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Ray Bradbury’s Writing Table

(x = space)

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Ray Bradbury’s Writing Table

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I hope it’s true

He showed it to us,

Talked us through it

Right before each

Episode;

So many toys and

Other things, reminders

Of this world

And other worlds;

There was a metal

Spaceship, the old kind

You wind up; and

There were toy dinosaurs

And many other things,

Curios and totems

Any of which

Might become

Dandelion Wine,

A Martian chronicle

Or Something Wicked

This Way Comes

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I hope it’s true

And not a set piece,

Though I suppose it doesn’t

Matter; the writing

Table, writing place

Has been lodged in

My brain, coming

Up as memory

Every now and then,

Evocation of

Evocation, and of course

I have my own symbols

Now around me, and

I trust that

You have yours

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C L Couch

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The Ray Bradbury Theatre was a show first broadcast in the 1980s.

Ray Bradbury was a writer who created many monumental works, among them Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

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Photo by Charl Folscher on Unsplash

Part of a series of concept photos I took during lockdown using drawing mannequins.

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Riddle Me

Riddle Me

 

I look (don’t stare)

At the empty page

I don’t have to worry

If it’s crap, I’ll throw it out

Well, the electronic version

I suppose once something’s

Done in here

It’s never gone for good

Should that be daunting?

I don’t know

Mostly, I don’t care

Let the devil have electrons

God is with me here

And there

 

Words on the page now

Black tracks of gospel birds

The solution to

A medieval riddle

And a gospel message

The bird (the quill)

That walks across the page

Bringing new life to vellum

That was dead, the skin of animals

Stretched out

What passed for stationery

Then

 

A monk moving the quill

One of a literate minority

Leaving  a message first to dry

Then to be read

Wondrously illustrated

Presented at midday

The sun to bless

The effort of the monastery

 

And then, for effect,

A library

Maybe thirty books

For rank to show what

Can be bought, in fact, for show

And with tutors’ help

To read

And then, perhaps,

To change the world

 

C L Couch

 

 

a thousand years ago, riddles were fun

 

Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, New Haven, United States

This is a 9 RAW photo composite. This library is lit through 1 1/2 inch marble walls by natural sunlight.

 

3

Snoopyism

Snoopyism

 

Take out the “stormy” part,

And “It was a dark night”

As most nights are,

When it happened to rain

Snoopy went for this

(the words appear above

his doghouse, when

he’s typing—how does

the typewriter stay perched

along the top

like that?)

But the words were borrowed

From other sources (more

than one writer claims

the cliché!), and we

Smiled, because we were certain

We could do better

It was night; there was rain

Okay, now your turn

 

C L Couch

 

 

(see, Snoopy is a beagle character in the Peanuts comics and cartoons, and Snoopy like to write while on top of his doghouse (Snoopy’s always on top, not in, his doghouse), and the famous words he quotes are “It was a dark and stormy night” that have been used now and then by writers who evidently had nothing else to say

and I keep forgetting that Madeleine L’Engle uses the phrase intentionally (knowing it was cliché) to start her novel A Wrinkle in Time)

 

Photo by Grant Durr on Unsplash

 

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Future Tense

Future Tense

 

Mostly, I’m hoping

Some of this will lie around

Like Claudius’s second copy

According to the novel

To be found under an urn

Behind a shelf that no one sought

To look (behind)

For ages

 

That dusting off

(however that’s done

with electrons)

There will be some words

From someone we didn’t know

Maybe some initials,

Half a word for clues

 

We’ll read

And have two sets of wondering:

What was this person saying then?

What is this person saying now?

The first we’ll most likely

Never know

The second will be up to us

We own the words, now

 

C L Couch

 

 

(I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves)

Photo by Tistio on Unsplash

 

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It Burns

It Burns

 

Do I have any more to

Say? There should

Be something every day, though

If I worry, nothing might be

Realized

 

But to empty all would then,

Well, to be empty

 

Inspiration, what is that?

A light, a spark,

An ember from an ancient fire,

Spirit from an epic-writer

 

Does the fire

Burn through all the ages?

Do we have a trust,

A pledge,

To carry heated parts to the next

Fire outside the house, having

Warmed ourselves

Once more?

 

What is there in

The torch that borrows from

The center of the Earth?

If hell is frozen, it is heaven

That burns

Alive without consuming,

Like the bush and then the pillar

Saving Israel

Then lighting up the faces

In the temple priests affirming

All the creeds

In the presence of the holy

 

And in a later age, carried off in battle:

So where is it now?

