There Should Be Signs

(x = space)

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There Should Be Signs

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I open a new page

Place fingers on my eyes

And yawn

There are no coins on

My eyes for Charon

Not yet

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Maybe a measure of

Prosperity’s due

So I’ll have something

Of my own to share

To pay my way over Styx

And to the land beyond,

The Grecian Hades

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There I could find

Persephone,

If it’s one of her four days

And bid a change

To a new season

Death is a new season, too

x

I could have as much of

The pomegranate as I like

I was not abducted

And there is

No curse upon me

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In fact, life would have

Been taken from me

Talk about abduction

In this case

Of mortality

Sad but without great

Feeling, once we’re there

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I’m not sure where

The fires of hell came from,

Whose story

I suppose Elysian fields

Are for the gods

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With a sigh, a last release

Of emotion,

I must go another way

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C L Couch

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Photo by Kovah on Unsplash

Memories in Her Hands

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Rally ‘Round the Crazy

(x = space)

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Rally ‘Round the Crazy

(pandemic time)

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Now he’s left

Without a mask to leave behind

Because he didn’t use one

Except the one before the virus

Now he’s left

With those who attended

Learning not to wear masks as well

Now he’s left

The doctors will move in

The people who live there

When at ease

And in pandemics

To do the real work

The brave work

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C L Couch

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Photo by Daan Stevens on Unsplash

Zottegem, Belgium

After a day of shooting at the Zottegem Hospital for the Belgian TV series “Professor T.” I went back to clean up whatever the props department left. This was the room used in the shots and the machines where still running. It felt like a good opportunity to take a few shots.

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Tomorrow Should Be Much Like Today

(x = space)

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Tomorrow Should Be Much Like Today

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I don’t know what to say

Am I confused?

Perhaps

I mean, I try to write every day

Not because I have to

Or because of a tontine

Between poets, as the

Romantics tried

Though they wrote with form

And complex thought

And feeling

Typically, I end up with

More than one thing

And I choose

x

Sometimes I surprise myself

And choose the thing

I wasn’t planning on

(as things came out)

And publish that

I’d say discovery is fun,

And it is

Though it is surprise

Becomes the main thing

When it happens

I suppose they go together

Discovery and surprise

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I write based on

What’s happening in the world

And inside me

And if I haven’t thought of

Something spiritual, then

I guide my thoughts that way,

Which sounds forced

Well, maybe a contrivance

Again, I try to keep discovery

In the mixture, as a baker

Or mixologist might see it

Prayer, Bible, interrogative—I try

To take up problems

And solutions

Or else things that matter

In a smaller, more day-to-day way

Where we live

With our souls and God

Trying to know each other,

Eke out a life together

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There is community

I’m aware of

Maybe matching something like

Thornton Wilder’s echelons

That Rebecca recounts—you know,

Citizen of Earth and such

I am Robin,

Living in a house

Along a street that’s old and busy

In the small town (borough) of

Mechanicsburg

In the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

One of the MidAtlantic states

In the U.S.A. (a country without

its own good name

because America is also

north and south

of us),

Living in the northern hemisphere

And the western as well,

Underneath the moon that

Orbits ‘round my planet

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I am a citizen of Earth,

The third planet from our sun

In a system of nine or eight planets

(we’re still arguing about the

count, though I’ve thought

since I was a child about

another planet out there

to make the system ten or nine)

But, anyway,

A member of my solar system

In a spiral galaxy

Called the Milky Way

With another galaxy called

Andromeda by us—I don’t know what

The folk out there might

Call themselves—nearby,

Galactically speaking

And there’s the mind of God

By God’s own hand

How we were made and how

We’re sustained,

Despite the agenda of human greed that

Would rather have its own way

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I believe in Jesus

Others await Messiah

Others live in Messiah

Others own Muhammad,

The prophet and the teachings–and

There are those who

Follow the Buddha

And those who want the Hindu

Godhead

And still others who follow other ways

With other entities and names

For God

And those who follow none

And I have to say

I do not mind, which makes for bad

Evangelism but also makes for

Respectful living

And I figure we need respect

More than singularity for now

Otherwise, we might not exist

To have all the arguments

About belief

Or lack thereof

That should only happen

In congenial ways,

Not with life on the line

For anyone

Believing, not believing

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And so I’m done for now,

This day

It is autumn, my favorite season

For the thrill of cold

With the presence of new colors

That, to me, make everything

More interesting

I like the other seasons, too,

Happy to have them all

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C L Couch

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Our Town by Thornton Wilder.  The dialogue referred to happens near the end of Act 1.

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By Philipp Salzgeber – http://salzgeber.at/astro/pics/9703293.html, CC BY-SA 2.0 at, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=184641

Hale–Bopp in 1997

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Seeking Sin Eaters

(x = space)

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Seeking Sin Eaters

(Genesis 3:8, Revelation 15:16)

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We say to the sun

Or moon or stars

Or hills or valleys or any part

Of Earth that might

x

To cover us,

To hide us from

The wrath of God

Or of people

Or of other consequences

x

To take our names,

Apply them to another

Quantity,

To stick our names to a board

Inside another

Neighborhood, a sign

That says

We are there

(don’t come looking for us

here)

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We hide

We want to hide

From judgment

Real or imagined

In this, imagined

Is real,

Is enough

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C L Couch

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(also Hosea 10:8, Luke 23:30, and Habakkuk 2:14)

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Photo by Hanna Postova on Unsplash

Odesa, Ukraine

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Columns

(x = space)

