Apology of the Annoyed
Immortal
Invisible
And sometimes
That’s annoying
And at other
Times
It hurts so much
Not to see anything
Hear anything
By what is pressed upon us
That we can see
And hear
Even emotions
And our thoughts
Seem more real
More touchable
More holdable
Sometimes
Ghosts
You know
In stories
Seem more palpable
Than your presence
As we say
Everywhere
Why must you be unseen
Why must we count
On evidence
In nature
So that our faith is challenged
By a storm
Or flood
Or quake that kills
Why we might have to guess
At your approbation
The source of an eruption
While we must flee
The valleys
Where we live
Below
You are inside
Somehow
We say
And how really
Does that work
Unless we invent them
Or turn out
To be
One of the few
Who hear them
Say
Joan Dark
There are no voices
Inside
But our own
And we fill up the inside
With organs
Thoughts
And feelings
So where is
The space for you
We say
Your word is in a book
In many books
Though books are still
Unrevealing
‘Til we open
And read from them
On our own
Or in the forum
Hear
Someone officially
Say
This is the word of God
And truly
Is it so
The glass is dark
Which might be the metaphor
That helps
You’re there
You’re on one side
We might see movement
Guess at mystery
Find faith
Ill-shaped
By what we see
And cannot see
Or hear
Should there be sound
As well
And could we guess
That you might be
On our side
Of the glass as well
And by your presence
(guessed at)
Might believe
You favor us
Not our side
As politics
But simply being here
And you are here
Was there love
In your making
Things
And making us
With apparatus
For induction
Deduction
To figure out
That is
Through impulse
Too
And instinct
Gained
Conditioned from each day
We encounter
We experience
Make wisdom
Or simply know
Without knowing
How bits
Of the world are
Through what we have
And what we use
And what is used
Of us
So much a kind of
Instrumentation
And what for
To know there’s something more
Than us
We know
By simply
Living life
As its own evidence
And proof
Within
What there is
In all forms
And shapes
And differences
And energies
It might seem
Life proves
That you exist
And because
We are more
Than what’s inside the shell
(the blood and such)
In faith
There is more than us
And this more
Might be you
C L Couch
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” is a hymn.
In addition to I’m sorry, apology also means explanation and defense.
Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Many and Great
x
I’m sorry
There are other things
Wildfires
Wars
Rising oceans
More than tides
Allow
What nature does
What we do
While the Earth permits
Until it can’t
x
And I’m concerned
With how
I feel
Even mortally
(with room for veniality
as well)
I am one
How many are you?
You seem more to me
As if a company
Resides
Inside your wall of flesh
Behind your eyes
x
And I suppose it’s true
We each might be
Many souls
Maybe carried through
The ages
Or simply facets of
What splits
From our encounters
Here and now
And what remains
Beside our spirits
Mainly
As we become
Like growing jewels
x
When permitted,
Like layers
Added to the pearl
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
x
Don’t Mind Me
Oh, Christopher
Christophoros
So you’re nothing
Nothing’s good
The mystics would be envious
I don’t mean annihilation
That would be bad
But death to self is something else,
I think
Because you do not go away
As if there were nothing left of you
You are woke into a different place
With people you might know
Some kind of belonging
We might call it a heavenly host
But you are retained as you
You are even loved
Now and you know before
As it may have happened, then
The death to self is prayer
So cleansed and clean
As to have nothing left but righteous intercession
Something to be gained
Such a death to self so that
There is only prayer for others
Disinterest in agenda
But the willingness to bleed some more
If like a transfusion
It might bring some living to another
This is sacrifice
Not immolation but
A gift of love
From which nothing will be returned
A love I do not understand, for now
Or the peace that passes it
C L Couch
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash
A shot I captured during dinner with my Grandpa and my niece.
Jacki K Challenge, memoir with image(s) and metaphors
(www.whatwillmatter.com at Google Images)
The painting might be depicting the story of Narcissus and Echo, but I can think of no better way to think of the self as through reflecting into glassy water. And the art looks like the pre-Raphaelites again, a favorite school of mine.
The Song of Myself by Christopher Whitman (by me)
The title is an homage, of course, a
Metaphoric salutation to the great
Transcendentalist, who also was
A correspondent in the Civil War, up
Close to the blood-washed fighting
Do I see myself as a war? I do not
But rather see myself as a struggle in
Stillness, like the water in a pre-Raphaelite
Painting—reflections on reality were
Important in that school; they are
Important to me now
I reflect and, as best I can, marvel at the
Metaphor so wondrously used by Paul
In his assertion that we see through the
Glass darkly for now—and like a dim
And frosted mirror, I see myself as best
I may, while on this side
The song about myself, then, that I might
Sing, is one of dissonance—I don’t know
If Whitman heard any of his words set
To musical notes and then performed—my
Song would be entirely syncopated and
In minor keys, a monstrosity of jazz, a
Movement barely born when he wrote
About the war and then about you and
Me
(www.dreamstime.com at Google Images)
You know, it’s impressive what you can search for while at or with Google Images. First, I searched “the self.” Then I searched for “a small house” and then “a small brick house,” because that’s what I was really looking for. And, I’m sorry, I selected two images because self and small house were too compelling to enter into competition.
My Small House
I lived in a small house after
Being born in a hospital since renamed
The photo above is neither mine nor
Theirs (the other members of my
Family), although the resemblance to the
Actual look is surprisingly close, because
I view this house only in memory now
And for some many years: a red-brick house
With greenery in front, behind; a pointed
House too small for four brothers and Mom
And Dad , and then my sister arrived—so
We were not there so long—and yet this
House is my earliest memory box; take
Off the top by grasping at the point, and see
Inside images of my father reading, my
Mother cleaning, and the me I saw
Once within a mirror, after coming home
From the hospital again—four, now, and
Having fallen onto the hard floors
(Wall-to-wall carpeting would be next,
For sure) and splitting my four-year-old
Forehead open: in this image, I see me
Head bound up, wearing my favorite
Shirt (I don’t know how I know this), red with
A seal stitched on the front and balancing
A ball upon his circus nose
Wound and red and balancing—metaphors
Too soon worked out in the troubled new
House
clcouch123 
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