Sun on Sunday

(x = space)

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Sun on Sunday

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It’s dim outside

And raining

I hear wet tires

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A gloomy day

I do not mind

The Addams genes at play,

I suppose,

The kind that make

A lark of dark days

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I’m a day into

The new shot

Feels like the flu shot

And every vaccine that

I’ve had since

Childhood

The site is sore

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I don’t mean to comment

I want to respect

The courtesies of others

That are challenged

Only in

Contagious situations,

Where they make

The issues grim

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Like guns, I guess

We know what we know

And I might be wrong

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But let’s not make it politics

But practicalities

There is an epidemic

I’ve lost people to it,

Which gives me added rights

To nothing

But my sadness

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C L Couch

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

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Protocol

(x = space)

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Protocol

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Sorry that this must be news

This should be ordinary

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There will be a shot today

Not heard ‘round the world

Simply a needle into skin

With the release of

New chemicals inside

The body

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Then another shot, as is the

Protocol, in a while

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C L Couch

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Image by Markus Distelrath from Pixabay

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Proportional Response

(x = space)

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Proportional Response

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It’s an eye for eye

Without, we hope,

Everyone going blind

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But then the blind we have,

Over-sensate in four ways,

Might have to lead

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The only ones who know

How to have sight

Without the eyes

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C L Couch

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https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-carries-airstrike-against-233431848.html

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By Airman 1st Class Chad Warren – US Air Force Public Affairs [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7377988

A flight of F-15C Eagles from the flies during a solar eclipse in Okinawa July 22, 2009.

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Mything Thursday

(x = space)

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Mything Thursday

(in pandemic time)

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There are few untouched

Places on Earth

For when we see the,

We have touched them

They are changed

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I wonder if the virus

Might be made of plastic,

A natural invention

And response to our touch

We needed plastic

In the war,

Then its convenience took over

Making things

And we blew it into the sky

From our factories

We could wish for coal

And dirt and rust and oil

In the air

Though they have needed

Cleaning, too

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To places needing cleaning,

There seem to be two

Options: clean them

Or ignore them

Throw a carpet over it

Go to another room

And finally another place

x

Or do a half-done job

A sloppy job

Of making do

Because there is no profit in

Cleaning up

Except for cleaning companies

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So let’s have cleaning companies!

People who know how

To fix a world

Rearrange it, replace broken

Parts, dust everything

So we might move again

Into timeworn places

Inhabitable again

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Know how to rebuild

And build new

So we don’t poison ourselves

So much, again

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C L Couch

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Photo by Antoine GIRET on Unsplash

Albanie

Mountain of rubbish and garbage on the beach by the sea[.]

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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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n.b.

n.b.

(“note well” but note however you like)

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I’m sorry, but for a while I’ve been dealing with new pain of a sort that feels as if it wants to cut me in two.  I go to the doctor’s on Friday and a specialist in two weeks.  This has been claiming too much of my energy and my concentration.  I still try to commit to writing and posting, but I’m behind on other things such as being in touch with responders. I’m sorry.

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Christopher

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Greyson Joralemon

Easy Snow

(x = space)

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Easy Snow

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I might have gotten

In my car, not looking

At three inches’

Newfallen snow

Then got out again

Once I knew the source

Of the sudden darkness

(were it day)

These spits of snow

Have been the normal

For a while

Late winter?

Early spring?

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The groundhog is famous for

Inaccuracy,

Though the fairs are fun

In Punxsutawney

And who trusts a pampered

Creature to tell the weather,

Anyway?

We’d do better to

Look at the sides of wild trees

For direction

And the thickness of the fur

On the denizens

Therein

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C L Couch

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Photo by Babette Landmesser on Unsplash

Sun shines through winter trees on beautiful snowy ground.

