Brittney Griner

(x = space)

x

x

Brittney Griner

x

I’m glad she’s back

Aren’t you?

Return the others, please—and

We should say

You may have your own

x

We don’t like each other now

Except maybe in passing

On the street

On the subway

In the store

Real people

Real person to real person

We pick each other up

In small ways all the time

x

More real than politics

That makes a war

Forgets the real people

But counts numbers

Of them

Plays them on a map

And in a mortal dream

Of conquest,

Acquisition

To rationalize

Before the rest

Of temporal authority

That needs speeches

Bites for press releases

Justifying

All those people

In the street

And the street

No longer,

Well,

No longer there

Picking up each other

That we no longer do

Because we were made numbers

Then like gum on penciled math

The strategy erased

x

C L Couch

x

x

After Release from Russian Custody, Focus Is on Providing Brittney Griner and Her Family Additional Support, Officials Say

Story by Aya Elamroussi • 6h ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/after-release-from-russian-custody-focus-is-on-providing-brittney-griner-and-her-family-additional-support-officials-say/ar-AA157twN

x

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

Disruptive

x

Grace Is Free

(x = space)

x

x

Grace Is Free

x

You tell me the process

That lets out grace

Into the world

I can’t begin to say

Because it is not up to me

While my knowledge says

It’s free and freely given

By one who could

Have charged a lot

Rather made it free

Who releases grace

No one but one

Who does not keep it in a jar

To be dispensed with tickets

Shining and uncornered

But ready through unnailed openings

To give it without reason

Save for an abiding, relentless

Always hoping interest

In love and salvation

Grace is free

It’s freedom

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Thomas Millot on Unsplash

Selonnet, France

x

Gumball Machine

(x = space)

x

x

Gumball Machine

x

Sometimes

Often, maybe

We wish for dispensers

Push a coin into a

Machine that has moving parts

But no electricity

And no computer parts

x

And receive

Something colorful and wonderful

Call it sweet

(call it sugar)

Call it grace

x

Grace for a quarter

(I know, it might have been

a penny)

Or something else

Dispensed

To save us for

A little while

x

A coin for a bit of doctrine

Except it might be heresy

Grace for a coin?

That is a coin too much

x

C L Couch

x

x

by Strange from CA, Japan – bubbleGum!, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3232931

x

Unkept Doctrine

Unkept Doctrine

(and unkempt)

 

I’ve been meaning to

Write about grace

The kind that is

Free

That no one can hold onto

That has no rules except

To help ‘til heroes return

 

Like crumpling a butterfly

In a human hand,

It doesn’t

Mean so much if you try

To clutch it

Or claim at all it’s yours

It isn’t yours

And can’t be claimed by anyone

Don’t try

 

Enjoy the benefit

In a sunshine of surprise

Don’t polish it

Or ever, every try

To keep it on a shelf

It has no rules that we’re aware of

Someone, yes,

Not us

To those who want to market it,

You’ll learn, if you have to

Then be forgotten

It’s as if grace has a contract

Somewhere,

Chaotically enforced

When someone tries

To own it

 

The rest of us

Will bask, when we never thought

We’d have the chance

To breathe at all

Again

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

New York, United States

Steam venting in Manhattan.

 

Marahuyo Palace

Marahuyo Palace

 

Marahuyo Palace

 

Where dreams are

 

And where dreams are

Bound and

Bound to

 

Bound to be

Freed

 

Be,

Dreams

Be free,

Dreams

 

Marahuyo means

(To be) enchanted

 

And marahuyo

Means

 

Are magic

 

Word-High July: Welcome!

Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and I [that’s Rosema at rosemawrites] are more than excited to read your takes on the 30 Beautiful Filipino Words.

1. Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
2. A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
3. Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
4. Tag your post with WordHighJuly, so your co-bloggers will be able to read/see your take on the prompt. Here’s how you create tags.
5. Most important of all, read and comment to your blogger friends (old and new found, we’ll never know).

HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!

