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poor disguise

poor disguise

when you don’t get what you want
or what you need
does God still
listen
does God still
love

if so
then why did we not get what we need
some would say
because I didn’t make it and bank it
then it didn’t matter
some would say
because
God
does not love me or like me
or no longer listens to me
for
I must be bad
certainly asking for bad things
even those things might be
my parent’s health
my child’s health
health
in the world
my own

why are we wrong
why does God not like me
and
some would say
I know the answer
and if you follow me
you’ll
know

and this becomes a lion in a skin
Aslan-fakery
the spirit that is tested and it fails
and
still is followed

and there will be a hand
and
it might not be ours
but it will formulate and re-formulate
according to the truth reminded
that
hadn’t changed
and doesn’t
which is justice then
mercy
and the best notion of freedom we are going to have

and what happens to false prophets
sometimes they are whomped on
sometimes
they run away
and
it’s a better day for the retaining faithful

and as for pain
we might have to own it
or
go through it
for a while
and it
will hurt
and I’m uncertain why

and would not wish that for you

it doesn’t
teach us to appreciate the positive
but
it might
teach us
something hopeful
after
or even in the middle

c l couch

photo by Bret Lama on Unsplash

the lion (fake/real) story is in The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

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flew off the tree

flew off the tree

a human form with wings
and
we cry out
and run away
and I think
I might

by the surprise and instinct that we keep
for
insects and for serpents

this was in England
where she has
finds
as a supernal Hundred Acre Wood
as
well as Neverland
so
named by Scotland’s Barrie

but Germany
or
Holland or
Russia of Baba Yaga
or Asia with the dragons there
and
doesn’t require a Saint
George

but all the stories
we might gather while we searching
or
when
we’re surprised

lands of
Anansi
or
the Raven for a character
both
natural and extreme

because we want so far
is how to take
the world

we want the magic
with
extreme imagination
to
be real

c l couch


actual sighting

photo by Jessy Paston on Unsplash

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a life only for Teresa


a life only for Teresa

miracle
like so many products
and
mystery
like so many books
and plays
becoming movies

miracle
and mystery

foundations for
an extraordinary life
of
visions
mountaintop
and valley encounters in
the world
but more so of
the Spirit that both inhabits and
visits
the attending and inquiring
soul

and
do we elevate in ecstasy
and what of those who
don’t go anywhere
but stay
below to pray and hope for on-the-ground
situations and
experience

those of us who do not move
who cannot leave
not
to paradise
or the next
town

who are tied where we are tied
and shall go to nowhere
save
to struggle like the caged
or otherwise enclosed
or simply call it
where we are
and where we work
for now

not
to leave with any notion of abandon
not
to go wild
but
to stay put until Parousia come for all

and so
free or encumbered
we might hope to know God
yet
must live where we are
between the peak
and the vale

hoping for
interior conviction for
a life of faith and
love

a life somehow material
and holy

c l couch


Saint Teresa de Ávila wrote The Interior Castle

photo by Florian Haun on Unsplash—I was out working for our local newspaper [photographer’s story]. The weather was clear in the beginning but changed quickly. I turned round and saw the hut called “Zimmereben” in the region of Mayrhofen/Zillertal/Tyrol. The black and white gives that photo a touch of mystery to.

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by the skins of teeth


by the skins of teeth

as time goes by
or on
more things become challenged
like
the center that can hold
no longer
as Yeats claims in a work and
Achebe citing Yeats a while after on
as
Achebe’s own

the challenged become challenges
which might be natural
though sets of
connotations
they
go negative

burdens to change
and burdens are
bad
so challenges should be avoidable
like
those
in the veneered way we eschew
anything above
below the line

I will say this for
barriers
that they might not be favorable
except as they announce
and
protect things
here
and there
great things
such as reefs of coral
as well as certain boundaries in outer space
needed
to sign
in here it is distinctive as community
there is a major purpose
whereas
cosmic diversity should be made
of these discretions

identity
vital
and then to know another’s

therefore
and shall we say for proof
that
challenges and barriers
are set
even haphazardly by the fixed math
randomness
and
the beneath-our-skin appreciation of chaos

let age make these keen
as in
more knowable

the things we understand and
things to do
that we know better now for
having looked at them
so normally
over
at last
enough time
to know dimensions and their purpose
and at long last
to know
how to apply the passwords
on stones
or in
skies so very long
as if the clues had been there from the start
as when something is
when something’s made
the truth of its reality
is there
is here

c l couch


The Skin Our of Teeth is the title of a play by Thornton Wilder, the title taken from the phrase first given in the Bible, Job 19:20

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is from “The Second Coming,” a poem by W. B. Yeats; later, Things Fall Apart was taken for the title of a novel by Chinua Achebe

here is a note I first wrote for myself about the poem (above): there is the failing in our efforts because we need things normal, regular; differences, then, along with diversity become challenges with challenges themselves as negative for being difficult—or maybe only different; but differences, challenges, barriers are all parts in creation and existence; and we would serve all these and ourselves better if we made positive allowances for these vital parts of what there is and who we are and what we have (and what we have to do)

photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash
(isn't it symmetrical; isn't it asymmetrical)

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A Plain and Fancy War


A Plain and Fancy War

I’ve made
Notations
On the weather
Even risking
A mood
Based on the same

While all the hundreds
Are new victims
Anywhere there’s war
Or war
On deck
As if to step up to
The devil’s plate
In a game against a team
From hell

