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Don’t Listen

(x = space)

x

x

Don’t Listen

x

I’m sad is all

And maybe I may say

Who wouldn’t be

It’s raining

There are feet of snow

Out west

And that’s dangerous

x

In the south

There were tornados in the night

Can you imagine?

Too many don’t have to

You wouldn’t see it

You hear the train

If you can hear

The sounds of what you know

Changed into splinters

Horrifying

x

You might go dark

Deeper in, that is

Or might be missed

(tornados leap this way)

Or under things

That fell

But living

Needing to be found

x

And a factory nearby

Exploded of all things

Also last night

And people inside

Sorry

Some were killed

Others hurt

And people missing

While searchers search

Press conferences are held

Because

They have to be

x

Another factory

Not so far off

Went this way

Some days ago

I don’t think

It’s a conspiracy

But these destructive

And frightening

Severities

Must be taken seriously

x

Last night’s inferno

Costing

Families

The ones torn up

For good

And those in the community

Losing, too

x

You see,

The people in this factory

Made candy

Of all things

In fact for decades

And should have been

With all the chocolate offerings

Just in time for Easter

x

Now associations

Snow-driven winter

Romantic Southern nights

Anticipation of confections

Well,

The fears will have to go somewhere

Coping mechanisms

Mechanized

(as in ready to go)

Let hope

Like grace doctrinally

Abound

x

So I’m sad

Maybe I don’t know how

To take it in

To breathe vicarious

In addition to my

Own intake

For, well,

My own

Somewhat depressed

I deal in this

And have had counseling

And medication

x

The day’s been gray

With rain

Not life-threatening here

Persistent

Cold and dull

Is all

And enervating

x

I thought about errands

And such

Then thought better

Thinking it better

Or maybe better would have been

To go out

Get wet

Do something

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Peter Jan Rijpkema on Unsplash

x

2

Three-Syllables Agape or Two-Syllables Agape

(x = space)

x

x

Three-Syllables Agape or Two-Syllables Agape

x

Sigh

And what does love way

After all the vituperation

All the blame-casting

All the metaphoric bile

In the hate we bear?

x

I don’t know

That we should care for ourselves

And each other

That if we loved God first

Everything else would work

Respecting those who don’t believe

There are good atheists

And good agnostics

Who treat believers

As a crazed minority

And to look at the evidence

Have a case

x

But it’s sin, I guess

From within and without

Our choices, the choices of others

Choose to love

Choose to hate

And who cannot be struck

Without saying OW

That’s natural

It’s impulsive

And deserved

Though it’s not the end

It does not have to rush

To blame and retribution

x

Take a moment

Choose something like a star

Stay inspired through the hurt,

Which is not masochism

But allowing thought

And heart to keep a hold

From everything turned over

Into the nether realms

Of rusting feeling

Gnawing hate

x

Give peace a chance

Can’t we all get along?

It must be so much better

Than saws

And satire

The darkness follows light

Then there’s more light

Illumination

We are better than our hurts

Better than vile agenda

We could make agenda brilliant

And ambition

And profit

And plans

And when there’s a crash

Of accident

Or wills

We could act as EMTs

And then allow a moment

To reconnoiter

And to reckon

How to heal a rending world

Bring it back

To one whole thing

x

Yes, I mean the war

And wars everywhere

But I also mean the virus

We forget

Unless we’re sick

Or around

Those who are sick

And inflation

And corruption

We can do better

To keep the world from burning

We must

x

I should end on a note of love

A song of peace

Measured by hope

But there are questions

To be answered, first

That we must put to each other

Questions

And answers

Reactions and worked-out actions

A process for our accountable part

Of the universe

Yes, that much

x

C L Couch

x

x

“Choose Something like a Star“

Robert Frost

. . .

So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

x

Photo by Aldebaran S on Unsplash

x

2

Soliloquying

Soliloquying

(syllogistic)

 

If God is love

And God is a spirit

Then it might, it should

Follow that love is a spirit

And that a spirit is love

 

There are times when matter

Matters more

The flower on a table

The open door

The favor no one asked for

Nothing for a show except

To say

What we should say

 

Love is a spirit

And in something like eternity

Materials are messages

I don’t know how they rack up

When it’s not a game

Though love should be fun

And sad

And hard, sometimes

 

Remembering to keep it small

Might help,

Remembering

The larger things, too

I guess I’m saying

Not because of me

 

Nonetheless

Spirit and matter

Keep it real

 

C L Couch

 

 

notes

 

John 4:24

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

1 John 4:8

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

 

It might be synchronicity, more likely inspiration.  The day before drafting this verse, I was reading Jane Dougherty’s excellent exegesis of two Scripture verses at Jane Dougherty Writes (https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/gospel/).  I so highly recommend her blog (https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/).

