Narrative for Veteran’s Day

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Narrative for Veteran’s Day

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I hope the veterans

Have a good day today

They served

Time to be serving them

Certain restaurants

Will do that literally

(track the ads)

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There was a draft

I was in school

A war for oil fomenting

As if primordial

Muck were heating

In the gulf

(not that war

in the gulf

or the next one)

There was an energy crisis

Hiding profits

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I didn’t want to fight

For companies’ oil

But when on the application

I was asked

If there were anything I would fight for

I had to answer yes

And so ruin the deal for c-o

And the draft board changed

My status

(they won’t admit to punishment)

From 1-H to 1-A

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Well, that war didn’t start

There were numbers

But no draft

I finished school

And then the next one

And with Watergate

Had reasons to feel bitter

Toward my government,

Which since then

Has become increasingly

Stupid and useless

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But love of country

All the stickers

All the posters

The Bicentennial

If we forget who is in charge

There are superlative reasons

To be serving

And they have served

Time to be serving them

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My brother

And my father

And my grandfathers

Came back

My friend Patricia

Returned, retired

A full colonel

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There are those

The many, many those

Who did not return

And have their days

And who cannot remember them?

Anytime and every time

We should?

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Red poppies will festoon

And sides of buildings carry

Words of verses

“In Flanders Fields”

And that is London today

Here there will be flowers, too,

And flags

And I hope everywhere

That she has served

And he

And they

And all the fields

Nourished by remembrance

With all the hopes

And wishful strategies

To change

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C L Couch

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carrying the burden of a nation

Photo by Joel Rivera-Camacho on Unsplash

U.S. Marines with Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, conduct vehicle recovery drills on Camp Pendleton, California, Apr. 6, 2021.The Marines of Motor Transportation Platoon pride themselves not only on their vehicles, but on each Marines’ hard work, dedication, and drive to excel in all they do.

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Fallbrook, United States

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August on Deck

(x = space)

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August on Deck

(easy greetings)

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It’s Friday

Anticipate a weekend

Late summer

Final trip before the school year

Work at home

Clean at home

Leave the home

For the park

For stores

For church

Find company

Leave company

Hours on one’s own

The quiet might invite

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Or out into the world

A different way

A drive, a walk

To nowhere in particular

A new nowhere

Untried

Something heard of

Or an inviting opening

A path into

Some inviting part of the world

Keep safe

Why not

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After the anthem,

Play ball

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C L Couch

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Photo by Maksym Tymchyk 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

Ukraine

I look at this

I can smell the stalks, the petals

Memory, I suppose

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Birth of a Nation

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Birth of a Nation

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It’s the Fourth of July

In the USA

It’s hard to miss

What with all the sales

In the computer

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And all the local booms

That will happen

Between buildings

In the neighborhood

This evening

Upsetting dogs

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The bell did not crack then

And the document

For the assembly

And the criers

Wasn’t ready then

More like the sixth

And no one need worry

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A day was selected

For the start of freedom

And a nation

Approving thirteen groups

That did not want to fight

But would fight

A famous army

With a storied king

From faraway

Now home

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Home needing freedom

From political

And corporate interests

That took more and more away

Until at home we said,

Enough

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And war is war

It would not be kind

Or clean

Though ranks set on the field

Were tried

And when to start the battle

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Really

How farmers

Children died

Holding guns

Or something enough like

To draw fire from the foe

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There were strategies

And spies

And those with local knowledge

Of terrain

And somehow

Against the European mind

For monarchs

The war was won

By merchants and farmers

Fugitives and foreigners

Identified

Foregoing slaves

To free

Only to count

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With vision to admire

Yet with fractures

Like the bell that was fractured at

Other times

Now we had to form a nation

With all the blunders

And the cheating

All the buildings

And the farmland

All the expanding

All the settling to come

With treaties

Skirmishes

And battles

We borrowed names

America

The United States of America

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We asked for God

Too often after everything arranged

Maybe we could do better at that

Now

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God is known in many ways

Inside this land

The values of the heart

And mind

And neighborhood

Remain the same

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Reasons abound

For trying God first

Each day

In every time

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In a nation born

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C L Couch

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United States flag painted on the side of a Saturn V rocket.

Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash

Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, United States

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Father

(x = space)

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Father

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As in the fathers who are there

Who show up

Who have been there from the beginning

And those who are not there

Who left

Who might return

Might be changed

Might stay

And that be good

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God is father

God is mother

Jesus is the child

Fully grown and forever

The Spirit is inside

As well as moving

Through the world

Through the cosmos

A crazy family

Three in one

And one

But in each

And altogether

We have our learning

Our understanding

And our living

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Reasons and purposes

Wills and resolves

Choices

Actions

Parents are good at actions

Fathers are adept

At doing something

When they would do something

And they do something

Often

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They act

They build

They love

The best ones listen

The best ones speak

Knowing with whom they speak

Skills vary

Loving intent doesn’t have to

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A father is remarkable

A mother is remarkable

A family

Is remarkable

Even though

There are so many

Constructed, reconstructed

Precious not for diamond absence

But for the abundance of love

We reach in

We reach out

We share

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Fathers do this

In the USA, this is their day

God bless fathers

Fathers turn to God

They may turn to each other

Turn more so to their partners

To their charges

And their charge

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Amen

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C L Couch

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Photo by Federico Di Dio photography on Unsplash

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Flag Day 2022

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Flag Day 2022

(for everyone)

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I am thankful to be an American

And hope you are thankful

For your nations

We can’t love them because they’re fair

Without acknowledging

The ugliness

Even as we might want to change

Corruption and injustice

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There are small victories

We might have taken part in

Or might

Someday

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Someday our nations might be perfect

Not if we stand against each other

In the nation

Nation against nation

A nation is defined by how it lives

How it saves

Then how it waves

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With ready refusal to

Participate in Armageddon

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C L Couch

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Flag Day in the USA is 14 June.

“I Am Thankful to Be an American” is a song.  I think of it when I think of Flag Day.

Photo by Samuel Branch on Unsplash

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A Million Now

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A Million Now

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Two and a half years

A million dead

Shall we count?

We should have time

While counting out the days

For boosters

Should we be privileged

For boosters

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If they were like stars

Then there would be no question

Everyone would want them

Like the bread

That goes with circuses

Is New York still giving money

For a shot?

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People I know are gone

Because of COVID

It’s hard to take in

I might be dense

How could I know a million

Twenty times a number counted

For the city some miles away

Whose rutted streets

For the moment

Have no wagons for the dead

Or another absurdity in

A Python moment

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Try to count

To a million

Try to consider millions of

The dead or fleeing

Thanks to war

Go ahead, combine the numbers

Since the same hate’s

At work

Every time

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There is liberty

In abnegation

Deny the medicine

Turn oneself into

The other side of counting

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C L Couch

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1 Million COVID-19 Deaths in the United States

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Photo by Susann Schuster on Unsplash

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Escape Room

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Escape Room

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Once again

For Passover,

Too many now

Are refugees

Fleeing Pharaohnic tyranny

Fear from explosions

Falling walls

Broken bodies

Family annihilation

Other countries take them

Sacred and secular

The people

The new homes

More than Jews in Ukraine

More people leaving

Refugees from Syria

Those who are “repatriated”

(strategic term)

From island nations

To the south

Those who want to leave for life

From Mexico,

Parts of Central America

And when there’s disaster,

We flee from parts

Of our land as well

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Passover

For so many, many now

Might the angel of death

Give leave

For space and means

For victims

For escape

Blood on the lintels

Before leaving

Death for the victimizers

As angels

As an agency of God

See fit

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Passover

For Jews in Ukraine

Jews in Israel

And everywhere

Good people have to run

For life

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C L Couch

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For Jews fleeing Ukraine, Passover takes on new meaning

“Good morning! Happy morning!” Rabbi Avraham Wolff exclaimed, with a big smile, as he walked into the Chabad synagogue in Odesa on a recent morning. Russian missiles had just struck an oil refinery in . . .

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Photo by Vitamina Poleznova on Unsplash

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While I Was Writing

x = space)

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While I Was Writing

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On the news just now,

A hypersonic missile

Purportedly in China

China denies it

We want the same thing

China isn’t evil

Though sometimes

Sometimes we are evil

We all should know better

And we do

We do what we hate

Give it a name,

Security

Secure would be

Not to have these things

In Xanadu,

Kublai Khan decreed

An extraordinary place

And I hope everyone was fed

There

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C L Couch

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Alhambra de Granada

Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash

Alhambra, Spain

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Discover the Abandoned Sites of Brooklyn

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Discover the Abandoned Sites of Brooklyn 

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Where you lived

Is an abandoned site in Brooklyn

I visited you once

Never knew your agenda

I think it changed

Between the invitation and arrival

The visit wasn’t fun

You didn’t talk

I didn’t listen

Then it was over

You wrote to ease your mind

I wrote back truth, as it turns out,

Never heard from you again

You moved on

With your plans

And, you know,

That was that

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C L Couch

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Untapped New York

info@untappedcities.com

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Photo by Mitchell Trotter on Unsplash

Amidst the usual family arguments when attempting to travel via subway, our trip to NYC would not be complete without them. Tuning it out, I managed to capture a neat view of the variety of moods in the city. The subway is an efficient and well-used mode of transport in the city, you’re never short of people to fill your frame.

New York, United States

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