a little chappy-book of poems
Anyday Fog
Fog
Fog today
A Dickensian lesson
(get started
on Bleak House)
To know
That like the existence
And the movement of the fog
There is connection
Between all of us
Regardless of economy
Or privilege
Or barriers
Presumed
That as far as the single race goes on
Do not stand
Aloof
We are connected
That is the way of things
Do not forget
But relish in it
The reality
And all the possibilities
Together
Or stay apart
Behind our barriers
So-called
To let the fog move
Inimically
Exuding fear and guilt
As we forbid ourselves from
Seeing
(without eyes)
And acknowledging each other
The fog connection
Irony
For there it is
Well
Then let
The better lesson of
The real thing
To a greater thing
Take over
All our humanhood
That should lower unnecessary things
In the way
Then let in
The light
(more than light)
Too Easy
Blindness
Blindness chosen
Not the sense
But the lifestyle
Even
A cause
That in the dark
We shall strike
And have our way
Forgetting
(among other things)
The anthologized
“Dover Beach” that
First-year students
Are foisted
To read
With the “ignorant armies”
In the night
That clash
Who wins
Who loses
No one knows
Except that blows are struck
And there is wounding
And humanity destroyed
By degree
Those who are blind
For real
Know the sacrifice
And the ridiculousness
In selecting darkness as
The quality
For sight
And shall we choose
To be ignorant of each other
Shall we fight
From distances too great
To know much beyond
The switch
Or the button
We could draw near each other
Rather
Withholding our destroying
Part
To leave the great part
Of curiosity
And even peace
Let go
Learn who is my neighbor
On the planet
How might the Earth do better
If we re-trained ourselves
For nature
The greater challenge
To
Like military
Pull back the extremes
To repair
Then prepare
For what’s next
To know
Who is next door
Not to pry
Or lord
Or anything overlording
Or pervasive
To learn each other
As we are
Even the agendas
Learning how to speak
To listen more
And to understand
(lessons in language
might be
the first thing)
Allowing curiosity
To be positive regard
Respect
The better agenda
Knowing which virtues to use
To influence
And which to use to
Be changed by
As we grow
In and with
Those we have relegated to
The other
As an objective distinction
(no such thing)
To render targets
Rather
Than people
Simply put
Do not destroy the world
That’s rather stupid
But put down the guns
(the buttons and the switches)
Find food
And drink
And other fixing things
With which
To approach
Nourish
And give the world
What is the real
Fighting chance
Family Game Night
(we can do it)
No one wins
No one loses
Leave that to
Real games
And remember to embrace
Congratulate
Game-winners
While in the world
We do better
With nothing like a game
At stake
But how we live
Together
Make enough
The base for everyone
Then all we reach for
After that
In other words
Feed everyone
Because
We can do it
(Rosie
says
we can)
Provide everyone
With something safe
To drink
Shelter and the opportunity
For education
Of ourselves
And the world
The unpeated past
The glories in the present
(let science say
amen)
Maybe
Remembering
The God who made
Everything
Is waiting
Withholding Armageddon
‘Til there’s faith
In the outcome
For those who choose
To care
And believe
In the world
And the living
Selves
And neighbors
It’s simply
Really
Embrace good
Eschew evil
Learning the two
More how to build
Rather than
Destroy
It’s easy
Each can prosper
After all are well
In fact
Prosperity
Will grow
While all are fed
And drinked
Have shelter
And the means
For education
Will the problems end
No way
But we’ll have a go
With advancements and
With possibilities
Which is
The world growing
Which is how it was
And how
It should be
By us
Eden
With the walls let down
The best Eden we can make
Yes
For billions
Living well
And each other
Has a chance
To go from there
To growth
To gold
Whatever might seem good
Without extremes
Of anarchy or monarchy
Rule one by one
And by assembly
Which is how
The world’s growing
(at its best)
Anyway
Grow on
Absent Lion
(not that there’s climate change)
Well
Winter’s MidAtlantic
Ended
Seventy
In western parts
So where’s
The lion
Seems not
To have arrived
There’s always
Aslan
For always good
A sign
Of faithfulness
And power
In faithfulness
There are other lions
Some as
Metaphors
Others in fact
Don’t go
To meet upfront
The real ones
For their strength
Is in
Predation
It’s the qualities
And made-up stuff
That make
The lion
Useful
(leave the real ones
out there)
As we can make
The lamb
Render its own qualities
For our own good
And at least
In these parts
Earlier
In March
What’s Blue Is Blue
Maybe this is all
I can do
For now
Write against the blue
Until
The retinas
And other parts can’t take it
Then leave
The machine alone
And even
Wonder
How we do this
All
The time
Go see
The eye doctor
Maybe she
Will know
What is healthy
What is useful
What is
Disciplined
For health and
Productivity
To ease the headaches
And the
Stress
