In the Day of the Lord
Well
God
What shall you give
Today
There is the day
There will be daylight
Well-
Insinuated
In an hour or so
There will be more
Time
In hours
Time to choose
For those
Who may choose
Who aren’t
Conscripted otherwise
Drafting
Oneself
For cause
But then
The cause
Might be a wonder
How about family
About
The partner
Who works out
In
Intimacy
As well as
What is profound
When about one’s nation
Call it people
Call it country
Group
Tribe
State
Region
Everything that has a name
Maybe a living
Constitution
For a document
For walks
The simple
And sublime
Which faces our distraction
And decisions
All the time
And certainly
Today
And God
There is more than patriotism
There is the reason for it
And the rest
That is
Well
You
And what you say
You make
What you say and make
That is creation
Whose pages form
A scripture
Every day
And then the book itself
Shelved
We take down
Perhaps
We hear someone else
Reading
And from which
Some teaching
Though the hour
Is a sermon
Too
This hour
Then the next
Should we have the next
Odds say
We’ll have
Inside our complex bodies
Have a day that’s plain
Landing here or there
Pleine aire
Or chez lui
And should one
Ask oneself
About salvation
Or get the question
From another
Answer
We hope so
C L Couch
Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash
[photographer’s caption] In New York, in a little shop, those watches where there, hanging in front of me!
(x = space)
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3 poems, when you have time (one poem about observation, one about reading, one about war taking all)
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Observe and Report
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For preamble
Nothing like
The burdens of a people
Upon Joshua
Or Caleb
x
What’s petty
What is meaningful
Too often
I don’t know
I pick up a stone
It’s not a park
There are no regulations
I take the thing with me
Becomes an artifact
At home
x
I am reminded
Of the Earth
We are set on
So many layers
To the center
Countless to go out
Again
To try to count
x
Clueless
It and I
While it’s supposed to be
And I think I should know something
About the atoms
The formation
Its place
Near my fingers
When I found it
When I take it up
Look upon it
Now
x
x
Read Me
x
Not unlike the words
Commanding
Alice
To forward
Her adventure
x
Words
Well
Words have
Such value
So the lines are short
While
Reading slowly is advised
Going slowly
Generally
x
Yours should be read
This way
As well
x
Time is a treasure
Though we should parse it out
Surrender it in particles
x
Not worrying so much
About the measure
Since the bill
Of sale
Is not our own
But investment the creator made
Inside creation
x
So let’s take our time
As said
Although again
It’s not our own
But lent
At best
And for our use
Simply
As use
x
Please take time to read me
I’ll take time
Reading
You
And then there’s
The needful time
For vital
As in lively
Response
x
x
War and After, After
x
The wars go on
Again
I can’t imagine
The explosions
The dust
The rubble
And the blood
Beneath
x
And the things of blood
Of bodies
That once held the lives
Of souls
While here on Earth
x
Now stolen
As if by gods
Self-styled
With machines
Black and pretty
Smithed
In hell
x
And this is metaphor
Impressions
The real thing
For those alive
Is all about
The running
Avoidance of more anything
Like that
Again
x
And then it happens
There is more
It’s worse
Nothing inside ourselves
Ever
Really
Gets used to it
x
And then
Maybe there’s a moment when
The silence rings
Notes of nothing
Anymore
While looking
Touching
For flesh containing life
We might embrace
To take
And to offer
What we have
x
And there might be people
Come from
Too short a way
To find us
For ourselves
To treat us
Representing
Something clean
And institutional
Away
x
We might be taken there
Where
Objectless walls
Close in
With noises in the distance
Or have we brought them with us
And is it noise
That closes in
The distance
x
We need medication
Sedative
To leave all this
Except for bodies
That have names
xxxxxWe cherish both
xxxxxWe want them
xxxxxHave to search for them
xxxxxTo know them
xxxxxAnd to have them
xxxxxOnce again
x
Though we might have to settle
In without response
While life is measured
Sometimes
Without
The power to the building
And their efforts
And the dust
And rubble
That came in with us
x
The war
The damning war
The reason we say bloody
For the worst
Things we can think of
x
Fleshly containers
Holding flesh
Until they must
Let go
x
Who are they
What are their names
Who are we
Where are we going
x
War take all
Peace for the remnant
The ghostly revenant
Left over
The dust
Of everything that’s taken
For what’s left over
To remain
x
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Ansia Lasa on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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As It Is on Earth
x
I don’t know what I have
If I have
Anything
For me
And then for you
x
You might be first
But something about me must
Be satisfied
Or nothing travels
x
Something that could sound
Like a song
But must have sound
Regardless
In a shape that serves
And something of the world
Inside
The world and the inside
Where we live
x
Forgive me
Then
The lateness in the hour
Or anything that’s late
In getting to you
Though we have no schedule
I know
We know
And do our best
To post in blogs
Like bags of mail for ponies
Or task the runner
As at Marathon
x
We send
Receive
Respond
Then send again
It’s all a process
It’s a circle
Sacred
Called by some
And why not
Our gods as known
Believed
Walking like the
Lord
Or maybe
Gasp
Tash
Arrived
x
And in the interaction
All of us
In equal space
If not location
And for accountability
Well
Something holy happens
That is human
Set aside
As well as visitors
To take part
And approve
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash
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The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis is referenced.