 

Photo by Ralf Skirr on Unsplash

 

4

Wilderness for Real

Wilderness for Real

(before the angels or the promised land)

 

So what happens

In the wilderness?

We think more about its passing

Forty days in the wilderness

Forty years wandering

The desert

How were they led

Without any leading?

There was no direction but

Not to find the way

One day in a wilderness

Without means except

What might fall out of the sky

Stone into bread

Water from rocks, that is

And are we to live by miracle

For many days?

 

The holes inside of desert walls

Holes within holes

Drive in a couple pegs

To make a shelf

This life was considered wisdom?

There must have been

The company of food

If not of people bringing it

Water must have gotten there

Somehow,

Meaning wisdom must be patronized

Sponsors for each hermit

If not a dining hall

Is a hermitage allowed community?

Is there companionship

Inside the wilderness?

 

Who would be alone

To hear only the heart

Wait for nerve flashes

To shine behind the eye,

 

This is loneliness enough

The creator hasn’t left

Each one is not a pocket watch

Inside a deist vest

 

There is loneliness in wilderness

Underneath there is companionship

Something we feel

Less than God

But more than ego-censorship

Affords in crowds

Magnets are not good for us

They draw us without thinking

 

When we can get away

Or accept it, anyway

Because it happens

Something in us owns

The time, the chance

To say, this feels like home for now

I’ll stay here while I can

Even as a long-withheld surprise

 

I’ll learn

Employ some craft

Commune

It shouldn’t last forever

Then I get to return

Maybe encounter you

Before returning,

All changed

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Arto Marttinen on Unsplash

 

10

Devotion

Devotion

 

The cult of Mary rose

Because chivalry needed an aim

And the grail was not enough

A lifestyle was needed

 

A reason for the knight to rise, go

After dragons every day

In every breath a reason

That became the lady

 

It could have been a good thing, I suppose

Maybe was

Maybe some curtailing of violence happened

But she became an object, still

Mary and all women

Something to adore, perhaps

Something to report to,

Still a thing

 

If women could be knights

And, who knows, they might have been

They might have taken it up with her

A real reason, real cause

Not dragons but equality

Real beasts to slay

 

A crusade not against western Asia

But with one’s own country

Until one’s own had real faith

In strength

And in conviction

 

The kind that makes sense out of armor

That gives a blade a reason

To be shined and ready

Humanity

Divinity

Belief in everything that shines

And lasts

 

C L Couch

 

 

The 12th and 13th centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in Western Europe, inspired in part by the writings of theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux. The movement found its grandest expression in the French cathedrals, often dedicated to “Our Lady”, such as Notre-Dame de Paris and Notre-Dame de Bayeux among others.[70] Walsingham and other places of Marian pilgrimage developed large popular followings. At the height of the pilgrimage movement in the 11th and 12th centuries, hundreds of people were traveling almost constantly from one Marian shrine to the next.[71]

70  Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

71  Renaissance and Reformation by William Roscoe Estep 1986 ISBN 0-8028-0050-5, page 7.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_Mary_in_the_Catholic_Church

 

Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d’Arc[3][4] pronounced [ʒan daʁk]; c. 1412 – 30 May 1431),[5] nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans” (French: La Pucelle d’Orléans), is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years’ War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.

3  Her name was written in a variety of ways, particularly before the mid-19th century. See Pernoud and Clin, pp. 220–21. Her signature appears as “Jehanne” (see www.stjoan-center.com/Album/, parts 47 and 49; it is also noted in Pernoud and Clin).

4  In archaic form, Jehanne Darc (Pernoud Clin 1998, pp. 220–221), but also Tarc, Daly or Day (Contamine Bouzy Hélary 2012 pp. 511; 517-519).

5  An exact date of birth (6 January, without mention of the year), is uniquely indicated by Perceval de Boulainvilliers, councillor of king Charles VII, in a letter to the duke of Milan. . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc

 

after Marie d’Orléans – Eglise de Saint-Pair-sur-mer

Prokofiev – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74909310

 

2

If God Then God, If Not

If God Then God, If Not

 

If God is good

Why is the world so bad?

This is not a child’s question

Only in simplicity

And it has taken faith from many

Over time

There will be some number today

 

There are two things, as is

God and the world

And while we eschew puppetry

We take it right in judging

God by what we do in freedom

 

Nature’s indifference

I can chalk up to a fallen world

That fell with us

Depravity a Calvinist discretion,

How widespread

(the narrator had it slice through Jupiter

Out of the Silent Planet)

So it’s the need to fall

The interest to

That is decided

 

Have faith because

The world is falling

Henny Penny, Chicken Little

All the birds that find they cannot fly

By nature or by nurture

(Chomsky, Skinner)

Or by how thick the sky

Has become

 

We are not the world

And we are

We take it with us

Into our decisions

Which is to say are we at the root of evil

More than the devil?

