Sigh the Old Machine
(one or the other)
I exhale
Without anything to share
Not really
Not a single thing
(so to say)
But a confession
This is the land I walk in
Today
A land of shapeless
Lack of opportunity
Without orientation
I could walk
This land for days
And come across nothing
Usefully
Defined
And so keep wandering
‘Til shapes arise
Small to left and right
Then something large
Like a statue
In a city
Or a fountain
And I must walk around
Taking in what detail
Might appear
Ask myself
About the sculptor
And the occasion
For such a thing
To rise
And on the other side
After a while
There it is
The tower stands
The phallic thing
To knock down
Then to go around
The ruins
No longer keeping me
From the pleasant
Fecund valley
Just beyond
And
Look
There’s sun
And moon
And opportunity
With many things
Like words
C L Couch
Photo by Gian Gomez on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
Floods, Swords (two poems)
could read the second of them while waiting on the first
x
x
Consider Extra Floods
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Jackson
And Jacksonville
Puerto Rico
Cuba
Indonesia
Pakistan
Recently, in Europe
Maybe here on Friday
x
The Earth warms
The polar shelves
Send sheets of ice
Into the ocean
Water rises
x
Storms increase
Maybe we should
Appreciate complaint
From our own
Planet
From the core to the skies
And those of us
All of us
On middle ground
Between the hell and heaven
Spirituality
Counting its own cost
In faith and lives
Of our own globe
In a waiting cosmos
x
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Consider Broken Swords
(Lord of the Rings)
x
Sting was never fixed,
Which would have been bad
For marketing
Though reminding
If not teaching
Us quite rightly
For the story
That the sharpest swords
Don’t have to win the day
And brokenness and heroes
Go together
x
The famous sword
The one that sang for Aragorn
Is fixed by Elven smiths
And ready for the final fights
In Rohan
Osgiliath
Minas Tirith
At the Black Gate
At last
These are the heroes whom we know
The king revealed
Wanderer and healer
The sword
That has a greater name
With supernal persona
Magic
In personality,
In character
As it were
x
But Sting
Is in a box
In Rivendell
Until it’s brought out
For a hobbit’s use
An unknown being
Anonymity its armor
(which had served the king
for a time)
They would sting another spider
Fill with poison
Topping off the stinging burden
Of an eldritch thing
And promises
Nothing healing
‘Til the mountainside
And going in
To face the fire
x
Goodness, there are heroes
There are lives
That serve the world
That sacrifice all pleasures
And promises
To take on one great evil
In front of armies
On one’s own
Inside mountains
At the gate
Of hell on Earth
Of hell on Middle-Earth
For all of us, between
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The small sword
Is character as well
Four heroes, as it were,
Famous
On the surface
Or unfamous,
Inside holes for homes
Then mines and caves
Tunnels without songs
Until at home again
To rest
When things are done
Awaiting passage to
A healing land
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Five heroes
Add two more
Then seven
Then many more
And villainous
And in-between corrupt
Great wars to settle things
The hobbits home at last
We close the books
So are we
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x
C L Couch
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Photo by Octavian Dan on Unsplash
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clcouch123 
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