church time December 7
moonlight was used
against
its use
as there was preparation
near
sunlight
to betray as well
on
early Sunday morning
when order
and white uniforms
were torn
apart
and life a tissue by attack
and
everything exploded
while ripped-up men and women
with
children close by
tried to shoot back and
also
run
to stations
and to homes
the attack upon our useful soil
and beautiful
while
we thought
to live there and none
should
bother us by might
and
arrangement
and yet
and yet
empire and
democracy
too much to reconcile
too
divergent for our values
so we fought
with destruction
as the theme and total
the result
so
the agenda
and the strategy
the chaos of attacking
on all
sides
and so the President and Congress
said
this is officially declared
and so to the west
and east
and so many points on Earth
to
call the war
world
second Sunday in Advent
when
the candle’s lit for
peace
and on that Sunday
eighty-four
years the count
the awful
lively
living and the dying there
and then
and how might all politics and factions
reconcile
only
by tragedy
and where there is alliance
or
appreciation
now
new fronts are drawn
between
within
and these days
the radical
it seems
to keep value in the sacrifice
done
and remembered
and to apply
as we tend to think in reverse
reminding
and if owning
of
the greatest sacrifice
become
the saving doctrine
remembered by the seasons
then
and now
c l couch
photo by Graddes on Unsplash
in waiting
waiting as in stillness plus
waiting as in serving
stillness
and serving
the God beside us
in waiting
is waiting
c l couch
Revelation 3:20
Revelation 21:5
photo by Yucel Moran on Unsplash
Rafah
It’s Ramadan
A million people
Faithful
For what
I am unsure
Being not so faithful
For life
For rescue
For prophets to keep
Teaching
On the will of God
And to submit
While hospitals
Can’t work
And food cannot arrive
And there’s no living
Room
Or space for peace
There is an endless countdown
For invasion
Until the count is ended
With more shelling
And then many
Many troops
Darkened by masks
What passes for medieval armor
And bearing
Oh
So modern weapons
And in Israel
They wait as well
Still mourning
And some strategize
An ending to Hamas
While others
Simply want for life
After grief
To move them on
They want the desert
Want the mountains
Want the seaside
Want to work
And play
And love
Their way through life
The human way through life
Though there is fear
Of extinction
Here
Too small
Too new a country still
Against
How long were the reigns
Of kings
And queens
And prophets
Both sides
Have hellish prospects
Rooted
And growing
Though the blood and time
That has poured in
After seeds
Branches
That look like tension
More than fruit-bearing possibilities
Seasons
That lack distinction
Not from the wilderness
But from
What we’d say
The human heart
The mind
Both hardened
By reason
And by fright
By reasonable fright
And also anger
Anger at the other
Sometimes at one’s own
And where is life
In all this
Where do the walls come down
Enough
For work and play
The desert
And the mountains
And the shoreline
Of the ocean
To walk in
And look out toward
The horizon
Without a horizon
Blurred lines
But there the sun will set
As if the only clock at work
The moves
With assurance
Of the daytime
And the night time
And that’s all
C L Couch
Photo by nour tayeh on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
The Holy Waiting
x
Set apart
From regular life
The scheduled living
x
Try to hold
It’s hard
And often it slips through
x
God waits with us
I guess
I hope
There is no timely time
God’s good at that
We wonder
Should be try
Hospital food?
I mean, there are cafés
Maybe with better coffee
And no Jell-O
x
Should we eat?
Is it allowed?