I don’t know

I cannot notebook hell

But we are pretty bad

And can be pretty good

And, if to be allowed

Either say or way,

Then discretion is not valor but

Needful as air

 

We don’t make heaven or of hell

But I think we can contribute

And each essence must matter

While we do

Come home to one or the other

The invitations must be that dire

Life must be that real

Real choices

We know

Real consequences

 

Choose faith

Sometimes in something

Or release it

Take something or walk on

Must be breathing as an option and

Have muscles

No excuses but our own

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Paul Carroll on Unsplash

 

0

A Response to “Cleon” by Robert Browning

A Response to “Cleon” by Robert Browning

(which has stuck with me for years)

 

Yon swimmer is an ode

Cleon says so

I paraphrase

To Proteus or something in authority

A tyrant in the Classical sense

A tyrant who knows virtue

They had those back then

And a patron

To the speaker of the poem

The writer of a letter

 

That does not hesitate to compliment

But also makes the case

For what is true

In your tyranny, perhaps

Argues Cleon

You might be missing something

When you elevate my art

Not that I don’t mind the support

Artists need that

But in understanding why the art is there

To tell you in itself

That life is better

 

Our art records and re-expresses

Interprets who we are and what we do

But the actions so much better

All the attributes that make us

They are real

Poets know this

Beyond an abstract exercise

So we will write

Sculpt words on paper

Into pieces that might find you

Whole, more whole for this

 

While replacing nothing

Enhancement, we hope

Greater clarity

A lesson, if we must

Learning in other ways

To trust

 

I recall because it comes to me,

Now and then

Having looked up nothing for a while

(the swimmer is a rower,

and Proteus is Protus

while English majors smoosh words to pass

the comprehensive)

But the epistle goes on meaning much

To me

I try to keep it real

Real enough,

As Cleon’s maker trusts

The last apostle who wrote letters

To the faithful

 

C L Couch

 

 

(from) “Cleon,” Robert Browning

. . .

The many years of pain that taught me art!

Indeed, to know is something, and to prove

How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:

But, knowing nought, to enjoy is something too.

Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,

Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.

I can write love-odes: thy fair slave’s an ode.

I get to sing of love, when grown too grey

For being beloved: she turns to that young man,

The muscles all a-ripple on his back.

I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!

. . .

I cannot tell thy messenger aright

Where to deliver what he bears of thine

To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame

. . .

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43749/cleon

https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/robert-browning/cleon-6646

(two places easily to find the poem)

 

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

Puerto Marina, Benalmádena, Spain

Momentos antes del inicio del Triatlón de Benalmádena.

 

 

0

Life in Fiction

Life in Fiction

 

I can’t recommend it

Though I’ve tried it

There are dangers

You can enumerate as well

As I

But we can incorporate

We like our heroes, after all

And want to have them with us

Better yet, inside us

Or the ingenue

The clever mentor

Master-mistress of arms

Or the crafty villain

Who may or may not repent

 

There are heroes in reality

To emulate

Such as the Ganders in Newfoundland

On 9/11

But sometimes exaggeration helps,

Which is what we get in stories

Sometimes in poems

Certainly in sagas

 

C L Couch

 

 

Gregory Peck publicity photo for the film To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962

Universal Pictures – eBay, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67270089

 

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede

 

0

I Want to be a Real Boy

I Want to be a Real Boy

 

I want to be a real boy

For the telling of one story, then another

 

We were beautiful once

Then chips and lines

A crack

Evidence of erosion

The strings need replacing

There should be more paint

And maybe I could have more writing

For the show

 

We were lean

But then came dessication

We thought we knew better

Than Gepetto,

Went out on our own

For metamorphosis

 

With the final threads

Last ligaments

We crawl home

To beg the crafter use some skill

Toward our repentance

 

Being in the world

Has not made us real

The question presses into

All the places that were open,

Bleeding

To the sky

 

What might happen

Once I’m better

Tears would warp fine lines

Now fixed

 

But if I might split open

As lightning opens night,

I must do something

Maybe I could talk with the maker

For allowance

Then gather experience

And evidence more carefully

 

Little do I know

A shark, big enough for two or three

Or maybe more,

Is on the way

 

C L Couch

 

 

Escultura articulada de Pinotxo, Museu Internacional de Titelles d’Albaida (MITA).

Joanbanjo – Own work

 

The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi

(1883)

 

1

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