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Wineskins

(x = space)

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Wineskins

(parabolic)

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I don’t know much about

Old wineskins

I had a bota once

From Spain

I imagine that my father got it

While on tour in the Navy

I probably put water in it

(the bota, not the Navy)

And tried to drink

I say this because I have a memory

Of playing with the trail of water

As they do with botas in Spain,

Letting the thin arch

Run out farther and farther

From the mouth

(the boca)

Part of the fun

In having such a device

Out of which to drink

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Does bota mean bottle?

I think botella

There might be some sort

Of origin

Shared at least in etymology

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I don’t know much

About new wineskins

I’ve probably never been

Next to one

And so there’s this whole tradition

Of which I’m unaware,

Which is how to deal

With wineskins

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I imagine they are made

From the skins if not the organs

Of animals—

Cow, goat, sheep, I don’t know

And according to the power

In the parable,

A wineskin only gets one use

What happens next?

It is made into shoes

Or a backpack

Or a purse?

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I hope wineskins always were

Recyclable

And more so if they’re still

Used today

I imagine they could

Be lined with something

That would take new liquid well

So the skin could be used

Time and again

(which I wonder that the bota can)

But now to people

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Old wineskins, once emptied,

Are now useless of their

Single purpose

New wine will require

New wineskins

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Now, what is the wine?

It is new thought

New purpose

The Spirit as device

(and metaphor)

Has offered something new

Not to overthrow the old

So much as to complete it

I think that’s what

Jesus would say

As in, I have come not to abrogate

The law

But to complete it

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The story is more personal

Perhaps

Or might be taken that way

Personally, communally—these

Will happen:

Should we have thoughts

And instincts that

Merely weigh us down

More with suppression

Than belief

And where’s the wisdom

Let alone the joy

In that?

If we-always-did-it-that-way

Is only an alienating

(try I-always-do-it-this way,

too)

Quality for now,

Time for new thinking

And new acting

Or old acting

With new thinking

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C L Couch

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Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:33-39

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Photo by Biljana Martinic on Unsplash

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Frozen Yellow Rose

(x = space)

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Frozen Yellow Rose

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Is this a prose-poem or an essay or a Sunday homily (the text would be the Good Samaritan)?  I don’t know, but here it is.  Something I heard at church from those who were there.  I mean, were there in Houston.

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here’s what happened in Houston (Texas, USA) yesterday:

most homes do not have fireplaces and instead rely on electricity to power furnaces for heat and appliances for cooking and computers, but the power grid is out, it’s blank in Houston;

in grills or in makeshift places, Duralogs were burned and any wood that could be found or any charcoal left from summer or, indeed in a deep Southern place, the last time there was a barbecue;

the feeling was post-apocalyptic

there was a certain grocery store that powered up enough generators to preserve food and to allow people inside safely, though the numbers who could enter at a time were severely limited (because there is a pandemic raging ‘round the world and through Houston); this meant that there were thousands outside the store in line, waiting for their turn;

keep in mind it’s extra winter there just now, the temperature having gone into the teens during the day;

the manager of this grocery store or maybe it was the owner, walked up and down the line outside and said to folks, if you can’t pay for your groceries just now, don’t worry—get what your family needs, bread and baby food and such;

according to those who were there, this kind of thing was happening all over the city

coda

this does not account or provide sustenance for those assailed by the crisis of collapsing glacial ice in India that has stolen the lives of scores of people; this does not take care of COVID-19 or provide vaccine, something that the world sorely needs; this does not answer all the problems and frankly all the disasters that we suffer with here and there on planet Earth; it is a single story, and maybe we could let it have the power of a single story, which like creation stories or apocalypses or “The Gift of the Magi” or “The Artist of the Beautiful,” can be, well, pretty powerful

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C L Couch

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Power Failure: How a Winter Storm Pushed Texas into Crisis

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Power-failure-How-a-winter-storm-pushed-Texas-15967411.php

Around 2 a.m. Monday, the full measure of the crisis Texas faced began to be apparent. Cold and ice had set in the day before, leading to spreading power outages across the state.

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Photo by Vlad Busuioc on Unsplash

Downtown, Houston, Texas, United States

drone view of a city

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