Maybe from blues
Though maybe
I need to play the blues
C L Couch
Photo by Vestfoldmuseene on Unsplash
Worth Keeping
I keep
Thinking
About
War
And war-like things
Like drugs in trade
And
Trafficking
Because one life
Is worthy
Even intensely
And intensely
Valuable
And who are we
To say
We’ll keep this one
Let that one
Go
By paperwork
The gold slip by
Aghast
Or sigh
For boredom
In our sins
We’ll bank another
Somewhere
Else
Conquer
Or imprison
Until
Or while
Each of us is caught
The flesh
For opportunity
Whatever else
Inside
Stays in the boxes
Where we keep
Supplies
Aside
To keep us going
Yet each
Might be a savior
No
You’re wrong
None of us
Shall save
Or even aid
To saving
Through an invention
Or a discourse
To change minds
Toward
New understanding
For a race
To have
To change
For the better
As we could have said
Even
Fantastically
To say
And have
Amazing
Opportunity
If we let each one go
To growth
And with assists
And then so much
Better
For a life
Not an investment for
Money
And for blood
Let each one
Live
Who came into this world
As we say
And say
By mortal hands
And by the Lord
As promises
To planets
And to galaxies
Home
And away
And for each other
One
Two
Keep going
Make a world
And then another one
Worth keeping
C L Couch
Photo by Aman Chaturvedi on Unsplash
We Want to Make This Classic
Two years
Plus three months
Two wars
The ones we know about
Who are the combatants
How much material
Is left
To each side
How much longer
Even supplied
By the bigger thugs outside
Who claim
Defense defending
How much robbing
Peter
To pay Paul
And then Paul
Demands more and more
Of Peter
And it’s us
Is the idea
All us
We lose
We run down
We run out
We manufacture more
To say
It’s good for the economy
While the vaults in
Hell
Or waiting by the river Styx
Are the only things
That are full
And this become our legacy
We lose
Things from the Earth
That cannot be restored
Life in which
We had only given
Love
And there is less
The surplus population
Whom did we not need
And did we push them
Toward the front
Uriah-like
Of course
We wish it over
We wish them done
So we could walk across the fields
And say
This happened here
But statues
And they are meaningful
Fly flags
The same
By force
A fallow field
Unchanneled water
And who knows what
Congeals inside
Our natural
And plastic substances
To raise
Hate
Or something else we hide
Ongoing tries
For greed
Until we say
There
Someone made money
Out of this
Someone got a bit of power
Well
The illusion of it
Anyway
But that’s the best we have
In shadowlands
Expanse
There is the sun
At last
It will rise into the clouds
Maybe into a day
That’s only gray
Until the setting hour
When all these lines of yellow
Turn toward red
Then blue
Then black of night
It happens all the time
And is not
What’s happening
There are orbits
There are rings
Of different shapes and sizes
There are fields of gravity
There is magnetism
We try
To ken it all
To suss the meaning
In the measure
Or get a damn fine story
Out of it
Feature
Human interest
Sci-fi tome
That tells us where we’ve been
And where fancifully
We might be going
Out of these rounded places
Into an
Unbounded expanse
With only our imagination
For a shield
C L Couch
Photo by Krisztian Matyas on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Torn Flags for a Second Anniversary
x
Russia attacks
It’s in the news
The biggest
In two years
And we must say
Two years
x
Maybe he looked out
Upon the anniversary
And said
To generals
Still extant
Finish this
Forgetting that one human will
Is not enough
For playing
God
Not being God
Over the world
x
Too big
Too complicated
Too many wills
For one set
Set to prevail
x
Campaigns stutter
Exhausted
Of all things
All attacking things
Then sometimes
Pushed the other way
x
What do Russians
Think
And how will we ever know
We should imagine
They’ll all over
As we are
However our side might be
Arranged
As another side
x
There is other news
But this is bad
And we forget
Too easily
Though it is human
To hold many things
At the same time
And to serve life
In more
With more
Than one of these
x
Serve pleasure
Serve delight
Serve causes
Serve what means something
And what means something
In between
x
But Russia has attacked
Pushed itself
Over a cliff
To fall upon Ukraine
With so much
Following collision
Mixed with gravity
Judgment and history
To follow
x
Except that now
There’s blood
And everything that’s ruined
Killed in war
Everything stone
And all materials
Destroyed
And how shall it be over
Without being over
Probably
x
But frankly in a worse place
Both shall remain
So much more singly
Than together
Without extraordinary measure
That leaders
Cannot advocate
For now
Though maybe people
Like us people
At last will have a say
So that
Some things might end
The better things
Starting with rebuilding
What might be rebuilt
Mourning
For the loss
That can’t be found
Raised up
By us
Again
x
But raising
Rising
Nonetheless
What we are capable
What we are willful
To build
And have
Upon our lives
What we can manage
Share
