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Invoke the Fool

Invoke the Fool

 

Sometimes a fool is needed

A clown of God

Call the fool

We are foolish in the wisdom of the world

These parts are nothing new

But I don’t like the notion

Of my own foolishness

 

I trained in clowning once

Wore the clothes and make-up

And took my act out there

You know, where you are

 

It was all right

It didn’t hurt

And I didn’t hurt anyone else

Maybe we did some good, together

But it’s a squeamy feeling, all the same

 

Not to talk

Not to eat or drink

Were not the hard parts

It was the openness to whatever:

 

I might be laughed at

Though that was the point

But, depending on the working preposition,

With or at?

 

Then there was

The brittleness, the fragility

In scorn

 

But faith is something funny

Faith in me, faith in you

Faith in God

Faith in humanity

Faith in Earth

No evidence required

But that we cannot sense

The more we demand material,

The more we lose the energy

Lopsiding the equation

 

Fair is foul

And foul is fair

But it’s not that even, either

For faith finally

Is not a seesaw, evened out

But requires all

All we have to risk

For something evidenced so poorly

 

Who would believe this anywhere,

Anyone

But a fool!

 

C L Couch

 

notes

 

There is a sad and beautiful story by Tomie dePaola called The Clown of God.

 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

—the witches in Macbeth

 

 

(image)

By ingawh, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45210850

Stratford Upon Avon

 

1

Destiny of Manifests

Destiny of Manifests

 

How we can disperse all hope

Or think we should

Why we think we are the best when,

Point by point, we’re not

Several are more literate, many

More able with math

Many with armed forces

That train and guard more than

They have to fight

 

May peace prevail, the pole proclaims

In many languages

What language do we use

When talking with our neighbors

May implies condition and will

What do we condition

What do we will

 

It is a wonderful statue

So many monuments are

And nearly all espouse a cause

With some nobility

I can drive down to Devil’s Den, now

A reminder of

The awful cost of slaying a

Brother in the split of war

 

And what war does not take a sibling

What part of Earth is not destroyed

What town, what hold for families

Is gone from the roster

Of the world

We all are charged to keep

 

Independence Day is on the way

Many nations have one

They speak to freedom

Of the mind, the will

The charge to make the planet whole

Especially

When we ruin something of it

 

C L Couch

 

 

image

assembling the Statue of Liberty in Paris

 

 

 

3

Hopscotch

Hopscotch

 

I don’t know why that comes to mind except

That it is a game that can be won

And folk all around

Can take it fine

 

It’s

Satisfying quantities of asphalt, chalk, and

Small stones

Congenial lines and arches

A game for friends

A game in which core competition

Is with the self

To jump and stay on balance

 

Dusty chalk

I miss it, maybe you do too

And games whose consequences tend toward

Civility

The garrulous courtesy of children (worth

the risk)

Unlike the fractured day in

A quarreling, gimbaled world

To which I’ve awakened

 

C L Couch

4

Imagine

Imagine

 

I heard the song last night

And now read the story in the morning:

 

Forty percent of vertebrates gone

From planet Earth,

Sixty-six (the number of books

In the Protestant Bible) by

The middle of our new century

 

Why do these die?

In part, because they do

 

And in part because we kill them

 

There are two ways to feel convicted,

Each way requiring a life

 

Will we let our world live?  Will

We let our charges thrive

Or maybe better yet

Simply leave them be?

 

We have pushed living

Over the cusp of extinction

 

Pulling back destructive practices

Under the edge again

 

Might hurt

 

But it’s pain we’ve earned,

The cost of killing kingdoms

And the genus

 

Try feeding creature kinds

More like kindred we respect;

Tend if only for a while

 

Then we might inspire

Conclusions for a future

Place

And process

 

C L Couch

 

“Imagine a world without animals. You’ll soon see how much we need them”

Jules Howard

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/world-without-animals-pollinating-crops?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+morning+briefing+2016&utm_term=197334&subid=16706344&CMP=ema_a-morning-briefing_b-morning-briefing_c-US_d-1

5

Better

Better

 

I don’t know much about the world

It seems

I wish it were better

 

I’m offended

And I’m angry

Who really wants to care?

 

We have other things to do, less

Pandering to moods

Chosen when something more promising

Could be selected

 

Another code pressed on the emotion

Vending machine

I wonder maybe we have a number of tokens

And then the rest are gone

For deciding badly

 

For too-small convictions

When being noble in an un-ranked way

Would make the difference

 

Would light the factories

Would illuminate

Pockets and portals of prosperity

Nether (never) world

Intentions hide

 

Give it a chance

A two-step beneath the table

Smiling for no reason

Than

The joy in dawn-split morning

Or romantic night

The splendid times when

In spite of rusted gags and

Chains

Joy breaks free

5

Manatee

Manatee

 

All its age enfleshed

In deep-lined wisdom

 

Swims only enough

 

A round eye of black

Takes in everything

 

Takes you, takes me

 

Through a green liquid

Medium into inner

Space

 

Where energy abounds

And what the elder

Dreams

 

Flashes to merge with

Synaptic feelings

 

Action transduced into

Creation’s lightning

 

Welled in obsidian

Eye of the prototype

Mer-person for

A new world

7

Pre-Lapsarian

Pre-Lapsarian

 

As some thinkers say,

Before the fall, when

Woman and man had

Concourse without

Guile or agenda save

For pleasure in animal-

Naming and simplicity

In delight, listening-

Awaiting sounds of

Perfect feet on Eden’s

Brilliant plain; and if

They’d proved a nation,

We would have had

Ourselves a world,

Replete, by all mortal-

Divine promises to own

 

WELCOME EVERYONE!

Before you hop on here are the five easy steps to join Word-High July:

  1. Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
  2. A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
  3. Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
  4. Tag your post with WordHighJuly, so your co-bloggers will be able to read/see your take on the prompt. Here’s how you create tags.
  5. Most important of all, read and comment to your blogger friends (old and new found, we’ll never know).

HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!

3

Penultimate

Penultimate

 

Where do we go from here?

Life on Earth diminishes

 

Human life, animal species

Extinct, genii of plants within

Which might have served

Chemistry for fixing disease

 

We look for life out there

And why not: that’s what’s

Next

 

But for today, while we’re

Still here,

 

Build a world that someone

Else might want to visit, work

With us, share

9

Scribbling Sensations

Scribbling Sensations

 

When I turn other things off,

I hear the air-conditioner hum with tiny teeth

 

I hear assurance from the fan beside my bed

 

I see the vertical textures in the lampshade of

The lamp that doesn’t work

 

I see a hat, purchased for walking, set cockeyed upon

The corner of a vintage-mirror frame

 

I feel soft touches as I type;

I hear the tapping of the keys upon the board,

Like Poe’s raven upon my chamber door

 

While my nose is in it, I smell and taste the coffee,

Hot enough for its vapor mildly to campaign

With warmth through my sinuses

 

I feel pain—more intense without distraction

 

I blink: I cannot hear it, though I know the upper lid

Has fallen on the lower (which will give a little)

and will rise and fall again

 

While other things are off,

I sense the world anew;

 

And, largely—like Genesis and Weldon Johnson’s

Work—I think it’s good

6

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