Young Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein

 

This phrase came to mind

Out of the season’s time:

When the veil fails, speaking

Of Hallowe’en

 

This is what those of ancient

Lore believed—that gossamer-

Iron webs and steel-misty

 

Vapors held the other side

On a spellbound, ritualed

Line

 

Except for

 

This one time each year

 

I don’t know what this means;

The child in me didn’t

Care

 

I dressed colorfully, unusually

 

Looked through eyeholes

Of masks sweated ’round

The fabric on my face

 

I was young and relatively

Free

 

To run my neighborhood

 

Receiving chocolate reward

For feeling the thrill of cool

Air as more night rushed

Over my skin,

 

Through folds in costumes,

 

The faster that I moved

Not a Trick

Not a Trick

Easter is a surprise, the
Rabbit out of the hat, one
Might wryly think

From where and when
Comes the trick-tradition
From Easter and the tomb,
I think, and Spring, generally,
In the land and from the
Time and place in which
Top Hats were popular

Something living retrieved
Out of nothing—something
Drawn out from the void

The rabbit is fecund (rabbits
Always are, aren’t they?),
The hat circular for the cycle
Of mortality, moving in
An immortal way

Hoping that, in coming ‘round,
One will pass the door to
Eternity, maybe to pause
There

Our magic with the rabbit
Is illusion—dedicated that
Way—but here’s what is
Real: the pure, created one
Has escaped the rounded
Maw of death, leaving (this
Time real) magic words working
As miracle

What is lifted now is living
Truth to behold

No applause needed or any
Desired, for this is grace

The cost of admission offered
Always, for all, a price to us
That’s free

Black Life Matters

an opinion expressed potently
in a White House meeting about
murdered Blacks, the living
marginalized—here’s my response

 

 
Black Life Matters

Do I even need to say it
Yes, I do

My best friend was Black
He died too young—
Complications from surgery

What a teacher
And a humorist as well
At least, to me

I am not Black, part
Native American according
To a family historian,
Which is good, though
Looking at me, I doubt
That you could tell

I am not female; I am
The enemy: an older,
White male

I eschewed the ol’-boy
Invitation and have
Often paid the price

Not in my life (though
Maybe there, too)
But in my work
In which I’ve lost the
Favored political place

Maybe each one has
A circle drawn around
From fear and politics

Leaving that (or never
Entering) means that
Protection from the
Core is not available

And some measure of
Persecution too easily
Is acted on

“Loving Engagement”
From a better Black-drawn
Circle of union and
Society change—I don’t
Know if I’ll be let in,
Resembling and, appropriately
(Regrettably), perceived

I’d stay in the back
And write my verse
In which I argue that
All are free

And should be free

That to usurp the job of
God in assessing human
Worth is about as wrong
As this world can get

Black folk (Black discourse
Uses that word; and,
Being from Kentucky, I like
Folk and folks, though I’d
Change the old state-song
Lyrics, too)—Black folk are
Self-determining, of course

I cringe to have to make the
The claim, as all persons,
Being made, are free and
Free to choose

 

 
(http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/barack-obama-black-lives-matter-meeting?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+CB+header&utm_term=157937&subid=16706344&CMP=ema_565)

31 January 2016 (in the global north)

31 January 2016
(in the global north)

I still wake up with jittery feelings. The sun is bright. The snow is melting down. Maybe I need it gone. But is that the boundary of my fear? I sit and look outside to see the beauty. I am inspired to come back and write a verse of two. Still, fear jumps inside me. At least it doesn’t leap. I’ll feel better, once I write a bit. Drink a hot drink, maybe take a pill or two pills. I know that on a good day my heart still operates in an iffy way. I know that what happened here was momentous. It’s momentous, still, outside. As in ancient Arabian architecture, I cherish space and righter light. Not simply looking out into amorphous glare. Rather the view of a virtuously bright and blue-skied world above with earth of desert browns beneath. Through arches made of genius and of grace, numbering the stars within each stone’s embrace.

I dream this is all easier, if not delightful, in a desert paradisal scene. Where arid becomes beautiful and free air moves through all, spirits borne and carried along. Maybe heaven’s healing wind will pause and wave upon me there, and I will feel and know something of the serene aspect of God.

Too much romance and earthly-bound, I know. But I need this. My fear frankly needs it, as does my hope and peace.