Dramatis Personae

(x = space)

x

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Dramatis Personae

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The cast

Our parts

Shakespeare

Jaques

Elvis

We fret upon the stage

Curtains between acts

Performance

And performance

The show is over

Take a bow

Remove the makeup

And we’re done—

Cast party, maybe

x

Someone directs

The writer is in the audience

All our family, too,

And with our friends

x

The spirit has been able

The flesh does what it can

There has been some interest in

Memorizing,

Though much of the performance

Has been impromptu

And once it’s done

Everyone gets to be a critic

x

Though it’s the producer

Who decides

How long shall be the run

How many weeks

How many seasons

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There is stage fright,

Of course

There doesn’t have to be

(and we can use it)

We can train

We can learn tricks

And once out there

We can have joy

Seven stages

For a scene

A play

A résumé?

Take more

Even have some fun

There will be reviews

(nerves in the offing

and then after)

But to get to do this is a treat

And not a one to miss,

If it at all possible

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Than can be profit so

Variously drawn

But once you’re here

That part is taken:

Costume well

Though for a queen or king

There are many fools

Either can look splendid

Or look drear

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There are rehearsals

We can practice

How much to worry—not

So much as we do

We can expect each other

From the wings

There are many places

On the stage

Some of which

We get to choose

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I don’t know if

The play’s the thing

We deal here in metaphor

What is real

Is what happens after

This cold reading

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C L Couch

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drafted while watching (and hearing) a play within a play

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Garage Theater is a theater company from Qom, Iran. Garage Theater researches in the field of Laboratory theater.

Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash

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Metaphorism

(x = space)

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Metaphorism

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Are there candles

That burn

At both ends?

Is the illumination

Doubly helpful?

And what happens when

The ends meet

In between?

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It’s an untried

Metaphor,

I guess

Like the silk purse

From the sow’s ear

Or trying to catch

The crocodile tears

x

Their value is

Instructive—still,

I’d like to see the candle,

Hear its twice-done

Hiss inside

The darkness

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ronnie Overgoor on Unsplash

Everglades Alligator Farm, Homestead, USA

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A Child Doesn’t Have to Lead Them

(x = space)

x

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A Child Doesn’t Have to Lead Them

x

When children have food

And people to talk with

Of a variety of ages

When their dreams aren’t stanched

And they have a chance

To grow into who they are

Then any child can make it

x

I know this: I see and hear it happen

On TV all the time

In scripted shows

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C L Couch

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Children are amazing.  And there are amazing young people who are leading in the areas of racism, sexism, and climate change (climate crisis).  The only fault in this arrangements is not with the youth but with adults.  Adults should be leading for the youth.

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Photo by Foroozan Faraji on Unsplash

Shiraz, Iran

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Memory of Father

(x = space)

x

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Memory of Father

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I have a memory

Not so long ago

So it might be true

Of visiting my father

They had let his hair grow

He looked like Gandalf

Or Saruman

Or Merlin

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The silver hair was beautiful

We talked

I left

Next time I saw him

His short hair was back

He looked like Hemingway

A compliment of sorts

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C L Couch

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Photo by Joshua Brown on Unsplash

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no God approves

(x = space)

x

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no God approves

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sorry for those who died

from explosions and gunfire

at the Kabul airport

from those who believe

that civilians trying to escape

is not a sanctioned reason

to let live, rather to meet

with onslaught that

no God approves

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c l couch

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photo by Joe Woods on Unsplash

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Get Out

(x = space)

x

x

Get Out

x

Of Kabul

Of Afghanistan

x

Actions of diplomats,

Soldiers, staff,

And airplanes

Take you

Away

x

Don’t hesitate

Do you

Hesitate?

What’s up to you,

Leave now

x

There is violence

I’m sorry

Take up the politics

Tomorrow

What matters to you is leaving

Get out, now

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C L Couch

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United States Air Force C-17A Globemaster III

Photo by Nick Morales on Unsplash

Minneapolis, MN, USA

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Calliope

(x = space)

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Calliope

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What is the song

In your head

Just now?

Mine is “Song Sung Blue,”

Because everybody

Knows one

Sometimes it’s “One Voice”

Sometimes it’s

“Color My World”

Now you know

Where I’m from

x

Sometimes

It’s a theme

From a movie

Or a show

TV or Broadway

But if I stop

To catch it,

There’s always

Something there

Always music

And that is something

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C L Couch

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Pyrophone of Georges Frédéric Eugène Kastner (1852–1882).

