(x = space)
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haiku
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1
twenty pages in
the need to gaze and breathe out
outside for elsewhere
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2
city-wise black trees
darkened too the sky-wept street
nature go with tears
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3
after rain is haze
exhale into clarity
newly gifts of night
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C L Couch
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Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Machine Libation
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All the things released
On the page,
Admittedly a page of electrons
And in this
There is a soupcon of fright
Over outages
And lack of a printer
And greater thankfulness
Over an awful
Writer’s cramp
That only bends (now)
The typing hand
Now and then
x
There are notebooks, too,
When away
Maybe simply outside
Sometimes they are remembered
With the pens
And releases in our minds
To work another way
While in the nothingness
Of expectation
x
Keep writing, children
(painting
or reworking
the clay of Earth
or off our feet
or work in something else),
We hear her say
And all the sibling muses
With the gods of creativity
From other places
Other realms
Inside the moving circles
When they meet
And maybe grind
Like rims of
Metal upon metal
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These vie
For inspiration
When we are worth it
x
Thank goodness,
We are worth it
x
And for the media
The usefulness of anything
The service of technology
And pens and pencils
(paints, clay
things we find)
Crayons, when we have them,
With some paper
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What we keep
What we discard
Ashes in safety
Or simply as a metaphor
For muses
Or spirits from
Other places
Or, say,
Only the mind
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Thanks, any part
Or anyone
And everyone
Everything
Anything
That serves
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C L Couch
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Photo by Jahz Gonzalez on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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courage
(compash)
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the brave leaves
are in fact
leaving;
the wind has done its work
there is inescapability
in the season passing
if I wrote useless things
upon electronic leaves
perhaps my season
will be passing, too
x
it is a pledge, I guess
the old word tontine
a formal offering
to work
to put down
to express
to depict
to make my painting here,
unfit for a museum
maybe for local work
the verses in the subway
a slogan on a placard
should I reach
and arrive so far
x
like glory in the sky
parochial sky
parochial of one
should I hear myself
out there
constructively
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c l couch
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photo by jeremy bishop on unsplash
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(x = space)
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Cell Block
x
I don’t know that I’ve written
Anything
I like
Not that I have to like it
x
You have to like it,
That is, with textual
Appreciation
x
Or at least give me a break
To read
And then to have
Whatever frank reaction
If good to tell me,
If bad to keep it to yourself
Kidding!
(mostly)
x
I’ve been sitting by myself
Too long
Writing whatever
Looking up pretty pictures, too
x
I need to nap
Or go out to buy more coffee filters
One task then the other,
Recommending order
x
Later
Rested, filtered
Enjoy a tea time
(coffee time)
Then write some more
Or not
It’s not as if
There’s a contract
Yet
Except with myself, my own
Eccentric terms
x
I’m sure you understand
Defining, realizing
Your own discipline
As well
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C L Couch
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Photo by loli Clement on Unsplash
my sister’s coffee
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(x = space)
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Sorry, Uncle
x
I haven’t
Liked
A thing
All day
Not the rest
That was
Too brief
Not the clothes
That are too worn
Well, in need
Of cleaning
Not the food or drink
That was too sweet
And filled me up
So that
What’s inside and
The rest of me
Are getting along awkwardly
At best
x
Not the words I’ve set down
Drawn lines
Through
Made spaces
Tried to write again
x
What to do on such a day?
Maybe nothing
I can take a break
Some might want me to
For one reason
Out of
Many reasons
I can pray
Prayer is an attitude
Telling me
I don’t have to write
To give, to send
Outside of me
Today
x
It’s late
I breathe
The breathing’s warm
My body’s warm
It’s June
How much more
Revelation
Do I need?
x
Oh,
I’m not angry
Parentally to say
I’m only
Disappointed
Twist the blade
Why don’t I?
x
Well, I’ll pause
And look
Here there are
Words
And sorry for conceits
x
I understand the beasts
In La Brea
Never got out
On their own
I’ll be with you
Tomorrow
Unsucked
From tar
Unstucked
x
The bones of writing down
Enfleshed again
And on the move
x
C L Couch
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Smilodon at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
(image) by Dallas Krentzel – Smilodon at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar PitsUploaded by FunkMonk, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18649097
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(x = space)
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3 poems for summer solstice
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Merry July
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Solstice
It’s summer now
Summer weather smacks us
Here
Temps aiming for 90
I guess in Australia
New Zealand
New Guinea
Little America
Winter is begun
Throw logs on the fire
Sing winter carols
Withholding Christmas and
The other holidays
‘Til the start of summer
In December
Christmas in July
A custom mostly mercantile
In the north
Could be the real thing
With trees and
Were it high enough
Some snow
Ornaments and lights
Certainly
Merry Christmas in
Alice Springs
Wellington
Tierre del Fuego
On the Falklands
At the southern pole
Santa’s summer home
Like winter
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Intentions
x
God, what shall I
Say to you?
I worship you
In contemporary ways
I’m sorry for sins
You have seen in me
And known for centuries
I thank you for your presence
Having made all good things
And the ways to deal
With the bad
I ask of you
To welcome home
Those who die
And heal those who live
Cure cancer
End war
Well, I can ask
x
x
Siblinghood
x
It’s like science fiction
Slipping out of time
Our of normalcy
Eating meals on time
Cleaning on a schedule
Ingrained expectations
Instinctive, conditioned
Responses
x
To fall outside of these
To live with fewer clothes
To hope for decent meals
In penury,
To dream of trips
But only travel like Thoreau
Walking to and from
The town
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Everything else happens
On the inside
How sad this is
At least how strange
But there’s a purpose
Those who fall outside
Will look back
And when not wistful
Will prophecy
In art
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C L Couch
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Saint John’s (Midsummer) Fire at Dragør Beach (Denmark)
XSimon, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53634435
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(x = space)
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Crisscross
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I creak around
The morning
Bending my knees
To write
As if I’m meeting
Someone who sits
On the other
Side of fire
x
A wilderness of
Understanding,
A meeting with a muse or
God whose presence
Is apparent
Is ennobled
In the fire
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C L Couch
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Photo by Timothy Meinberg on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Place Setting
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Monday, Monday
Now the song is in my head
I see a cityscape
Microsoft has placed on the computer
There are no people to be seen
But they must be there
Taken at sunrise
While many are asleep
(the photo, not the people
though one never knows)
The television drones
The coffee murmurs,
And it’s mainly done
And I sit cross-legged
In obeisance
And thanksgiving
For the time I have to write
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C L Couch
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Photo by Grant Durr on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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There’s a Story at the End
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I don’t know what to say.
I need the birds to
dance across the
page
with their feet dipped in ink.
It’s a medieval riddle’s
answer,
though it would be cruel
to force birds’ feet
into wells.
x
I guess we take their feathers,
turn them into quills;
maybe we could wait
to find quills
inside forests:
gifts from the sources of stories
and the desert
and the sky
and moving waters
taking the shape
of earth below.
That’s what I want to tell,
a story!
Something for everyone. And
is there such a thing?
x
Once there was a child
in a forest
Who came upon a grown-up
clearly starving.
The child gave the grown-up
the only piece of
bread
in the child’s bag.
The adult rose up and thanked
the child.
Then they noticed that
the child’s bag
had a hole through which
crumbs had fallen—and through
forest-magic
had not been eaten
by birds or other creatures!
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They knew certainly where the
crumbs
would take them,
so they went home
where everyone was
known,
because everyone was
home.
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C L Couch
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Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash
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