December - Poem 3

3 Seconds Flat / Kate Bowers

For Mae and Lane

Here I am reading Moby Dick again in all my privilege, knowing all the things I know that Ahab did not:

·       You can only hold a basketball for 3 seconds once you step inside the key before taking a shot

·       Ferrari’s Spider 488 takes you from 0 to 62 in 3 seconds flat—dead on

·       Flat has been used as an adverb since the sixteenth century to indicate precision, as in a watch’s second hand flat against the 12

·       Batman’s 3 Seconds Bat Vault Combination Unscrambler was much envied by Commissioner Gordon and most 8-year-olds across the U.S., particularly from 1966-1968 

Of course, Ahab knew plenty of things I do not:

·       How to read the stars using astronomical tables and a sextant to find their latitude

·       How to grant no latitude to staff and make them think that it was their own idea to abandon logic

·       Dead Reckoning means using an hourglass and observing the speed of random objects floating past you to determine where you are. This may or may not include acknowledging without qualm that people can be objectified and serve as floatation devices when necessary.

·       Hands of a Compass technically are needed not in order to sail through a typhoon and stay on course. 

·       A life of purpose can consist of impurely pure concentration on prioritizing a singular personal hurt and seeking to assuage this by obliterating all around oneself — including oneself 

As you may have noted, precision was the least of Ahab’s worries, but that 0 to 62 thing? So him.

·       His take on these matters will hold particular and lifelong power over men who are not sailors per se but know of the sea, women too, same.

·       Because it will be retold and told again by a poet of great gifts talking to God from a place where he still trembled.

I think these things while:

·      dressing carefully for my day,

·      winding my hair up with a scarlet ribbon after perfuming it,

·      smoothing Bulgarian rose balm across my skin,

·      feeling my cats still unwatered and unfed,

·      hearing the clock tick for many seconds, minutes really, over a tower of several days mail unopened shivering to fall.

Daily Agenda / Katie Collins

7:30 AM-Wake Up.  Get Ready.  Try not to give in to bed rot.  Wash your hair.  Shave your legs.  Don't forget your deodorant.  

8:30 AM-Leave for work.  On a good day, you'll be ten minutes early.  On a bad day, you'll be five minutes late.  

9:00 AM-Start work.  Do what needs doing and then find a way to keep your inner world alive while you do it.

12:00 PM-Eat Lunch.  Try not to feel guilty for the time you take to eat.  Try not to count the calories.  If you have your headphones, avoid thinking entirely.  It sets a dangerous precedent.    

5:00 PM-Leave work.  Think about stopping at the cute little shop, but don't let yourself give in to the fantasy.

5:30 PM-Get home.  Make dinner.  Eat.  

6:30 PM-Rest.  Read, relax, do anything that makes you feel alive.  As long as it's not too tiring.

7:30 PM-Clean your house.  Wash the dishes, scrub the toilet, fold the towels.  Whatever needs doing.

8:30 PM-Call your mother.  Your father.  Your brother.  Your friend Molly.  You ex-coworker to find out what exactly happened because you saw the slack notifications and now you need to know what you missed.  Don't let yourself be cut off from community.  You need people.

9:30 PM-Exercise.  10,000 steps a day.  1,000 steps a day.  100 steps.  Just as long you -look good- feel good.  

10:30 PM-Write.  Anything you can.  10,000 words.  5,000 words.  100 words.  Five words.  Anything to not lose what you love.  Even if there's less and less space for it.

11:30 PM-Lay down.  Try to stay off your phone.  Try to sleep.  Hope you've done enough.

“I’m flawless” multi-use perfecting concealer – Shade 2.5 “Woke Up Like This” Flawless Foundation – Shade 35    / Ellen Ferguson

Over the years, I remained flawless: woke up like this, I guess.
Yet your excitement waned.
It’s to be expected. What once thrilled, fades.
Remember when we met?
Lingering in the shade between 2 and 3.
Resisting decision. Two? Three? Shade 2.5 your dream, or so it seemed.
Your dream at the time.
Dreams change.
When once you thought you wanted to wake up flawless, shade 35, wake up like this,
It turned out you cared more about nightfall.
When once you thought those back stairs, the ones up from the pantry,
Led to years of multi-use perfecting, you changed:
You wanted something new. Perfect in my shell, flawless in my shine, you wanted to order again.
Not a purchase, but a rental. Flawless, forgotten, forlorn.

