Which Life Will
It is a day for remembrance
The ships are sinking deeper
Parts of other things
Relevant
Are found below
Now and then
A surprise attack isn’t good
Not for defenders
And all our planes and ships in tows
Exploded one after another
And the people
The people mattered more
And the loss of them was grand in scale
And awful
Enemies to allies
Plans
To rebuild the world
Maybe we learn from these great wars
That great is relative
(like grand)
That loss is terrible
In the unnatural aspect of the thing
In which we kill our siblings
And our parents
And our children
The nations’ lines that
Might come back
Rearranged
While those who live within
Might not be caring more
Than the chance
To live on either side
Though lines may
Determine policies
Sometimes
Ways to live
Perhaps
Challenges to
Pride
A pride I doubt those
Gone
Might feel
Anymore
Though we don’t know the afterlife that well
As for this life
Well
There is that learning
Before we add more numbers to
The world at war
C L Couch
Photo by Luke Scarpino on Unsplash
lamentation is a season
(for Memorial Day 2024)
sad remembrance
the activity
and the state
of sad remembrance
who has died
and is ahead of us
in honored state
or imprisoned
inside something
of
we don’t know what
or in what part
what nation host
sought pride
in this
rows of
flags
metal stars
on metal sticks
symbols of
faith
the Star of David
or Arabic
or a cross
or blank for those
with no tradition
save
to have died
mortally
to save
and at the monuments
here
in England
France
perhaps in diplomatic squares
in Africa
and Asia
also in the
Anzac places
there will be some
marching
and many will salute
and we’ll officially remember
or in homes
the absences
that war
and war-like actions
they responded to
have made
we’ll tell stories
and we should
we’ll hear new parts
and oft-repeated
passages
and both are good
and sad for
reason
for the purpose
of our meeting
we’ll also celebrate
though maybe
not so far
that we forget
what we should recall
and have a flag for
and a photograph
whatever sort
of tableaux
with a little more
to say
this was our aunt
our uncle
our ancestors
or our parents
or our children
or
our neighbors
we lament
and also adulate
this day
c l couch
(the preacher preached from Lamentations and about Memorial Day today)
photo by Tanner Ross on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Remembrance of Things and People Past
(Memorial Day 2023)
x
My grandfather was a doughboy
Another one
(I knew him more)
Cooked for the
Army in
The second war
x
My father served
In the war that followed
The war no one remembers
But cost lives
Of bodes and the souls therein
And for lack of
Remembering
Because remembering
Matters much
x
It’s a thought
A salute
And a parade
To visit flags on graves
Before we shop
Before we picnic
x
Mind you
Shopping and picnicking
Ain’t bad
Rights and privileges
Secured
Silly to you
Perhaps
There’s also watching war movies
On TCM
x
Arcane remembrances
We still make war movies
We still shop
And eat outside
Save rain
To drive companionship
Inside
x
Be inside
Be there
Be aware
Remembrance is a near miss
From experience
What follows war
Was bought for us
Our own secular
Allegiances
And promise
In significant
And blessed silly
Existence
x
God bless peace
And forestall war
And keep us faithful
To each other
More so to you
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Wesley Mc Lachlan on Unsplash
Corning, Corning, United States
x
(x = space)
x
x
Someone Said a Pearl for a Harbor
(7 December 1941, an invocation)
x
Whom shall we honor
Today?
The citizens of Hawaii
Who died then
For strategy
On two sides
x
The crews
Of small submarines
That tried to get through
And sank somewhere
Close by
x
Mostly, the soldiers
We should honor
For the loss of life,
By the by material
That could (by the by)
Cost a war
x
Honor convictions?
How shall they be
Dispersed?
On either side,
There might be recognition
Even under actions
Worse for horror and
A lack of declaration
x
I don’t know,
There were people everywhere:
Many termed the enemy
Who were not in any way
An enemy
Taken to camps
Frankly
For looking different
(I say exotic and
of the USA—the
ubiquitous they
say the difference
lay in espionage,
so we became
the creepers
and the judges);
We hadn’t done so
To the urban Germans here
Or in our suburbs,
On the farms
Or to the Italians
Though I wouldn’t be surprised
To hear
They weren’t treated well
In the environs
Of duration
x
We sent to camps
Then tried not to think
Some more about
Walled and shadowed camps
Turning into
Many of our own
For racist reasons;
We could have tasked
The FBI, the OSS
Instead
For their investigations
x
There is a danger
That the battleship memorial
Might slide into the water,
As it placed one way or another
Over tombs
Of flesh and rust
x
I’d hate for that happen,
For we need remembrance
x
We need to remember
Many things:
God and our conscience
Make it so
x
Recalling sudden loss of life,
A shining, lethal campaign of
Surprise
x
Oh, we should be careful:
Watch our shores,
Keep our early systems
Early,
Though we need no longer
Look to the right and left
For enemies
Since looking right and left
Shall land on every one
Of us
x
And what’s left of united?
