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Woden’s Day

(x = space)

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Woden’s Day

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Sometimes I sits and thinks,

and sometimes I just sits

—Satchel Paige

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Maybe a half-blind god

Is what we need

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It’s been a quiet

Afternoon, mostly

I mean, the cars have

To go by, though

There haven’t been so

Many and somehow

A blue sky with white

Clouds tampers everything

If only in the mind

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I’m trying to write,

And it’s not going badly

(though much of that

is left up to you at last)

Though I’ve said that

I’m not sure what

To put down next

It is a process, isn’t it?

A balance between casting

‘Round and thinking

Considering what breaks

The heart with enough

Reason so that

Someone else might understand

Maybe not so much with mind

But with the other

Sensing parts, the ones that

Must interpret the world

Around, deciding how to act

Right before its time

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Take a breath

The sky remains blue, even

Though the afternoon

Light is slanting a little more

Toward twilight

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We haven’t looked

The other way

God is still with us with

One eyes or two eyes

With who knows

How many fingers

To make or toes to walk

Among us;

We’ve taken a few specs

Of time to be somewhere

Else for a while,

A place where we don’t

Have to count

With the nation and the world

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C L Couch

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Photo by Will Paterson on Unsplash

DL8 2PS, Bedale, United Kingdom

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Well, Go Upstairs and Write Something

Well, Go Upstairs and Write Something

 

I hope it’s true, this story

We were told by the poet:

There was a christening,

All the family there

They arrived, and it was only

Upon entry that these two understood

That everyone had brought

A gift but, sigh, them

They had nothing but attendance,

Which maybe should have

Been enough

But she leaned into him

And said, Well, go upstairs

And write something!

He did, a lyric for a child just

Entering the world with a

Name and little else

But the gifts and now some

Brand-new words

 

C L Couch

 

 

(Seamus Heaney in a talk at school, given in the late eighties)

 

Picture of the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney at the University College Dublin, February 11, 2009.

Sean O’Connor, cropped by Sabahrat – File:Seamus Heaney.jpg

 

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Word Up

Word Up

 

There was no red phone

I learned that recently

Khrushchev and Kennedy used a teletype

To stand up over Cuba, negotiate

Through hardheadedness

A cold war

 

Now they might text

Or tweet if

Saints won’t abey their thumbs

 

There’s meeting face to face

And I guess the telephone might do

But we need direct communication

I learned this in school

How about you

 

Nothing like talking

Or writing with intent and art

Don’t worry

I never perfected either

And tire way too easily these days

From trying

But the message

 

The message

Still exists in words

That must be shared

From time to time

With care’s articulation

 

Call it ceremony

Call it ritual

Call it marriage day to day

Or the energy of friendship

Yes at the game, at work,

At home

 

Keep talking

Use words

In your better way

Sometimes, that’s all we got

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Vmenkov – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2910085

A pair of Laughing Doves sit on the electric (or telephone?) wires in Milyanfan village, in Kyrgyzstan’s Chuy Valley.

 

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On the Line

On the Line

 

Some days are cleansing days

I’m not sure what that means

I have a simpler breakfast

Coffee and dry toast,

I spread out around the computer

Ignore the phone (caller i-d keeps watch,

anyway)

Eat and drink and write

I’m tired enough

Though not so much

It’s a kind of litany with the elements

A collaboration with nature, God the

Maker,

And with me

Not trusting self but

Finding faith with (the) others

 

Gee, it’s Monday

I think the Earth hates Mondays

Sometimes (some days) I rather loathe them, too

But it’s a start-up day for the week

And that’s all right

Taking some time to prepare

 

A breath before the face goes underwater

The shock of cold, the return of light

When breaking through

One way or the other

Let’s see what happens

 

C L Couch

 

 

(by and at) https://plentysweetlife.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/sheets-on-the-clothesline/

 

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