(x = space)
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Presenced
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It should not come to this
But God
Rescue us
With miracle
Maybe miracles all around
Friend and foe alike
Even on the blooded field
Now turned
For fallow ground
Ready for
New planting
New heaven and new
Earth
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C L Couch
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Photo by Quaritsch Photography on Unsplash x
(x = space)
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Break, Break, Break
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I feel the weight
Of everything
And my heart can’t take it
Well, it can
I hope it can
It’s the manifestations of emotions
The effects
Of what has happened
Bad news
Does it get worse
Or does it feel worse?
Maybe I’m enduring
Or preparing
Where is Nietzsche’s strength?
Whatever doesn’t kill us
Leaves scars
Hard tissue
And doesn’t acclimate us
Better than
A more pedestrian process
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No, as it goes on
We might become inured
While underneath
Our hearts
Break and break again
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C L Couch
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“Break, Break, Break”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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weight of glory
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what do we say
sometimes the weight is too much
it presses down like gravity
on a wide planet far away
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is there grace in the stars
the kind that made them,
I suppose
the love that means covalence
molecular intimacy
and from there through our bodies
back to the stars
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c l couch
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photo by Radu Chelariu on Unsplash
when I saw this at first, I thought it was a field of stars
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(x = space)
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Homers
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A brother gone
Another brother going
Like homers from the park
What’s on the other side
Of the stadium,
We wonder
Though we know
The town outside
The city of disorganized noise
With the ritual
Inside the designed
Space
With bases and a plate
Clean lines
Maintained swarths of green
This is what we know
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On the other side
Is chaos
And unknown
There are streets in heaven
There might be traffic patterns
Something to guide
The hit,
The sail home
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Photo by Andrew Jephson on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Ranger Rick
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Last I dreamed about
My brother Rick
And about raccoons
Raccoons probably because
I saw images of red pandas
And understand
That red pandas are not bears
But more like raccoons
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My brother Rick because
We’re talking about
His last months
And hospice
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Raccoon Rick
Wasn’t there a Ranger Rick
And was he, if he, not a raccoon?
Or was the raccoon
A sidekick or an animated
Symbol generally
Like Smokey the Bear?
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Telling us
To live safely
Preventing forest fires
By keeping our own
Fires inside the ring
And dousing them completely,
After
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Safety toward
Cancer, metastasized
Keep everyone comfortable,
I suppose
Deal palliatively
Everyone on all sides
Of the cancer
Fighting, still
As much as they can
Capability
Will
The fight
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C L Couch
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Photo by Michael Payne on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Death and Saint Patrick’s Day
(17 March 2022)
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There has been
A death in the family
We will gather tonight
It might seem
As a wake
Though really it’s for comfort
Something pleasant
In all the difficulty
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Which is maybe what
A wake is
Why the Irish developed
The remembrance
Bittersweet
Like coffee with sugar
Porter in a glass
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Though the glasses
Won’t be broken
Ritually,
It might feel like a christening
Launching a spirit
Into heaven
While
Our part in having something
Unofficially good to do
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Goodbye
Farewell
Fair winds, as sailors
From many nations say,
And following seas
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C L Couch
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(x = space)
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Thessaloniki
(from a skeptic maybe unknowing, maybe envious)
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To the Thessalonians,
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God wrote you twice
Once was not enough
Why not?
All the other cities
Jerusalem
New York
That did not get a postcard
Or a phone call
A telegram to say with urgency,
Wake up
And smell the western Asian coffee
You got two letters
It could be said you’re twice as bad
Or that the urgency was dear
Are you better now?
I should come to see you
How you’re doing
But I don’t have a camel or a burro
And Land Rovers are expensive
I have to see the wall
Through video eyes
Though I hope my prayers
Are real enough
I write my petitions
And read your letters
(I see you’re actually
pretty good)
Hope for the best
And signing off
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C L Couch
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Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
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Photo by Elena Theodoridou on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Cry Caesar
(15 March)
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I could talk of Caesar
It’s his ides
He died
He was killed
It was awful
Stabbed by two dozen knives
Of senators conspiring
Some of whom were killed
Themselves
After trying to escape
Or trying to stage a coup d’etat
Ending the republic
Staging instead
The empire
That would live as long
As the republic
Then fall into philosophies
And artifacts
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Two millennia and some
We still talk about it
Assigned the play
We might be taking sides
Empire
Or dictator
Sadness all around
Without good sides
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There is a better way
That republic idea
Seeded in democracy
That might not be so bad
For nurturing
And flourishing
Say, starting on the sixteenth
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C L Couch
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Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91281949
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(x = space)
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Piecemeal
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I wish there were no war
I wish peace could abound
And not forestall
I wish we made enough
And a little more
For neighbors, strangers,
Celebrations
I wish the world were not a mess
Unless it could come out
Cookies on the other side
And a centerpiece
For a long, long table
Levels and heights to accommodate
With chairs of many sizes
Everyone invited
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C L Couch
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Photo by Obi – @pixel6propix on Unsplash
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