Again
Or if need be
(as an impulse
and a pattern)
From the first
A new first
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Wolfgang Mennel on Unsplash
Layering of Posters on a Lamppost
x
(x = space)
x
x
3 poems, when you have time (one poem about observation, one about reading, one about war taking all)
x
x
Observe and Report
x
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
x
x
Photo by Ansia Lasa on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
currentcy
x
the war resumes
and other things have happened
Sandra Day O’Connor
news of fires
and a shooting
in my area
(we have both uncommonly
as if
ordinary)
but the war
and the war
and the skirmishes
quite literally
in other places
and the slayings
in the spirits
whose only perpetrator
is the hate
becoming means
as we wish our strangers
and our neighbors
nothing good
for our own pain
x
and does hate laugh
above the world
while agents
of itself
are storming down
and shall the doves of peace
protest blow
while human agencies
get soaked
act on the rain
whose wind is somehow hot
ignoring what persists
upon the branches
the cooing of
a softened sadness
unbittered
calling still
for peace
upon the earth
we walk upon
we hate upon
below
x
c l couch
x
x
Photo by Freysteinn G. Jonsson on Unsplash
as far as
as near as
a dove can convict
x
(x = space)
x
x
Don’t You Know There’s a War On
x
Yes
I do
And in too many places
x
Stop it
There
That’s that
x
(but)
Real war
The awful
Bloody king
That rents bodies
Families
Homes
And nations
Sometimes underneath
The quick
Where there is no fire
For warmth
For life
After the explosion’s fire
That roared
And then ceased
Under nothing
x
Is there a rubber drive
A paper drive
A drive for metals
After their first uses
No
There’s money
Certainly
And drives for that
All sides
Wanting
Naturally
Humanly enough
x
But closer in
Flesh is required
Holding weapons
Fired into the right direction
No protests
Allowed
Obey
Or be added to the fodder
We might not count
For service
Or for loyalty
x
Safely apart
We play games
Watch them
Eating food we do not need
Though it is ours
And the point is
To bring the world up
To peace
For play
x
How do we answer these
The tragedies
The questions
I don’t know
We could stop
The wars
Encouraged by contemporary versions
Of the Lysistrata
Reason could invade
Rather than
Atrocity
And greed
Reason could finish it
If somehow most of us
Agreed
x
I don’t know
Do you
Stop
Right now
Forget the rest
Leave it half-done
(half to stay alive)
Keep the warring general in Russia
Let Hamas keep to itself
In the basements beneath hospitals
Then move the hospitals
x
Let other
Designing warriors
Anywhere
Take note
x
Who erstwhile
Or present
Future
Makes these happen
There’s God
Who’s waiting for our minds
Maybe what
There’s reason
There is conscience
And goodwill
On Earth
Come out
To work
To grieve
To build
And then to play
The game on Earth
No brinksmanship
Anymore applied
x
We go home
With others
Searching homes
And to rebuild
x
note
x
I know I speak
From safety
That I wish
Then pray
For you
For everyone
Who needs it
In certain places
Even kinds
For whom war must
As all wars do
Like (and with) pre-judgments
Victimize
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Real Thing
x
I am not in the war
Except
With my mind and heart
My contributions
Here and there
Not for a winner
But for everything
To cease
While there are citizens
And innocence
To count
x
I can’t imagine an explosion
(over me
and I am done)
Next to me
So that I live
But everything is changed
x
For what
And whom I’ve lost
All basic things
And anything
Refined
x
A world that’s there
Even to know
The risks in temporality
And to persist
Then what I know
Is gone
And I am hurt
My body
And my mind
x
I might get fixed
But something will not mend
Something broken
That the screws
And prayers
Cannot reward
With success
x
Some part of me
Who wonders now
A beggar on the plane
Of dreams
And real hours
When I dance
With hate
And seeming
Justification
x
For it all
To have happened
And it’s happened
So that
There’s an end
Before the end
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jeff Kingma on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
nether campaigning
x
the demon
knows a gun
or a Bible
and what shape
a trench might take
and the cosmic trouble
when a soul is gone
then how to argue
for salvation
of the other
the wide pathway
into hell
x
demon thwarted
demon satisfied
a report for
adversaries
smallest of decrees
ringing through
one judgment
or the other
x
two kinds of howls
for outcomes
two kinds of retributions
for the work
in afterlife
after a soul is counted
one way
or the other
x
they lose
you know
the demons
finally
they have contracted
signing by descent
to grasp for
less and less
until after last battles
when the aftermath
is simply
nothing
x
c l couch
x
x
one might read The Great Divorce or Revelation 22 of the Christian testament
x
photo by Jani Kaasinen on Unsplash
x
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