In pockets of the saints

To keep them warm

Inside a cell

For living

Or for execution

 

And to our time it goes,

The coal for inspiration, then

To the future, though

For now

We’ll keep it here—we

Need the fire to heat up

Our reason and the craft,

All come together

For a season and then quietly,

Still glowing,

To the next

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by M.T ElGassier on Unsplash

Tripoli, Libya

cold winter night

 

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This Magic Moment

This Magic Moment

 

I don’t want anything right now

Except to breathe

And that’s conceit

I’m sure there all kinds of things I want

 

To feel a breeze (there,

I’ve adjusted the fan)

To have sleeves to push up my arms

(I have those)

Enough vision to see what I am writing

Enough sound to believe

There’s interaction

In reality

 

In reality, I’m writing free,

Which is not so bad

I bought this moment

And I own it

Now no one else can take it back

Like some, small precious thing

You know the kind I mean

Kept somewhere

 

A moment of your company

Is something more

I can only ask

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

HMAS Australia, Rotary Photographic Series, ‘The Only Girl I Ever Loved’, 1914 -1918

 

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Reading the Next Day

Reading the Next Day

 

Going back to reading what

Was written

Sometimes there’s little sense

Like looking back on doodles

Or freewriting

Looking back on other things

That’s harder

Talking with fewer people in old age

Means less chance for faux pas

Or maybe it’s reclusion

Only

I don’t need a bigger pile

Piling in the in-box

Who does?

 

I go back to what I read

Having picked it up in the middle of the night

Because I wasn’t sleeping yet

And a story called

(I’m not sure who was more at fault)

When I return

Will I be welcome?

Will I be welcomed again?

I mean, yes, I bought the thing

But there’s more

An invitation

Riding like the girl who

Delivered most of the news

From Paul Revere

The book is here:

Will I take the message?

Will I accept responsibility for

Interpretation, then dissemination

Throughout the land?

 

You see, clearly there are questions

And there’s pressure

A lady or a tiger

Re-reading yesterday’s

New pages

In new hours

And then there’s what I’ve written

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Prasanna Kumar on Unsplash

Besant nagar beach, Chennai, India

Books, most loyal friends.

 

If true, Ludington’s story puts Revere’s to shame, writes Valerie DeBenedette for Mental Floss. She “rode twice as far as Revere did, by herself, over bad roads and in an area roamed by outlaws, to raise Patriot troops to fight in the Battle of Danbury and the Battle of Ridgefield in Connecticut,” DeBenedette writes. “And did we mention it was raining?”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/was-there-really-teenage-female-paul-revere-180962993/

 

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A London Bridge

A London Bridge

 

The world might fall down

Like ashes and posies and the rose

And I might still be here

Not in a privileged place

Heavens, no

But in my corner near

A wide and tall, empty room

Where I keep passionate discipline

That must sound odd

But I’m here every day, it seems

(hospitals notwithstanding)

More and more, no matter what

(we’ll find out about the hospitals)

I create

Or better (truer) co-create

Something

 

Something good? I hope so

I don’t know

I’ve earned not enough to have

It all alone

But as each day affords

(in every way)

I will be in my place

Where I need few things:

Air, moving air, windows, walls for

The windows, a writing machine

And, as Erasmus has been cited

About books,

With whatever left some food and drink

 

I’m here right now

Maybe I’ll be with you soon

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Harshil Gudka on Unsplash

 

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Record-Keeping

Record-Keeping

 

A new page

A blank slate

Shall I say it,

Tabula rasa

So my college wasn’t wasted

 

It isn’t real

And it is

There’s no paper

Or a quill

No bowl of ink for a brush

To make

Beautiful Japanese characters

 

No illuminated manuscript

With notes in the margin

A mischief illustration

Of a supervisor of a monk

In the scriptorum

 

No cutting into tablets

Made of Sumerian stone

Etching marks into the rock

We still try to decipher

 

Who were the scribes,

Who are they now?

Who keeps the records now

Seeds in a depository

To the north

 

The banks, the potential

All the things we were

And might be

Even better

 

The phonograph

The library

Keepers

Whose work we can enjoy

From the originals

 

I have a card

I have a flash drive

I believe in what was

Revel in it now

That’s for today

Tomorrow there’s a plan

Well, enough of one

For jazz

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

Leuven, Belgium

 

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