La Alhambra
Space and light
In Arabian style
Arches keeping water
Underneath,
Against an unfolding
Desert view
A perspective that
Lasts for an age, even
As webs of dusted
Sand
Accumulate beneath
It persists, this
Gaze, in the mind
Of romance and an
Art
Accomplished
With insights into all
The infinities we are
Our Many Faces
Aleppo, yes, I know
Sounds like a sixth
Marx brother from
Post-Vaudevillian
Capers
But children die there
From what war takes
Which is all right
Since we don’t value
Children, anyway:
If we did, we’d see
They were not shot
And killed, they never
Suffered in want
Of food or a good
School
We’d value them like
Prizes won in the
Most precious bingo
Game or ski-ball
We’d sit with them,
We’d watch them eat,
See that they are
Clean inside and out
And have temerity
To ask for help when
Needed
We’d celebrate the
Family that we are
Part of, even if we’re
Not their parents
Because in the most
Worldly way we are
We’d say, it’s for the
Children; and we’d
Mean it
We’d change
Everything to have
Them safe and well
And jiggly playful at
Home
We’d do the world
Right this time
C L Couch
When an Angel Calls
Come with us
But we’re leaving now
I look back at my life
And all the ways that
Disappointment hurt me
But it’s what I know
Patterns, shapes, texture,
And designation
I hesitate too long, I think
I look back once more
Then look ahead
Wait! I’m coming to you
C L Couch
Perchance
Two o’clock
I should be sleeping
Too often I awake
Pain drives, so does
Want and dream
And vision
I write I dream I
Play inside my heart
I hope for what is
Better than I have,
More than I
Deserve
It’s how I dream,
I think
Wish and in a
Kindly boxed-in
Way
(That often I
Don’t understand)
Forget what
Drove me from my
Calling
Travels
If I go anywhere
I will look down and say,
The raindrops puddle here
As well
I will breathe what I
Know to be the same
Air molecules from home
Earthy currents being
What they are
The same clarity exists
Even the smells,
And I will welcome expressions
That show the same face
I find in my
Immigrant land
UNICEF: Half of All Refugees Are Children
(headline for news story of the fact)
E stands for emergency
F for fund
And the C—well, that’s
For the halves of us
Our own,
Who deserve innocence
In which to incubate
Play and siblings whole
On learning rolls
Harmed only through
Mischief cared for
In embracing arms
Rob these ones of life
When you die
They will inherit
And make a world
As hate-able
As they find
When we treat them
And on
the altars
of the world
Autumnal Oracle
Eating soft candies,
Scary pre-season
These are, well, all
On sale too early
Shapes of ghosts
And bats, since
Hallowe’en creeps
In from weeks
Ahead
I want rehearsal
Practice of time,
A witch-spell nearly
Ready to be cast
Haunting for a
Fool, the wise
Child’s knowing
Fear for shapes
Of story’s eyes in
Spectral-black
Branches made of
Arms of spikes
That reach down
Toward me
I treat myself to
A bargain invocation,
Reviving the thrill
Of a house of wraiths
Night-dark on
A bright horizon
One One September
It’s September, soon enough becomes September eleven nine-One-One used in mockery of our emergency-numeral series one plane crashes in my state; I’ve been driving by the site as it’s reclaimed
Remember, remember, eleven September—maybe we’ll be Singing that someday; not yet for the hurt only begins in telling launched a war already waged elsewhere: rightly or wrongly, it’s mattered in a vital way since then—we know the cost of some complacency, and maybe one day we’ll move on toward waging peace that has been paid for in a cost of surprise and blood broken bone and steel, symbolic of a need to fix our raging planet
Inside Total Turmoil
well, it’s closed
the school is closed
and will not reopen
another one dies,
so what
capitalism’s cost
risk in investment,
hoped-for profit
returned plus
much, much more
except currency
was learning and
has now been
spent
fortunes expended
for the price of
anticipation
were wrong
things misdirected
done? most likely—
but that is
nothing to do
with me or mine,
whose goodness
is now out of
pocket, too
I trust only from a
flattened place
learners will see
new direction:
fair winds, then, all
whose needs must
journey
cool water on
another side, all
who thirst
(the school where I taught has closed—anyone knowing of a job for a used English teacher or
religious educator, well, maybe you could please let me know)
clcouch123 
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