By photographer unknown – Hermann Ludwig von Jan: Johann Georg Kastner, ein elsässischer Tondichter, Theoretiker und Musikforscher – sein Werden und Wirken. Breitkopf & Härtel, Band 2, Teil 2, Leipzig 1886, p. 308, Digitalisat (Internet Archive), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25667386

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The Agenda in the Storm

(x = space)

x

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The Agenda in the Storm

(having gathered)

x

New York was hit

Awfully bad

It’s moving north and east

The fires out west are also

Famously terrible

And there are storms

And floods and fires

Elsewhere

x

It is bad in Kabul,

Too,

The President asking for

More planes from non-military

Sources

And we can’t compare

This to Saigon, because

The fighting isn’t over

There’s a force ready

To fight the Taliban

Will North America and Europe

Recognize this group

To send them aid,

If an irony of aid

x

And there are other groups

In prisons and dealing

With worse persecution

(another irony)

On the outside

These groups are in Myanmar

And China

And northeastern Africa

And in North America,

Native Americans

And First Families

And do we want to keep the

Border nonporous to the south

Because we want to contain

Mexicans for being

Mexican?

And blacks and whites

Where are we now?

x

These are the ethnic

Fires and the flood of hate

And fear;

In the USA, we once liked

The melting pot

Though now it seems a crucible

To separate us and to test us

Then we might go back

To melting

In that first, patriotic pot

x

There’s climate

And still too much unchecking

You know, there’s a town

In Ohio that found natural gas

In a parochial way

And burned it all,

Frankly, excessively

Until there was none left

I don’t want to blame them

For excitement

Or working out technologies

At large, we need to do that,

Too

x

But I suppose there’s a lesson

In there, somewhere

And we have so much to learn

And do

To stop the fires,

Contain the floods

Mine in every way

Our minerals well

Maintain both poles

Step in, step out

So there might be

Peace in western Asia

And elsewhere

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And then there’s hate

And fear behind the hate

That’s for our dealing,

Too,

To have a planet that we’re

Fond of and it shows

It breathes, it smells,

It tastes, it sounds, it feels,

It looks

Grand as canyons,

Vast as deserts,

Cold as frozen,

Hot as eruptions,

Living as oceans,

Deep as thought

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C L Couch

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The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill is alluded to, above.

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Photo by Kevin Grieve on Unsplash

Trafalgar Square, London, UK

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Three, One, Three Again

(x = space)

x

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sorry, long

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Three, One, Three Again

x

1

Creator, savior, guide

Maybe I understand the trinity

Maybe not

They are lively

And immediate

They are at work all the time

And understand rest

They commend a sabbath

And the days on either side

They are all efficiency

And all love

We have access to them

And, as teachers and advisors

Not to mention

God,

They nudge us

All the time

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2

What kind of commanders

Legions at their call

They give us time

And patience

Before anything like

A final battle

Victory assured

I mean in this moment

We wait and wait and wait

Or, worse, deny

While they withhold rejection

Until the moment

Past the moment

Before judgment

Should decide

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They give us time

Keeping everything at bay,

Which is love

All love

Splicing revelation

Tailoring salvation

For each one

Each encounter

How wondrously and thunderously

Special

What kind of God

What parts of God

Can do this

And then do it

x

3

Hear, O Israel

And all other nations,

Catch them in the human heart

Live as one

Each one as all

Repair the ruin of the Earth

There is so much faith

And good work to do

x

They are mild

They are also Armageddon

What kind of love

What kind of God

Three then one

Then three again

They live in constant relationship

So should we

Within the parts

Of ourselves,

Each one

And then

Altogether

x

More than one in one

We can have that, too:

Remember might

Remember love

Both mingled in each moment

Quicksilver

And slow water

Everything that moves

And tries to rest

They show us the way

To give us something every day

Then just after our last day

After work

And battling

And sabbathing

To lead us home

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C L Couch

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Maybe it’s not my tradition, but I mean to be respectful of the Shema.

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Temple of Edfu, Egypt

Photo by Jeremy Zero on Unsplash

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