the question posed for funding
1
can
poetry matter
to
which
someone important wrote an essay
posing
responding to the question
and
because it does
verse writing
with the verse-thinking come before
and
in the process
is important
otherwise
we’re left with quadrupeds for horses and
also
without
the Pegasus in modern times
and
yet
there are prosaic aspects as well
the straightforward issues
dealt with
directly
‘cause
verse helps with that
even
a genre to it
and though
we’re not the monarchs of the metaphor
we are the stewards
in
the realm of work
with something of our syntax going
overall with grammar in the poem
to offer clarity
agreed
upon
if by a formlessness in art as well
2
maybe imagine wordless
songs
or nothing to impact a speech
with
such as
the surly bonds of Earth
and
so
poetry
serves
with power like jet planes’ announcements
by Mach bursts
that heard
pressing the sky as music invocations
in
the service as
they sounded with Cold War beats
back then
3
to say things without saying
and
to say again
even so a nation might be following
also changing
like seas
rhyme
meter
provide accompaniment
to all that’s
said
addressing the five senses
in
their import
plus all the added senses at which
poems might be
guessing
4
for all impulses
instincts
and
directions over and inside
our Earth
c l couch
“Can Poetry Matter?” is an essay later developed into a book by Dana Gioia
the quadruped for horse is argued in Hard Times by Charles Dickens
the parts "have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . . to touch the face of God" are from “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Junior--recited by the President during the Challenger memorial
photo is by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
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]
When the Lord Must Be Angry
And how does a loving God
Do this
Even
Separate us
From itself
(while the wrong people
hear this
heed the warning)
The anger of the Lord
So far as
Saul
In Endor
Is extreme
Saved for despots
Those who try to re-invent the world
Starting
With
Perspective
That is
Having left reality
A golden ball for acquisition
With
So many things upon it
We can move with
Impunity
To own
It isn’t real
None of it is real
And judgment will catch up
Before the end
Placing
Where
Even waiting
To get better might no longer be
Allowed
(I do not know
I’m not an agent
of
afterlife-
contracting)
As the surrender
Of humanity
Is understood
Here
And beyond the gates
With too much evidence
To miss
While
The rest leave
Dictatorship alone
In gross choices
We eschew
For the sake
(we must)
Of
Our own souls
So that
What is left
In the despotic head
(new
storied clothes over
the rest)
Is only at
Last
A devilish kind of loneliness
With a push
From the ghosts of futures
Into a dark and emptied place
Filled
Only with
The company
By the regretting
Perfect magistrate
Of
Condemnation
C L Couch
Photo by Dmitry Bukhantsov on Unsplash
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
(x = space)
x
x
Illusion or Reality
x
Do we know illusion
The things out of the corners
Of our eyes
I see my cat
From time to time
x
But an actual illusion
Actual
Something we sense
That isn’t there
It might shape
For our senses
But really
Is a thinking
And misthinking
Of our minds
And hearts
Misallied
In the moment
Or maybe all the time
x
Have we seen some things
That are not there
How does this match
With illusions
In our attitudes
Beliefs
And minds toward things
x
The illusion is for fun
Mismanaging our thoughts
Is something else
x
And now reality
Which is something
As it is
Material
No argument
About it
x
The rock is real
Our eyesight
When it’s measured
The Earth is real
When we stand upon it
x
Yet there’s the question
Real or illusive
Do we have the handle
Are we confident
With our machines
Even machine
Logic
x
In a relativistic age
It’s hard
Sometimes
To tell
Though it’s our invention
For an age
To twist ourselves
Maybe by people
Who make money from it
Or harbor an illusion
(hah)
For power
An abstract
Made of will
Always another
Added to our own
x
We could be superheroes
Cape or helmet
But then
That is illusion
For
Yes
Our entertainment
Though there is inspiration
Too
In these images
And faultless actions
x
Hmm
A reason for illusion
To prop up
Even to help direct
Reality
Remove the versus
Then
Consider
Allied with
Even for fuller comprehension
Even for fuller life
x
In the air
Through the barriers
Who is that
It’s us
x
x
something for Friday
something pre-Hallowe’en
for when you are
we are
midnight persons
x
and now
something about midnight
x
x
Late at Night, You Know
x
Midnight
It isn’t really midnight
Three o’clock is midnight
Which might be why
He had bad things happen
At 3:15
x
Midnight for stories
Nonetheless
And a witching hour
Whose story we might not
Really know
What were the practices
Done in an hour
If that
Or more
Or longer
x
Midnight and shadows
Where are the shadows
In the night
Well
With the moonlight
Or our
Artificial arrangements
Against total darkness
‘til the dawn
x
So there are shadows
There are shapes as well
Of new dimensions
Taller
Without features
For a face
x
Except we know that one is there
Something devilish
Autonomic
Human
Is there
And we shall know too late
If there’s identity
After the action
Or is stands there
A small tower
Over us
‘Til we have the fortitude
To move away
x
Shall there be ghosts
And shall there be story
For us to set down
Until dawn
Or share from what we know
And what we don’t
For comfort
Or for titillation
Until dawn
x
We should remain
Keep our souls inside
It might be just a story
Or a real thing
Inside
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Nika Benedictova on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
We Say, We Believe
(maybe it’s Revelation 23)
x
God is love
The metaphor
Reality
So much better than
God is gold
Even
God is power
Though God is both
The metaphor
Reality
x
God made the gold, at least
And also power
Power lent
To us
And in the Earth
Inherent
x
Borrowing
And legacy
That’s not our own
No matter how many times
We name another name
x
We do not last
Not on our own
And everything on Earth
That was our own
Is naught
So that when everything’s renewed
There will no monuments
Except the living
In a city
Where the temple
Is a person
And water is provided
That’s life-giving
x
C L Couch
x
x
By Voky89 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72763611
This is a photo of a monument in Ukraine, number: 53-101-0501
x
Flesh and Blood
I tried to tally death a couple
Of weeks ago
Starting with two explosions in Kabul
The second device murdering those who
Had responded, rushing, to the first
Since then, schools have been the setting of
Murders, too
Workplaces, neighborhoods
Nature has taken part in many
Though we kill well enough on our own
The count of death is maybe not so
Useful beyond actuarial
The flesh becomes abstract
The quality in tears evaporates
The blood is in another room, not
The one in which we’re arguing
Funding and our rights to shoot each other
When and where we like
Control and majesty of black metal move
Us more than someone else’s
Daughter or son
This is not about an issue
It’s about a loss that’s real
Stolen like bounty in the night
Hell’s gone a-hunting
So ephemeral a trophy,
The soul
If this is an issue for you
Then vote for something
And in the mean time wait
Until changed forever
And on occasion wonder why
Steel propulsions have to mean
So much
C L Couch
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