Don’t Mind Me

Don’t Mind Me

 

Oh, Christopher

Christophoros

So you’re nothing

Nothing’s good

The mystics would be envious

I don’t mean annihilation

That would be bad

But death to self is something else,

I think

Because you do not go away

As if there were nothing left of you

You are woke into a different place

With people you might know

Some kind of belonging

We might call it a heavenly host

But you are retained as you

You are even loved

Now and you know before

As it may have happened, then

 

The death to self is prayer

So cleansed and clean

As to have nothing left but righteous intercession

Something to be gained

Such a death to self so that

There is only prayer for others

Disinterest in agenda

But the willingness to bleed some more

If like a transfusion

It might bring some living to another

This is sacrifice

Not immolation but

A gift of love

From which nothing will be returned

 

A love I do not understand, for now

Or the peace that passes it

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

Santa Barbara, United States

A shot I captured during dinner with my Grandpa and my niece.

 

Victimhood

Victimhood

(a reverie, a study)

 

Evil is too easy

Is it really?

Maybe on the inside

A quick turn, then stay

In that direction

Me, first

You don’t exist

Everything is fodder

For possession

And control

The very stuff of the universe

Should be mine

 

And then it’s gone

I have nothing

There’s a lesson in legacy

The tyrant is forgotten

Except for notes that tell the truth

And finally

The evil ones are burned

Like autumn leaves in the backyard

(how it used to be)

Effigy and memory

 

And was this easy?

Yes, and lazy, too

Everything subverted to

A contract with the luck of the devil

A genie who grants wishes and

Scratch-like

Always laughs the last

Because the house of hell always wins

Once entered by

The gullible who think

That profit is a plot

Hard work is another matter for

Good people

The suckers, so I always thought

The despot

And now I am ash

Blown off the foot in the tread

Of someone righteous

Whose agencies are angels

A surrogacy of judgment

 

My victims

Lazarus

Living in a better house, the house of God forever

While I diminish

To a speck

And then am nothing

No matter left

Nothing

 

C L Couch

 

 

Christopher Michel

Ramesseum in Egypt

 

To All Nebuchadnezzars

To All Nebuchadnezzars
(in the present age in exigency
anywhere, this is the prophecy
of speaking truth to power)

Said Daniel to the king:

You are brittle with power
While I have talent, speak
With zeal, and touch power
That’s true because I know
It’s not my own

You will cast me out and
Throw me down

I will survive the lions, while
You, above, will soon suffer
Suppurating disease

The carrion of falsehood
On which you feed will have
Its way with you, eating
Infected meat of poisoned
Blood that comes from
Your own veins

Why not send me, if you
Cannot bear my presence,
To a new place where I
Might love the people you
Have cursed whom I can
Help, and you remain

Within your rich and sullen
Chamber, adorned in
Shadowed fate

Nothing changes, king; for
I will arise from the pit in
Certainty, while you will
Never recognize how you
Dwell in your own deep
Place without protection
From the beasts