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Fox and Grapes

Fox and Grapes

(the nature of a scorpion)

 

There are so many stories

Out there,

Which is grand

Here’s one story you know

 

The tortoise and the hare

The hare should have won

It stopped to take a nap

It should have finished the race

First

Then had all sorts of time

Appointment-free for napping

But there was vanity

He

(I’m going to say he)

Could not resist

And there are morals

 

If you’re a tortoise

Find and maintain your pace,

For that’s your job

If you’re a hare,

Remember modesty

In a wider world

And turn your energy

Creatively

You could have helped the tortoise,

After all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Scott Rheam, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Black-Tailed Jackrabbit (lepus californicus). Image from public-domain images website.

(public-images.com, Wikimedia)

 

6

Door Prize

Door Prize

 

Through a door to Narnia

For others, it has been a dream

Or through a wall

Something that opens between worlds

Because we have to be there

There is a story half-done, only

We must change something

And be changed

And someone else will tell

The now-whole story

And we who might not go anywhere

Will go through, too

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Ronald Cuyan on Unsplash

Antigua, Guatemala

 

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The Opposite of Magi

The Opposite of Magi

(for Epiphany, for any old epiphany)

 

The gift of the fools

The young who pay too much

For love

The old who believe there is too little

To be paying for at all

The city street is harsh for both

It’s only for transition

But because we feel the wind

Or the heat of summer,

We hope too much there’s something here

Only for us

And there is

The Earth remains a gift

And cities an invention

Not to mention farms

And small towns at crossroads

The roads themselves

The way that can only be felt

Across the desert

Through the forest

Choosing the strand to take

In a web of waterways

 

All ages have a chance

Must we always give

As in lose

Or in surrender?

Maybe so—if so, let’s make it

Worthwhile

(comes to mind is something about

aphoristic pearls and pigs,

sorry, pigs, a metaphor forwarding

the story)

Money, time, muscles, potential

Whatever it’s going to take

For betterment

One life, two lives, two and a half

A million

Can we count what matters,

Can we take it one by one?

The old response comes to mind

From the teacher trying to teach:

I don’t know if you can,

But you may

 

C L Couch

 

 

“The Gift of the Magi” is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal … en.wikipedia.org

Photo by Linh Nguyen on Unsplash

 

3

The Tell

The Tell

 

In the future, should we have it

We might gather into upper rooms

Keepers of technology

With those of bread

To tell a story of

What was lost, was kept

Not forgetting that we write

New chapters in

Our saga

 

Rising, falling passages like

Exploration of an ocean

Something like discovery

Reconquest when we call for it

Removing home

 

There is a center with

A monument to keeping

We gave away so much

Forsaking clarity

We held too closely, crushed it

Everything that was a gift

Finding we had no real talent in

Adding to creation

When there could have been alliances

 

Finally, nothing’s lost

If it must change again

And we with it

We’ll have what we have

In keeping up with prophecy

Fields we didn’t have to fight. for

Nature in benevolence to share

 

Partnership with

The ground at last,

The sea and all its colonies

We have a place, if regulated

By our betters whom we knew

And would not recognize

And the better us

In time for staying

And for leaving

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Touann Gatouillat Vergos on Unsplash

Lake Louise, AB, Canada

On the ice. Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/touann.gv/

 

8

After a Kind of Rain

After a Kind of Rain

 

There is hope

While there is good

We don’t even have to know

It’s more than half

We only need to catch a gleam

In the morass of kidnapped night

That better roles have

Abrogated

That was, I think, the war

In heaven

 

And if the hopeful glint

Is not in evidence

On the field or in a corner

In case our spirits are abducted, too

In the metaphor, we can close

Our eyes and in a better

Darkness recall

The light,

Which lifts the cause for metaphor

And story

More poetry, more narrative

We need more, we must have more

In case so much depends upon

 

By all means, this is not a call

For this

There is so much around

Barely a kick will stir it up from

Dulling dust

Or here’s a thought:

Create

Co-create

Strike an agreement with a muse

A long-term contract

Don’t worry

She awaits

With clarity even within

The rolls of night

Even before the end of

Stormy weather

Over one plain or another

 

C L Couch

 

 

Fahad Hashmi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40357621

Lahore

 

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Cool Runnings

Cool Runnings

 

It’s another dark day

Outside not inside

Inside the lamps are lit

Casting glows that make

Me think of a winter day

Someone should be telling

Stories next to the

Fire (there is no fireplace)

At least it will be a day

For imagination

Summer is a few days away

The forecast calls for

Temperatures in the eighties

But inside I will think

Of cold

Of wanderers across a frozen

Waste of buried land, aiming for

A rescue so that there

Might be a chance of home

After the questing’s done

It’s a day for a lengthy

Story

Maybe you will join me

Tell me yours

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image of Diana Wall

By Byron Adams – Portrait, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48699119

 

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Myth Taken

Myth Taken

 

A real myth

Something of the story that is true

A point for evangelism

The apology that says not sorry

But here’s something

Maybe I can explain

Maybe you’ll take to heart

Because the head is fine with it

 

Patterns

Northrop Frye

Joseph Campbell

The story told

Again and again

Owned by groups, changed

According to experience

Embellishment

Because of what has happened

 

Our town was spared

My child cured

Weather wiped us out

We saw vengeance

Someone died

We were no longer sure

 

Now risen like

An older story

Of the truth

We believe it now

We’re amazed

We’re taken back

We’re scared

But we are certain

 

How much of myth

Is easing fright

Attitudes made bold again

Through explanation

 

I take salt that I’ve spilled

And throw it over my left shoulder

The devil who is hiding there

Is frustrated

And I’ve found a use for useless salt

(I don’t do that for pepper)

Now if only I could use the milk

I’ve spilled

 

It can turn sinful

Or start that way as strategy

I want my neighbor’s land,

To enslave the family

 

In storyland, we think there’s solace

And there is

With myth, we now know things

And we do

 

C L Couch

 

 

Shinwa no Mori (Forest of Myth) by Taki Toru in Izumo-Taisha, Shimane, Japan

 

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Junior Classic, Illustrated

Junior Classic, Illustrated

 

I saw an image of a dhow

First time in a comic book when

I was young

Good place to find it—

Looks and words of far-off places

Among them those that don’t exist

For that’s what

Comic bookx are for

And for the youth

In any age

 

A small, Egyptian ship

To carry color, set a story

Spark something in the head

And all longing internal parts that

Want the story

To be real

 

Then, I read slowly

I read slowly now

And for my sins became a teacher

Of all kinds of text

But the text that draws me in

Is

 

Once this happened

 

C L Couch

 

 

Dhow in the Indian Ocean near Zanzibar

Muhammad Mahdi Karim – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13092508

 

 

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Page One

Page One

 

Fluff

Good for pillows

Not so good for writing

Aspiring toward substance

Sometimes it’s fluffy

The time, a portion

An interaction

Did I ever have a cat named

Fluffy? I don’t think so

Fluff is not the magic dragon

 

And now I think on it,

Is there any other kind?

Fly, dragon

Take me with you, please

(be courteous to dragons)

Into your magic

 

C L Couch

 

 

MyName (AllenS) – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4021075

Story Book Wall at Alamogordo (New Mexico) Public Library, outside the Children’s Library. Dedicated May 1963. Local schoolchildren drew illustrations for their favorite story books and these were transferred to ceramic tiles and baked on.

 

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