3 brief poems for the new year

(x = space)

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May I Sell You a Machine?

(end of December)

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According to commercials

At this time of year,

We should be losing weight

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Grinding on exercise machines,

Finding our food in a box,

Engaging meditation maybe

Thirty seconds, maybe

Less

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I suppose the box companies

Are doing well

And companies that make

Machines—I wonder

That machines are always doing well

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We lose weight,

They weigh us down

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Contemporarities

(2021)

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God, help us in new years

Whenever they begin

In calendars,

In life

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When someone dies,

When someone comes to life

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Because she or he is born,

Because there is a return

To life

After pain, as she says

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When the formal feeling comes

And something after

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Our Sci-Fi Lives

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Now is the science-fiction time,

Far enough into

The twenty-first century

That we may have some expectations

For reverse magnetism

And anti-gravity

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For cities in the air and mining solely

By machines, enough that humans

Have jobs again

In new alliances

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But we know how to fix it, at least

I hope we do,

The Earth that we have harmed;

And when we go, the missions we take

With us will not harm

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C L Couch

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I was a suburban kid but grew up in or near mining and steel-making country.  And our city fell apart when the industries fell apart.  If they could come back in local and safe ways, I should be relieved and very glad.

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After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’

And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

. . .

Emily Dickinson

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Photo by Fabrício Severo on Unsplash

Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Bishop Street, The Lough, Cork, Irlanda

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