Prescriptive Talk

(x = space)

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Prescriptive Talk

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The pain

It courses through me

I want to feel better

I want vindication

I want acceptance

In the world

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Mainly, though,

I want the pain to stop

And feel better in

That way

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C L Couch

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Spikes

Photo by Andrey Grinkevich on Unsplash

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens & Meadowlark’s Winter Walk of Lights, Vienna, United States

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The News

The News

(for those for whom there’s something new)

 

Are the fires out?

Where are new ones rising?

We could say vigilance

But not, I think, so much

Against our own

It is democracy, still

When there are good decisions

Made (listen,

politicians)

And we should listen to

Our neighbors

Excusing ourselves not

To talk so much

 

There is freedom

To be rung

If all the bells are silent,

Now

There is a time to mourn

A time to repair

A time to do things better

And to celebrate

Memory is fine

Remember them

Who died, and we

Are here

 

We have the present to repair

With children to look after

Teens to slide into involvement

Or-and they’ll do it,

Anyway

And should—though they

Should also be allowed to

Adolesce

That’s natural

 

Do you camp

And leave it better than you found?

Try doing that with Earth

And all the parts we tread

And take

There is a future

Or there better be

 

Earth-crimes against children

You don’t think the cosmos

Is keeping track?

It is,

And before there’s heaven

With a judgment,

There will be accounting

From all things behind the sky

A reckoning for all

Materials lost,

Lives wasted by other lives,

A universe securing

All there is

From what we had

From what we thought we owned

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mike Marrah on Unsplash

 

Tentatively Yours

Tentatively Yours

 

If we are to heal,

There has to be a hope

That someday it will be complete

That all the things that festered

Will have finally unwound

From the brain, the heart

Any infected organs

That persistence of pain will

Be replaced

With something like assurance in

Confidence of being well

That the counting that has met

Each day

Now useless

Will give way

To errands, nothing much

A nothing kind of day

Wouldn’t that be nice

Wouldn’t that be lovely

To have a day that’s dulled by

Anything but pain

Not to be morose

For what I have

I’ll still wrap around mortality

Until the glorious surprise

Of the next thing

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Michael Anfang on Unsplash

 

Better

Better

 

I don’t know much about the world

It seems

I wish it were better

 

I’m offended

And I’m angry

Who really wants to care?

 

We have other things to do, less

Pandering to moods

Chosen when something more promising

Could be selected

 

Another code pressed on the emotion

Vending machine

I wonder maybe we have a number of tokens

And then the rest are gone

For deciding badly

 

For too-small convictions

When being noble in an un-ranked way

Would make the difference

 

Would light the factories

Would illuminate

Pockets and portals of prosperity

Nether (never) world

Intentions hide

 

Give it a chance

A two-step beneath the table

Smiling for no reason

Than

The joy in dawn-split morning

Or romantic night

The splendid times when

In spite of rusted gags and

Chains

Joy breaks free