And this is stupid
Reasoning
So far
Foolish metaphors
Of weather
And of games

While in the east of east
From here
And west in Asia
So much is brewing
Like
The witch’s
Stew
That at this time
Is also fanciful

All because
I do not want
To face
With my face
And what's behind it
The real death
The ghost of war
(un-
metaphor)
Come
To haunt again

And everything
That schemes with it
Famine
Hopelessness
Annihilation
Of the body
And the spirit
To win more souls
For hell

Though for now
It’s destruction
Literal
Destruction
That matters most
And
Yes
The devil’s work
In strategies

And I can’t keep from this
I guess
The rhetoric
The discourse
When we have no mouths
And if we had
What we would have said
Gone ignored
And then frankly
Horribly
Set
To detonate
And then
Explode

The tangling
Of war
The limbs
The lies
That both must soar
In gruesome pieces
Through the battlefield
Certainly before
And after
Without doubt
When
Generals and presidents
Defend
Without forfending

And this is one place
And there is more
In more
Places
With all the consequences
To the body
As we say
And the soul
Cliché for closeness
And the truth of things
We must have one
And have
The other

Losing one
Or both
A battle
On the plains
Or any parts of middle Earth
With all the forces
Human and human-like
Divine and like divine
Assembled
Frankly
Like Megiddo
And now
To consider
What shall happen

C L Couch


Photo by Zihao Wang on Unsplash

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Shares


Shares

So
I’m sorry
I’ve been ranting
In the drafting

Anyone
(else)
Do that
Trying to de-poison first
So that there might be
Something healthy
As in virtuous
To say

That we are strong
When we are favorable
Toward
Each other
And the planet

That wellness is
As wellness does
And parentally
Sometimes
(at any
age)
For children
(of any age)

Bask in awareness of
Sunshine as good
And also clouds
Day
And night
Are sound
And should be left
To rise and fall
Unpolluted
Under which
Allow life
Even romance
(in life
again
at any age)
To dance

C L Couch


Photo by Leon Liu on Unsplash

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Open Air


Open Air
(a day for independence in the offing)

The wars go on
The war at home
Matters of manipulation

Clearly
We are way too comfortable
To bandy with the truth
Rather than considering the need
In each other
Then
Over there
Wherever there
We know
Might be

And if we don’t feel right
Inside/outside
And
What have you
We could always pause
Easing up
To take a breath that isn’t pressed upon
Free to assess
Who’s and what’s important
To find it isn’t politics
Pretenses toward power
But that the real
That isn’t on a screen
Or in an ad

Involves
Instead
A word
An act
Toward love
The smallest thing to do
To make a difference
Sometimes accumulative
A cascade formed
Like the surprise
To hear in water
Over rocks and such
Inside the forest where
Truth is kept
Inside the given
Green and blue

The authenticity in
Nature
Even though it claws
Sometimes
In truth
For protest
Of destruction

Life
Actual hurt
Real need
We can live for these
To answer these
With practicality and
This
Not politics
Or profit
Except
To serve
Rather
To call it love

C L Couch
(on 2 July)


Photo by Bri Tucker on Unsplash 
(Holland, Michigan)

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Out of Cosmogony


Out of Cosmogony
(that is, 2 poems from out of the arrangement of things, however fancifully)


The Place of Drones

Should someone set me
Atop
One tower or the other
Of the gate
On the bridge
That is not golden
Save in metaphor

Well
I better be an angel
Delighting in
The lack of restraint
Being so high
And so perilous
A perch

That I could slide
Down the cable
Or merely leap
Into the Lord’s
Good atmosphere
Between the particles
The humans
Tragically
Provide

And is this how
The angels
Who aren’t demons
Do it
Which is
To set themselves high
Or low
To have the better vantages
Scouting for assignments

Maybe the demons
Lie this way as well
With
Or without wings
Sacrificed


Mything Pages

And
Do I have
Anything for you
Today

How about
A word of God
That was a word
In the beginning
To make
Everything
Thus
Setting precedent
For spells
Inside fantastic
Stories
About making smaller
Things
Admittedly
Though wondrous
In eldritch hue
And timing
All the same

That
Someone said
Is the meaning behind miracles
The usual thing
And yet
The timing
Is extraordinary
Is saving
In fact

Of dwarves in trees
Or the royal child
Trapped in
The tower
Before
An evil pretender
With forces
Breaks into
The easily
Barricaded chamber

While such
Are stories
And creation
Is a story
Too

Recalling
That the myth
Is grounded
In the real
And our fantastic tellings
Overdone
Or undertoned
Are actual
When happening
Before becoming
Passages
And chapters


(John 1:1)


C L Couch


Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

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for once


for once

(please or is it pleas)



if God

then God

come down

not only from the Christmas tree

but from every tall place

we cannot reach

or only with precarity



and up from every

deep dark place

we can imagine

not to mention woeful places

we cannot



and from left

or from the right

and then from the inside

where our own spirits

reside

with or without alliances

from the spirit

that moves everywhere

and with our will

might live

within us



God come from every place

every point

we measure

and beyond

and realize

please

for once

a real form

that we can see

from which we hear the voice

that we could taste

and close enough to smell

even to touch

with or without piercing points

for remembrance

or for proof



and be here for a while

we could have coffee

with or without

an armageddon

after



c l couch





photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash



“Christ Climbed Down” is a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, which I thought of when writing about God climbing ("come down")

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