Love Is Come Again
Four Thanksgivings
Four
Christmases
Four New Year’s
Four
Valentine’s
All
These days
Sixteen
Seasons
Every decent lesson
Learning
This is awfulness in charge
Plus the thing
About
We get what we deserve
Rise of the selfishness
The dark side
With
Apologies to dark
That should be
Romantic
And impressive
An evil empire
For those who think
This is
An empire
Not
Better understood
A borrowed colony at best
Over which
Dimensionally
A judge maintains
And will
One day
Make plain
The judgment
Of all things flesh
And spirit
Of the material
And abstract
All names
Obliterated
Unremembered
Like sin
In a repentant land
Rather we shall own what is
Eternity’s
To own
Then
Names and things re-remembered
As it were
One by one
In openness
Of love
So that we shall have
The good
And not so much
Wanting
Any other
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain
And then
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green
Certain songs knowing
By the souls
That move the songs for us
From
Sleeping ground
Onto the wakful earth
Over teaching water
Into faithful sky
C L Couch
“Love Is Come Again” (“Now the Green Blade Riseth”) is a hymn
Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash
Each fat round acorn
Under my feet in white sand
An intimate gift
[photographer’s text]
2 poems about thoughts and feelings post-election
About Electing Lies
Well
I am disappointed
So I guess
If I’m convicted of
Many crimes
And I’ve committed fraud
And broken promises
In marriage
And other relationships
So that
In fact
I break faith with everyone
And if I do not pay my bills
And if I want
To accuse people I’m afraid of
Of everything that isn’t
True
If I make a style
In fact
Of lying
And don’t pay my bills
And
By the way
I take everything that’s wrong with me
And say it is another’s
And not me
Though
It is
All I have to do
To get away with
All of it
Is to run for President
And get billionaires
To buy my way
For
Their own
Agendas
The same folk who
By the way
Won’t welcome
Me at
Table
Otherwise
It’s 17 June 1972
Another
Day the music died
And what we learned but that
We cannot
Trust the government
And should stay away from
All such things
And have
So much easier living
Through
Indifference
The Topsy-Turvy that Has No Playfulness in Topsy-Turvy
There are those
Who learn about the Holocaust
And take notes from
The evil side
So that the lie might be acknowledged
That some good things
Happened
Then
In Germany
Not
To say we can’t be academic
Though the filter must be moral
Or we are pursuing nothing
Human
Or has a place
On righteous Earth
We should be
Rhetorical
Understanding something of
Our honest discourse
With each other
And
We should study flaws in that
Tradition
You know
Straw people
Post hoc propter hoc
Gilding the lily
Though
Again
The point is not
To strategize to use the flaws
To dupe each other
Though
Some will
It’s
Sad to know
And one more thing
That should be
And that isn’t
Is that
Politics
Means good government
You know
The pursuit of by the people
And yet
Like taking notes
From the wrong side
And
Going for the
Discourse flaws
Not
To mention
Spewing accusations
In
A puerile attempt
To escape one’s
Own
The codes we could live by
Like good governance
And topsy-
Turvy
Fun on Ferris wheels
But good and evil upside-
Down to try
For ways to live
Simply act against
The deeper
And the shallower things we
Really know
Those presuming leadership who
Act against all virtue
And all wisdom
Though
Might
Try hollowly
Merely to use the worlds
Invite the citizenries
And
Congregations
To subscribe to indifference
To endure
C L Couch
(sorry should there be any ranting parts but not sorry for any easier-living-wisdom parts)
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Love among the Ruins of the Nation
