracing light through prisms

I will adjust

Or be adjusted

By perfect agencies

Gate-keepers,

Heaven-defenders

Who see all clear

For ages, now

So will you

So will I

 

 

 

lantern

http://www.jesuitas.co/homilia_2121.html

 

4

(going west, going east)

(driving out)

 

Misty Mountains, Pennsylvania

 

I travel west on I-76, and it is there:

The Lonely Mountain

 

Higher and set apart from the ridge

That falls away, behind

 

A dragon set atop, searching for

Prey gone to ground

 

Orcs lurk below, ready to battle

Dwarves who stand ready ‘round

The deep tomb of their king at rest,

Diamond earthstar guard upon

His chest

 

I see these shadowed and

Foreshadowed parts of epic

Because

 

Tolkien, the literary mentor, first

Saw his

 

 

(driving back)

 

Rainbow World

 

I drive east on a four-lane reach

Of road, not an interstate so I

Have concerns to watch out

For local traffic

 

It has been raining, now mostly

Stopped with dark clouds in

The distance

 

Yet there must be a band of

Spectrum light somewhere

Because before me is a rainbow

 

That, against grey background,

Shines with every ordered

Color distinct and bleeding

Into from each other

 

Purple into blue into green

Into yellow in orange into red

From blended shades

Between

 

It arches, and I see both ends

Where it leaves the hillside,

Arcs before my car, lands on

More dimly-toned earth in

My direction

 

Of course, I think of Irish

And of argent pots inside with

Their own hills, sun-colored

Coin

 

And the folk who keep it,

Minding with angry magic any

Interloping

5

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