A Sleep of Prisoners
A magnificent exchange
Of prisoners
By politics
Years in the making
Like many
Epics
What details we don’t know
What it
Took
To have this happen
By two countries
Cold with each other
In a world
So much more complex
Than what we knew before
(and how tired
must be
those fingers on the buttons
since the fifties)
It seems we can say fairly
Coming home
In whatever state
Whatever health
Free people
Once again
And may we say
Free
At last
C L Couch
Photo by Mario Scheibl on Unsplash
for the Crocus concert-goers in Russia
I’m sorry
and my heart is hit
by
what happened
at the Crocus
venue in Moscow
so many dead
so many
wounded
and no doubt
these days
the language goes to blame
and timely war
but sometime
in this time
we want to wonder
really
who the hell cares
I died
my family died
my friends who had hoped
for an easy time
in all the crystalline news
of massacres
were hoping frankly
thoughtlessly
and
humanly
for the relief in a good time
together
and now my friends are dead
and I am as good as gone
and I know
so many die
across the border
the near line
and on this
side
too
we wanted minutes
maybe hours
to have music
and some pleasure
taken
away
from all the sides
and to forget all sides
and like entertainments
in wartime
to leave it
briefly
and maybe in the back
re-think it
for a while
and look what happened
so many of us
and our hopes were killed
and all we want
is to feel better
if alive
and to have home
after
and
the rhetoric
that goes toward war
to go away
c l couch
photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Torn Flags for a Second Anniversary
x
Russia attacks
It’s in the news
The biggest
In two years
And we must say
Two years
x
Maybe he looked out
Upon the anniversary
And said
To generals
Still extant
Finish this
Forgetting that one human will
Is not enough
For playing
God
Not being God
Over the world
x
Too big
Too complicated
Too many wills
For one set
Set to prevail
x
Campaigns stutter
Exhausted
Of all things
All attacking things
Then sometimes
Pushed the other way
x
What do Russians
Think
And how will we ever know
We should imagine
They’ll all over
As we are
However our side might be
Arranged
As another side
x
There is other news
But this is bad
And we forget
Too easily
Though it is human
To hold many things
At the same time
And to serve life
In more
With more
Than one of these
x
Serve pleasure
Serve delight
Serve causes
Serve what means something
And what means something
In between
x
But Russia has attacked
Pushed itself
Over a cliff
To fall upon Ukraine
With so much
Following collision
Mixed with gravity
Judgment and history
To follow
x
Except that now
There’s blood
And everything that’s ruined
Killed in war
Everything stone
And all materials
Destroyed
And how shall it be over
Without being over
Probably
x
But frankly in a worse place
Both shall remain
So much more singly
Than together
Without extraordinary measure
That leaders
Cannot advocate
For now
Though maybe people
Like us people
At last will have a say
So that
Some things might end
The better things
Starting with rebuilding
What might be rebuilt
Mourning
For the loss
That can’t be found
Raised up
By us
Again
x
But raising
Rising
Nonetheless
What we are capable
What we are willful
To build
And have
Upon our lives
What we can manage
Share
Again
Or if need be
(as an impulse
and a pattern)
From the first
A new first
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Wolfgang Mennel on Unsplash
Layering of Posters on a Lamppost
x
(x = space)
x
x
Battle Cry
x
The war goes on
I know war from
Reading
All Quiet on the Western Front
Johnny Got His Gun
The Red Badge of Courage
Funny war in
Catch-22
Romantic war in
Anything by Alistair MacLean
And
The Lord of the Rings
I’ve seen videos of
Hiroshima,
And I see images of Ukraine
All of which means
I don’t know anything about war
I don’t know the ripping pain
Of bullets
The sounds from
Many explosions
The sounds of people
Wounded
And the dying
All in states of dying
Mortal life leaving the body
Violent upheaval into judgment
All out of place
Before its time
An outrage of angels
Crying from all sides
The risen and the fallen
I hear stories
Read them
Hear them
Imagine them
And let them in
It’s not the real thing
But it’s something
Enough to think and feel
And cry against
And I have perspective
While those who call for war
Haven’t any
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by British Library on Unsplash
1914, World War 1. Highland Territorials in a trench. Photographer: H. D. Girdwood.
x
(x = space)
x
x
Cyber Prayer
x
God, help
The people of Ukraine
And the Russians who
Protest the war
And are arrested
By autocracy
x
Brave days for faith
And hope
And love
x
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash
Cyberpunk Tunnel
x
The Russia Plane
I’m so sorry
And in this I do not care about
Antipathy between governments
And generations’ leaders
Loss of life from Russia
The choir, the humanitarian
Anyone from any place of any kind
Or backing
Agenda no longer counts save
Mother Russia weeping
Fill the holes in churches and
In agnostic circles
With salt water from our tears
And Black Sea depths
C L Couch
Cyrillic Alphabet
Here’s what I know, which
Isn’t all that much:
Cyril and Methodius travel
To Russia
To send a unifying story
Into tribal affiliations that
Have been
Sibling-folk murdering each
Other
For their difference
Here’s what the pilgrims
Found
In talking,
That no one knew the word
Each one uttering only
What each knew
And deadly ignorance
Who could hear?—there
Was no way;
Placing sectarian evangelism
Aside (though not
Unloading their first
Purpose),
What the saints gave first
Was language
In a unifying word
All could
Listen to at last
When the target is no longer
Blank, rather filled
With shapes
And hues
Of understanding,
Denial in killing becomes
A challenge
In Impossibility
All stories were told,
Fables had new morals;
All the letters are now legacy,
Spoken with
Living breath each day
The saints are capitalized
I don’t know how
Much they care
And people are
Still talking, if
Through veils sometimes
Meet You at G20
“gaps of trust”
which I first read as “gaps of dust”
USA and Russia
Obama and Putin
we cannot see each other
for gaps of dust
which might be all that’s left
if we don’t see better
look harder
for the truth of us
C L Couch
clcouch123 
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