x
Oh
Gee
Let’s
Stop
Let’s love each other
In a real way
That could stop a war
From need
Of bids through Congress
Or parties
Lashing out
To topple strategies
Even the existence
Of
Each other
x
Punishing the dare
To compromise
x
Can you imagine
Love in Washington
D. C.
Love and then
Morality
To say
To say we argue
On our side
With angels
With drawn swords
x
Love instead
The red
The blue
The blue
The gray
The war we will not end
For equal living
Everywhere
x
Separate
But more equal
Come on
You know you believe
It is the essence
Of superiority
And you are
Superior
You know you are
As you are shameless
To the Lord
Whom you evade
By speaking loudly
To your party
That to your side
Deserves the spoils
After everything
Despoiled
x
Love among the ruins
Understood
For you
For us
Not romantically
(Victorian)
Rather too late
Simply
Ruins
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Lavi Perchik on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Smart People Eschew Politics
x
It is said
I’ve cited this before
That smart people
No longer run
For anything in politics
They are repulsed
They are not chosen, anyway
The crisis is
Bipartisan
The last smart person said
Was Adlai Stevenson
Who is before my
Voting time
x
Labels don’t count
(smart is as smart does)
Neither degrees
Nor Rhodes
Nor anything metal
Or on paper
(smart is as smart does)
x
Let the intelligence in
Again
(not referring to spies
you know that)
With some reach toward relevance
Un-degreed
Degreed
Either, more, less
I hear smart is as smart does
Journey to Hodgenville
To start
x
Where someone looked up
At the stars there,
Too
x
C L Couch
x
x
Direct image of a supermassive black hole at the core of Messier 87.
x
(x = space)
x
x
Shipwreck of State
(in pandemic time)
x
By the way, the highest number
Of cases was reported
Yesterday
But this mass lack of perspective
Child’s bid for attention
Ersatz use of masks
x
We don’t want to care, anymore
We have sick to care for
Too many dead to bury
In decency,
Though we’ll try
x
It isn’t that important,
The thing inside white buildings
In the capitol,
State houses similarly infected
x
There is disease,
And there is disease
Politics aside—and that’s it, isn’t it?
Putting aside what is
Supposed to serve us
With our money
With our votes
With belief
x
We have lives to deal with
And lack of life to mourn,
x
Which is the real nation
That like church
Means all the people
x
C L Couch
x
x
Bow of the TITANIC
x
(x = space)
x
x
Counting Days
(days that count in pandemic time)
x
You know, folks
Have a good weekend
I know there are fires
I know that in my land
The President is sick
So somewhere there are those
Discussing the Twenty-Fifth
While I imagine
He will act as if he’s tougher than disease,
Though he is not
x
But we need to live
And it’s Friday afternoon
I will stop counting days
When I no longer lose
My way
If you told me it were
Tuesday,
I’d be inclined
To believe it
This should be,
As I say,
The year of doing nothing
What we need for life
Yes, fighting the fires
And retraining other violence
From nature, then,
And tragically
Of our design
x
Otherwise, it should be
Science and care
Support the end of the disease
And watch out for each other
In the mean time,
Such watching out meaning
We’re busy
Feeding, sheltering,
And yes occupying
Each other
x
It’s Friday afternoon
(I’m pretty sure)
Have a good weekend
Pray for the President
Pray harder
For citizens who
Did not ask for this
Pray for you
Pray for me
Praying for our aching world
Pray for peace in nature
And our designs
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Keyvan Mansouri on Unsplash
x
Coronavirus Is Republican
(or Democrat)
Is the virus partisan?
Does it respect one group
Over another?
If you get to be
Surrounded by doctors
Then maybe you’re okay,
Though even then
With fifties Martian-like antennae
‘Round a bulbous planet,
I don’t think the virus
Cares except to replicate
Make more of itself
Trying to take out whatever
Might be in the way
Until it meets the stronger thing
Like Nietzsche
But it is not a politician
Who should wear a mask
As an example,
Public servant
It is not the people who
Try to do it right
And might still get sick
There is no quid pro quo
The virus doesn’t bargain
Maybe summer heat will help us
As good as any other
Don’t campaign on the virus
You will lose
Like the gambling house,
The virus wins
C L Couch
Photo by Odysseas Chloridis on Unsplash
A visual depiction of the corona virus outbreak and the isolation it has caused throughout the world.
Here’s News (and a Haibun)
(1)
Here are three news leads from The Guardian:
The United Nations has for the first time signalled its “human rights obligation” over the deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti that has claimed the lives of at least 30,000 people.
‘It’s only working for the white kids’: American soccer’s diversity problem [headline]
Yesterday, a report came out that said more than 1,000 migrants and refugees have died just in the last week while crossing the Mediterranean.
(2)
Everyone on all sides of things is falling down. UN peacekeeping. Soccer, the world’s sport. Migrants we don’t count who die. Doesn’t help my own precarious feelings about stability or sanity in the world. Doesn’t help the fragility in me or mine. On this side of apocalypse (only frightening for some), what might we save? In order to retain poetics, I’ve refrained from news of politics today. I doubt anymore the answer’s there.
(3)
Black box of the plane
Black box of refugee’s boat
Black box of sea’s depths
clcouch123 
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