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Columns

x

Google places e-mails inside three columns of its making.  There is the inbox, where go what it has decided has some urgency.  Then there is the “Promotions” part with ads for things and notices deemed of secondary or tertiary significance.  Then there is “Social,” where go posts from WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Here is where the blog posts go, which I should respond to.  I’m not sure how Google decides what goes where, since there is overlap and often I get blog notices in the inbox and advertisements, too.  When I’m feeling extra headaches and extra stress from bad neighbors in the building, the kind of stress that presses on my heart when otherwise it needn’t, the inbox is where I go first to catch up on things.  How much I might ignore depends on how bad the added pains might be.  I’ll go through the promotions next, ignoring most, because it’s relatively easy (because I ignore most of the notices for politics or my money or politics for my money of which I have little, anyway).  The column that’s ignored is “Social,” because I should devote good energy there and too often, especially lately, it seems I have none.

I know I’m missing many things.  And sometimes “Social” e-mails are slid over to the inbox, and I deal with them there because they’re there and so am I.  It’s not much of a strategy or a philosophy, because I let Google decide or WordPress (friends, maybe send things through e-mail).  The current time of extra stress and pain has been going on for a while, and it doesn’t help that the new editor at WordPress (the program) is majorly unwieldly.  But I keep up the writing and the posting part (parts), because that’s how it all begins.  And if you have forbearance, I am

thankful.

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C L Couch

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Photo by Alejandro Barba on Unsplash

Rotonda de los Jaliscienses Ilustres, Avenida Fray Antonio Alcalde, Zona Centro, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

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Spice

(x = space)

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Spice

x

The flowers

They are ending, I suppose

The ones of summer,

While chrysanthemums

Are having their time outside,

This time

Their time

And we pause and pause

Maybe because it’s raining

Or it’s cold for the first

Time in a while

I’m speaking to where I live,

Which is in eastern Pennsylvania

In the middle of the

MidAtlantic, USA

Wherever you might be,

It’s fall up north

And spring down south where

The flowers that are dying

Here would rather be

So that their color

And their smoother shapes

Might go on,

Though I imagine in a relentless season

There would be end to

Flowers, anyway

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Here, the chrysanthemums

Shall have their way

For a while

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C L Couch

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Photo by Nadiya Ploschenko on Unsplash

Ukraine

today’s mood

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Angel Thieves

(x = space)

x

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Angel Thieves

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A metaphor

For God and God’s arrival

Is a thief in the night

A strange metaphor

But apt

(regardless of

negative connotation)

We cannot plan for the intrusion

While the thief doubles

The confusion of nighttime,

Which is to say

Without light,

It seems

x

But the thief may

Plan

And, I suppose, typically does

The mortal thief may or may not

Succeed in a theft,

Though we can surmise

That God as thief

Would do pretty well

x

But what would God have

To steal?

God made everything

And thereby own

Except one thing maybe

That is human will

x

Perhaps, then,

God comes to steal

Us

Steal us away

As a rescue

Then take us to paradise

Where no earthly

Theft or other sort of brigandry

Can harm us

x

Where we are loved

Without shame or abrogation,

Where we might forgive

A thief who steals us

This way

x

I don’t know if we’ll miss possessions

There,

Even the ones with stories

Maybe we’ll have new ones, maybe not

But as we are created in the image,

As is said,

We might have a share in everything

That lasts without corruption

Our new homes, our new bodies

Everything will last,

While life is perfectly dynamic

There

x

Angel agencies defend us

Angel agents thieve us home

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C L Couch

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Photo by Chirag Nayak on Unsplash

Shop 24, Ground Floor, Building TL5 Morning Glory, Tropical Lagoon Phase 3, Anandnagar, Ghodbunder Road, Thane West, Thane, Maharas

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Foolish Wise

(x = space)

x

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Foolish Wise

x

It’s been a while

Since a Bible study came my way

Or on occasion

When  I’ve formed one

x

I miss the circle

The things we say while, frankly,

We are on our better behavior

After all, holding the book

That guides the way

x

Not that we are free from sin

Or won’t resume our earthbound

Lives when

We are done for the hour,

Sipping coffee, shaking hands

x

But for the time

We are good

The doorway to the spirit

Has been opened

And we are closer to the selves

We want to be

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C L Couch

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Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash

Marco Island, United States

Make a splash.

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The Bird of Alcatraz

(x = space)

x

x

The Bird of Alcatraz

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There’s red outside

The leaves are changing

The sky is painted blue

Behind them

Maybe it’s a perfect autumn day

Not that the window panes

Are bars (I know better),

But there are so many things

In here to attend to,

And the meanness of the neighbors

Has an imprisoning effect

As well—I know, you’d think

It would drive me out as

Often as possible

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Well, the car needs work

I could simply walk somewhere

I’m not feeling well

In my head or in my stomach,

And there are so many things

In here

I need the energy to manage them

How did so much accumulate?

Maybe it’s a consequence

Of being poor,

Though much of it came

From the work I used to do,

That was taken from me

Through jealousy

And worldly machination

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Well, I’m here

I just exhaled

I can do that

Consciously or through

Human impulse

I hope that it continues for

A good long while

Along with the other part

(inhalation)

I’ll wait, eat, drink something

Then get up and go

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C L Couch

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English teacher note

The “Birdman of Alcatraz” is a person who became the basis for a book and a film.

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Photo by Pete Nuij on Unsplash

Langley, BC, Canada

Robin on a branch.

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