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(x = space)
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Good Time, I Hope
x
God
May I talk
With you
x
My health might be improving
Just a little
By just a little
And I thank you
In part because
I want to make a lot
Out of a little
x
I want to ask your pardon
For my sins
Though really
I want to assume
Upon a doctrine
Not to have to talk them out
Remember things
With you
x
Or again assume
You know them
Anyway
And will excuse me
On my asking
Even broadly
x
Clearly
By tone
I think I’m wrong in that
x
But for your pardon
Even with my fractured approach
I thank you
And I love you
Have I mentioned that
x
I feel confused
About what’s next
x
I mean
I know there’s heaven
Though I don’t know
Heaven
But honestly I mean now
The now that I know
As best I know
And what to do
I don’t mean tired questions
Lived for decades
Without answers
I could grasp
x
I mean today
And for a little direction
Into tomorrow
x
Could you help me out
If I’m feeling better
With a little better-ness
What shall I do
x
Keep healing
I suppose
Try to bear
And wear
Virtue a little closer
Then to
Try to be positive
And send positive
All the while
x
That is
Maybe for a change
Keep doing this
x
Now
It seems
I hope
I hope I found a little something
This time
That had been piecemeal
Over time
And now should be
Seamed together
For a broader cloth
You might accept
For a flag
Or coverlet
Or on the table
Where we gather
To remember
And negotiate
Earth
Or
Eternity
x
You’ve been listening
Over years
You have been listening
I’m thankful
x
Even in pain
Your presence
For my life
Since when there’s void
There is too much
To bear
x
Well
Thank you
Lord
I’ll keep working
As it is
And feeling
Of your presence
More than doctrine
In my life
x
C L Couch
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This is personal
And cosmic
It’s for you
All verse is for you
Food
For ingesting
Water
For the thirst
You maybe did not know
You had to have
Me
Too
All to have
In being
x
Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Oracle
x
x
Pent-Up
x
I wish the chemicals
Flowed more freely
Is it that they pass through
Glands
And mine rest in the body
Without balance
x
I was calm
And then adrenaline released
Caused me to jump
Around
You know
Inside
x
And now I contemplate my day
And its appointments
And could do without
The set-to
Consideration the expectations
Guessing really
Going on
Inside
x
x
Better Living
x
I never experimented
Never toked
Never smoked a cigarette
Never tried
What came within
The colored patches
x
Now a grown-up
I get pills
I know the younger
Get them
Too
And apologize
x
Prognosis
And prescriptions
It is the way
Buter’s way for our flesh
With what imposes
From the testament
About
Three-score and seven
x
x
That’s All
x
But
Lord
There are all the
Hundreds of years
Of patriarchs
Of Eve
Of Sarah
The subsumption of
Enoch
Elijah
x
Too many dying young
Through
Murder
Flood
And war
And then
The many who exceed
The formula
Citing classic wisdom
x
How long shall you go
(that’s you)
Or I
Our pets
Our people
Or our nations
Chronology
x
We might play with time
In elevated ways
Einstein
Velocity
The vehicles to get there
And such
x
Slows down things
Perhaps
While we are fast
And yet the direction’s
Always forward
Because that’s how the story plays
And toward which
The ending rests
And waits
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Aleksandr Barsukov on Unsplash
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(x = space)
x
x
machine time
x
repeating numbers
for today
ones and twos
the sun is shining
angled beneath
clouds
mist that has risen
and such
above it could be blue
and then the black of space
with all our trash
and earnest vehicles
in orbit
x
look down
and there’s the floor
to the left
is cooling coffee
right in front
is this machine
with a screen that challenges
endurance
still so much easier to use
than typing through
a master’s degree
on Olympia, Corona,
and my sanity
x
remember paper?
that’s what we used
for turning in assignments
before the imposition
of electrons
paper, sticky stamps
other adhesives
it was a world, then,
that we could touch and hold
and know we’ve used
x
c l couch
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photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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x
Time and Again
(for J. R. R. T. in the birthday month)
x
Sometimes
We know it’s happening
Far away
By powerful people
National leaders
Soldiers with weapons firing
Or
A catastrophe
That has not befallen us
Specifically
And like parades
We know they and these are passing by
x
Sometimes it’s here
Still not for us
Our role might be
To observe
Or like the chorus
Comment on events
But this is not our stage
We are not the players
Not the principles,
At least
When there is news
We will know more
x
Sometimes it is our time
The light might be on us
Maybe not
But it is our time
The actions
And the consequences
Our place in the world
To secure
x
Perhaps I mean
The deaths of kings
(inclusive)
Then a fire in another part
Of town
Then maybe no more than
A birthday celebration
To have with grace
And thanks
x
Or maybe our time
Is more important
However to us
It seems
To the people
To the planet
To the cosmos
Believe me or not,
It could happen
x
It happened to the hobbit
Most of us are hobbits
Even without the provenance
Or wealth
(before the treasure is acquired)
Of Bagginses
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Look Up Look Down Photography on Unsplash
Hobbiton, Mata Mata, New Zealand
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(x = space)
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Counting Back
x
Those who lived long ago
Did not count their time
Backward
We do that for them
With B.C. or B.C.E.
While in their time they lived
Counting forward, adding years
Toward forever
As we hope to do
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Murray Campbell on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Leaf-Taking
x
Leaves change
As time changes
As time changes
Green becomes memory
Until green times
Return
x
Leaves of pages
Change
As time changes
As time changes
The memory of reading
Reading now
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Chinnu Indrakumar on Unsplash
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Photo by Roman Trifonov on Unsplash
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