MUSCLE FAILURE

an unrhymed blues, an unformed villanelle

by Sadie Ducet

Image source: Black Agenda Report

Somewhere between his death and the time it took

for outrage to find my community we lost

an hour in the morning, gained an hour in the afternoon

so the sun hangs, belting a disbelieving blues.

I join the suburban ballet shuttling kids

between activities and lessons, between his death

and the time it took a young writer

to ask me How do you write about violence?

I don’t, I say. Not violence per se. Not about it.

If there’s violence seeping up out of the poem,

like night coming on, that’s called losing an hour

in the morning, gaining an hour after noon

in the slow descent. What I mean is,

let me tell you about the workouts at my gym:

between his death and the time it took,

it’s all resistance. We push and lift against ourselves

until we can’t go further, holding the pose,

suspended for an hour in the afternoon.

Teeth gritted til the count is done,

that’s where I’m at, sidled up

somewhere between his death and the time it takes.

Between his death and the time it takes.

Sadie Ducet's poems appear here and there, curated by Sarah Busse, who is one of two current Poets Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin, and the co-editor of Verse Wisconsin.

THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY

by Blaise Allen

For years, I thought not wearing a watch

would protect me from the passage

of time, refused to wear them, stayed

ignorant of passing hours and minutes.

After all, we have cell phones if we really need

to know. The sun rises when I wake to pee.

It sets at dinner time, depending on the season.

Sleep happens, never according to schedule.

It’s not my own life I fear rusting away in bits:

It’s the tarnish in my dad’s hair, the scars

from heart surgery on my mother’s body,

my younger sister’s wrinkles, and mid-life grays.

It’s the dog going blind. My husband’s painful

arthritis.  And, the certain knowing, that one of us

will leave before the other. Banish that thought:

along with watches, things that tock, and balls dropping

as we count down final seconds to the New Year.

It’s the fervent wish to outlaw every clock. To melt

all time-keepers in the desert as in Dali’s landscape.

To bend time to our liking, forgo the relative end   

 of our ticking.

Blaise Allen, Ph.D. lives in South Florida and is the Director of Community Outreach for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.

STATE OF CONFUSION

by JC Sullivan

she’s visited before
but no one paid much attention, unlike Father Time
she gives everyone a second chance

so again she nudges
asks greed, propaganda and violence to please
take a back seat and when they refuse, she turns
to her female wiles

snatching up electric power, along the Eastern seaboard she dances
her full moon transforms into a terrifying tidal wave
her winds make Atlantic City a personal play thing, she
darkens Broadway
causes public transportation to cease and
beats the billionaires as she forces Wall Street to close!

Sandy
in a cacophony of travel advisories and evacuations,
burst through this crucial Election year
besting both Obama and Romney                                     uniting red states and blue states

reminding us that
Mother Nature

is stronger ... than us all.

Having been a featured poet in Los Angeles and Buenos Aires, JC Sullivan fled the cubicle in 2007. A backpacking addict, she's in Mexico practicing life as an adventure to be explored. Reach her at Poetrybyjc(at)yahoo.com.