x
My families
Fought inside this war
That we remember;
Some could still
Tell stories
That tend to
Try the young to hear
x
On this day remember, then—those
Who could see and hear
And taste and touch,
Who suddenly
Lost all the senses
Along with mortal life,
The joy of daily living
In a paradise
We tried to covet
For a paradise
x
Farewell, we may salute
And say
All those
Who cannot call out
Except for memory,
Call out
For each other
In the fire
And the smoke
x
And the few remaining
Now
Who would
Can tell us
Of the hours
And the aftermath
x
Times and
Experiences
That
Soldiers, sailors, flyers—on
The ground, on deck, or in the air—
Mechanics and KP,
Bystanders
Try not to talk about
So much
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Kyle Chicoine on Unsplash
Birds by the Bay
x
(x = space)
x
x
For All Souls
x
Soon
And very soon
It will be time for
Remembering
The dead
Los Díos de los Muertos when
Graveyards light with
Stunning light in
Some places,
Other places
Less so
For remembrance
x
There will be candy
Other foods
Meals shared beside
The stones
It is Latino
Latin-x
Other groups have other ways
Of memory
x
For some, this becomes
A party
Like a wake
For others, city-wide
Express or digress
There will be something
It is for
Everyone
Para todos
x
To Latin-x
The community
In thanks
The ones who inspire
A lighted way
For shadows,
A way to catch our tears
But for love
In remembering
x
C L Couch
x
x
Sugar skulls before decoration.
[image b]y Jonathunder – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63912646
x
(sorry, I add a hyphen to Latin as a help in my pronouncing)
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Dead and the Quick
(9/11)
x
It is a day we lived
Through,
Those who lived
x
Like D-Day
Like Hastings
For the English
Or the entry of the Nazis
Into Paris
For the French
Like the storms in Indonesia
That killed thousands
In 2004
Like the killing
Of a good man
In Haiti
Recently
Wrecking the nation
For a time
Upon hurricane
And earthquake
x
They are history
Beyond the idiom
And by those now gone
We rebuild and build
And sometimes pledge
Anew or new
We will take greater care
Cosmic care
Next time
x
We might learn
If we should learn something
From allegories that were
Flesh and bone
And blood
Except that being found
Is good
Being remembered
Parochially,
Sometimes globally
x
Forever with a double
Meaning,
9-1-1
How peaceful to be by
The memorials
A quiet place to count
And then to cry the names
Peacefully
x
This place
These places
Are all over
Hopes we might be united
Everywhere
For once
An hour and a day
And then for keeps
For keeping
All the Earth
And us
For longer
So much longer than
The bugled ceremony’s
Time
x
C L Couch
x
(9/11/21, 11/9/21)
x
9/11 photographs exhibition at photography festival Rencontres Arles 2019
Photo by Fred Moon on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Ghosts
x
I don’t mean
The kind that haunt
In stories
You know what I mean
That haunt for different
Reasons, sometimes
Only memory
Without any fright
A different kind of pain
In remembering
x
Have I lived too long?
I can’t count
The number who have died
I used to know them well
And they are,
You know,
Gone
Holes in my life remain
Small ones that expand
On certain days
x
I think the question might
Have to do with
How to keep them all
How to bear mortality
As well
So much by default
Makes it happen
All mortality,
And I won’t say I’m ungrateful
I am satisfied to be here
And for you
x
Some things will come in memory
And when everything wakes up
Greeting begins again
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Nolan Issac on Unsplash
Upstate New York Chapter, Rochester, United States
My best friend and I got some great shots in this abandoned place….I miss her.
x
Ghost
it is like us because it was us
breathing, living once like us
ghost become, be-turned in death, untimely
and unfinished
are they real?—we are real, and
we’re the ones who make the ghosts, for
they were us
we know a ghost of one kind lives
we meet it every day: anything that
haunts us in our daylight lives, the
choices and the acts we want to leave
behind but carry with us in a lingering
way not finished
we make our ghosts, and they haunt us
the other kind?—well, why not, since
so much of us is left behind, undone
so that we carry it in some
unresolving way
after dust, before heaven
what we leave that’s extreme and
exigent persists
so we make the ghosts, and they persist
is it bad, then, on one day a year, we celebrate
the ghosts this once?—and then again next year
Happy Hallowe’en
while remembering
they will be
clcouch123 
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