Are we crass?
x
Pins and needles
Certainly, they’re here
And everywhere
Everywhere
We go
The familiar
That is strange now
We’ve never met
How are you?
x
Waiting means stopping
It also means serving
Those also serve
Who only stand and wait
Yeah,
That makes sense now
x
Understanding terminal
There is no
Understanding
Read a book
No, thanks
Climb a tree
Better
x
We stop
Until we move again
In steadiness
Or mysteries
Or steady
Or unsteady mysteries
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Chris Anderson on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
3 poems about room
x
x
Waiting Room
x
Lately, I’ve been angry in my dreams
I’m not sure what that means
I’ve argued with my mother
I’ve argued with former coworkers
Then I’ve left each encounter
To find a peaceful place, all my own
x
x
Wanting Room
x
I’ve not argued with God
In my dreams
I’ve not argued with God
When awake
I don’t argue with God
x
Though I imagine
There was a time
When I must have argued,
When
Hurts were all
Too awful in the bearing
Of them,
And I didn’t want
To bear them
x
Wanting relief, instead
Or at least a reason—
No, a reason
Wouldn’t be enough
x
I wanted relief
From God
x
x
Room
x
I want room from the landlord*
Who makes me live
With paper-peeling walls
And ceiling and says he can do
Nothing
x
I want room from doctors who
Don’t respond
To their own tests,
To tell me how to deal with
Possibly a broken bone
And certainly with broken flesh
x
I want room
From people who don’t recognize
Me anyway
Because they don’t recognize
Anyone, anyway
x
Each is in a world of one
While the rest of us are landscape
Statues in performance,
Performing when invoked
With snapping fingers or something
x
I’ll take room
From that
From those,
Thank you
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Holy Maria Lala on Unsplash
x
*(room, landlord = pun, sorry)
x
(x = space)
x
x
While in Mariana’s Grange
x
Hello, day
It’s been a night of wakefulness
Then I drifted off
Onto waters of forgetfulness
Except for dreams
That now I’m here
I am forgetting, too
x
But here’s remembrance:
I’m waking up
To what I left
And whom
There is no ignorance
Everything returns
I must learn again
How to contain
In flesh
Everything I bear
And had left
Only for a while
For angels lifting up
And demons bearing down
x
C L Couch
x
x
Mariana in the Moated Grange
John Everett Millais
painting dated 1851
the image is in the Public Domain
the painting hangs in the Tate in London
x
(x = space)
x
x
at the specialist’s
x
hot in here
in here
in here
in here
x
room
wool
brain
x
I wait
it’s not been long
I met two of them already
this is the quiet part
x
quiet waiting room
the specialist’s
x
c l couch
x
x
Photo by billow926 on Unsplash
Instagram：billow926 business e-mail ：billow926@yeah.net
x
(x = space)
x
x
Petition
x
God is good
(it’s how we start
a certain prayer)
And God must bear
What’s evil
Not for lack of love
But for the gift of will
That was
A gift of love
x
We think angels
Don’t have it
Yet there was a war
In heaven
They will match up
At Armageddon,
The last ranks
And those who last
Will join us in
New heaven
x
Creation is broken
We have stories
We can mend it now
Imperfectly
But make a circle
Others know how
And would show us
If we bring down
The barriers
Yes, the real walls
x
There is legacy
In circles
Protection, celebration
The will to live
Because there’s love
Unashamed
Enduring
Persisting when
That’s all there is
Because the rest
Feels on fire
If only for a time
x
Wait as in be patient
Wait as in attend
But we have one gift to give
Give it now
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Buzz Andersen on Unsplash
I was visiting the Big Island of Hawaii with some friends and family, and my brother convinced the group to take a lava tour by boat. I always kind of balk a little bit at overtly touristy stuff like that, but I think everyone was a pretty shocked when we got our first look at the Kalapana Lava Flow after about a half hour boat trip down the coast. It’s such an awesome, phantasmagorical sight and, since they actually get surprisingly close to the spots where the rivers of lava meet the ocean and throw up sulfurous steam clouds, also a pretty visceral sensory experience.
x
Passenger
Disorientation
Getting sick
Trying not to
No, what is it
Trying to get well
Two infections
And did they damage my heart?
Became the overarching question
So a string of tests
Withholding diagnosis in the mean time
Withholding treatment, too
The pain was high
Still is
Less lousy, I can say
C L Couch
clcouch123 
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