Simple

Simple
Sweet
Easy rhymes.

Ahh to be young again and writing poetry. Sometimes a poem like that is like a sip of a mountain spring. It is not complicated, but it is fun.

Royal Blue

Somedays,
the rain smells so sweet
Somedays,
the sun shines on golden wheat
Somedays,
the sky is royal blue
and,
Somedays,
I'm sure our love is true

Sometimes,
I fell like I'm runnin' free
Sometimes,
I laugh at destiny
Sometimes my mind is full of bliss
and,
Sometimes,
I get lost in your kiss

Now you might think
there's no such thing
as a love so wild and free
That true love
is just not that easy

Now you might say
that this love
just couldn't be true
But I say it happens
every now and then
to the lucky few

Someone,
is searching for my love
Someone,
needs my tender touch
Someone,
thinks this love is true
and,
Somehow,
I think that someone's you

Yes,

Somehow,

I pray you'll love me too

written by Jeff Couch, Early 1990's

Some Days.

Some days are just like this. They just are. I played with descriptive word pairs and second person. Seems like they had a sale on hyphens that day. If you are having one of these days it makes sense, otherwise it just seems overly dramatic.

Stepping Out The Front Door

The beetle-black train of coffee grounds leads to the empty graveyard of a soaked filter like some long procession of Cadillacs on their way to mourn the life of a friend.
The ash-sifted scent of morning-after cigarette smoke slips and shatters through teeth like snips of glass from the light bulb you ate.

It is another morning.

And though you don't drink coffee or smoke cigarettes,

It is that kind of morning.

The cicada-pitched hum of blood rushing through an alcohol-dessicated lump of gray tissue whines like a two year-old who forgot what he wanted.
The melted-gum drop cling of re-breathed air sloughs down your body like slug slime thicker where it was than where it is.

It is a morning when why has no answer.

When hope has dried up like a late-night blood sucker in the final-seconds sunrise.

It is that kind of morning.

The tears have flowed backward, turned and run down the Death Valley of your throat
The cry has climbed craving to the back belfry of your mouth and chimes with a lunatic ache.

You are alive,

you don't know why,

or for how long,

but you are.

The bull-thickened skull dulls you thoughts as they plod through the monsoon-matted mucus of your will.
The serial-killer haze parts slowly, stalking the door, an assassin determined for another day to kill.

You look up

and

You smile

written by Jeff Couch October 6, 2000

Pompous Poets

I used to go to a weekly poetry meeting. I enjoyed going because I loved to read my poems and the feedback I would get. Sometimes listening to the other poets was a little tedious. All the arrogance and presumption that they knew what was right and we needed to hear what they said. There was also a certain sound that was easy to identify after being there a few times. The truth is, though, that I was just like them. We were all trying to talk about something indefinable, this truth, this brilliance that is impossible to describe. So we do our best and sound arrogant and air-headed. Cry with frustration and laugh hysterically. That is what it's all about. The poem is supposed to use all the bad qualities of amateur poets to explain a deeper truth. Let me know how successful I was.

P.S. There is a reference to drug use. I don't encourage or have any personal experience with drug use. I just felt it described that airy-headed feeling I was talking about.

I'm Tired

I'm tired of pompous poets who pontificate,
impalatable pap from palatial perches on high.
Who's rhythms roll with righteous regret,
and ramble reckless all featherlight
Their voices soft like marshmallow fields,
bouncing an airy blight
Acid cotton candy and reflex smoked joints sing,
"Duh-duh dee, duh-duh dee, duh-duh die"

I'm tired of courageous erudite,
who speak boldly of racial indigestion
Then turn to prescribe moral fiber
and a dose of gender laxation
Discordant dichotomies dictating differences,
distancing man and wife
Horrendous harmonies that bay and howl,
as a piano played childlike with fork and knife

I'm tired of muddled metaphors,
so mythic and magical mists
Understood by scrivening scholars,
who's screws slipped out a few twists
Tediously typing totemic tokens,
as talismans of titillating delight
Lip service letters levied for lauded lates,
with little depth or luscious insight

I'm tired of searching for beauty
and finding when I close my eyes
That the beauty that's right here before me,
is simply too hard to describe
For when I try to behold it,
with gentle touch or earnest replies
It simply melts into nothing,
but endless mem'ries and goodbyes.

So I put on my pastoral pretext,
and ring with a gingerbread beat
Take a big swig of politic correctol,
and graft simile wings to my feet
Then stand with flare-blinded companions,
staring into the darkness of night
Trying to describe what we have seen there,
without being immodest or trite

And when the last lyric has faded,
from the edge of our fever-cracked lips
I cry with rage at our failure
then laugh when the last circuit trips

by Jeff Couch 1995