“Feeling Sequimish”
Mark Couhig
Contact Mark at mcouhig@sequimgazette.com
Mark Couhig has been a writer for more than 50 years.  
His first experience with the written word arrived at a very early age when he was required to painstakingly hand-trace dotted lines in a notebook, a process that led first to a mastery of the straight, purely angular letters of the English alphabet. He soon turned his attention to the curved letters, exhibiting a full proficiency in that skill by the end of his seventh year.
Before another year had passed, Couhig had begun to cluster letters into meaningful compositions, an accomplishment for which he was awarded a coveted gold star, the first-ever public acknowledgement of his extraordinary aptitude with words.
In time he would take these words and strategically create further clusters, which he called “sentences.”
Paragraphs soon followed.
In the third grade Couhig learned the skill of cursive writing, allowing him to greatly expand and accelerate his output.
Over the ensuing months and years Couhig’s now-renown facility for dramatic narrative developed. He was able to work the delicate filigree of fiction — dramatic, purposeful action that engages the reader — to a degree that astonished Ms. Sweeney, his teacher and mentor. Of one of Couhig’s early works, “Run, Tom, Run,” she wrote, “I’m so proud of you.”  
As his facility with words grew, so too did his worldview, aided in part by his assiduous readings of “The Weekly Reader,” which he continues to regard as a formative influence in his later, more mature works.
In the fifth grade, Couhig’s repertoire and love of the written word translated to a sterling turn on the stage as Shepherd No. 3 in a new and dynamic dramatic reading of the Gospel According to Luke, a popular work of the time.
Approximately 50 years later Couhig moved to Sequim where he writes a blog.  

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to an all-expenses-paid two week vacation in Cancun?
Thou art less lovely but more temperate.
Sweet coeds do shake their darling buds of May,
but rough goons the sand stir with their hairy toes.
Oftimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
and Budweiser is two dollars and fifty cents. A piece.
Every spring break must in times be broken;
its revelers broke as well.
But thou remain perpetually in want; of t-shirts,
piercings and tats; the eternal triumvirate.
But like tattoos the days do drag and wither;
and regret rises certain as the morning gorge, and yet:
    So long as men can swill, or eyes can blear
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


The red marshmallow

so much depends
upon
a red
marshmallow
blazing
from camp
fire
before the Hershey’s
and graham.


The broad lest taken

Two broads departed in a yellow Civic
and apologetic I could not travel both
and be one of three, long I stood
and watched them out of sight,
to where they took the short cut to Clinton.
Then returned did I to home where waited
one less fair, but having the better claim,
because she was classy and not wanting wear.
Though as for the passing there,
had by now worn her woefully.
And she that morning equanimiously lay,
within the blankets and TV trays.
Oh, I had kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I knew forever I would be back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh,
somewhere ages and ages hence:
two broads departed in a yellow Civic,
and I — I chose the one less attractive,
and that has made all the inheritance.


The dog

The dog crouches    
on four little feet.    
 
Its face scrunched    
in confusion and pain    
it does its business             
and then moves on.