Haibun in the shadows / Chris Fong Chew

The color drained from the city as night fell on the empty street. I watched as reds and oranges, yellows, and greens slowly turned into shades of grey, black, and white. I walked between the lampposts watching my shadow move, forward and back, forward and back, the distance from each streetlight moving my shadow forward and back. Every so often I would peer over my shoulder watching out for a second shadow, the unexpected shadow, the dangerous shadow. The one that would be swooping in for the kill. I watched the bushes, listened for any movement, the slightest rustle. The occasional car would come by, headlights blinding, elongating my shadow from a few feet to a few meters long. How malleable light is. This street has become a film noir, harsh overhead light, dim black, white, and grey. As the rain poured, I could not shake the feeling that something, someone, was waiting somewhere. 

the clock ticks forward 
as the shadows move on back 
light plays tricks on me

Rain loves napping on my glasses / Davis Hicks

There are no bundles of clouds,
only the quilt-wash of blue-gray haze,
blessing us with the wet-sweet and the cool-crisp.
It does not quill-cut, 
only pat,
dappling all available, all present.

There are shower-shimmers,
stars twinkling on my lenses,
out of focus reminders
of the still-falling sky.

I could shake it off, as the dogs do,
but it is not such
unpleasant company. Water is soft, 
if only in the landing.

The grasses are dried,
as colorless as they are waterless,
ready for the spice cabinet in all
but the grinding to dust.

The rain, ever chivalrous, undoes such shriveling.
Offering instead that gentle circling comfort, 
a hand on the back of so many days
never meant to be tearless. 

But they pass either way, and jitter invites me inside.
I hear them play their gentle drummings, fingers fiddling across arched roofs.
They sing their strike-song in step-stutter,
dancing the dance of distance, muffled yet fluttering, 
and chair becomes throne-nest, becomes where they hold their chorus-court.
Eyelids become curtains, and I know there is 
such a thing as sleep.

A Vesper for Rosalio / Victor Barnuevo Velasco

Here is the body of Rosalio.
Bless his hairless crown,
his hollowed eyes, the nails
he splintered, the teeth
he ground. Bless his bones —
snapped like twigs.
Bless his skin —
worn to paper.

Here is grandfather. Bless
his veins that no longer carried
the rivers he crossed. Bless
his lungs that no longer fueled
the fields he burned. Bless
his heart that no longer
swore and cursed.

Bless his hands that could
never stitch the wounds
of work. Bless his mouth
that could not describe
what was true. Or what
was loved. Bless his muteness.
His rigidity. Bless what he
had done and what he
had failed to do. Bless
what was lost
and what remained. Bless
everything one day no one
would remember.
Bless his name.

Sisyphus in a Traffic Jam  / Jen Wagner

The modern man,
Is Sisyphus in a traffic jam. 
Waiting,
In neat lines, 
For the light to turn green. 
They no longer flinch at the sunrise. 
That blind (unprotected) eyes. 
Their lives are
Wash.
Rinse.

Repeat. 

The modern man, 
Is Sisyphus with a life that’s a sham. 
Working,
In unending loops. 
For the white picket fences
and two and a half kids. 
(How does one have a half child?)
Every Friday is 
Pizza.
Beer.
Sexless. 

The modern man,
Is Sisyphus with golden cuffs around his hands. 
“Good job.”
They tell him. 
For achieving the things they told you, you wanted. 
Only to wonder. 
Did you 
Ever
even 
Actually
Want them?

The modern man,
Is Sisyphus running the same race the rats can. 
Empty hearts and dirty hands.
It’s time to turn that truck around. 
Find another way around. 
Before it’s too late…
Take. 
A. 
Stand. 

Buzzy / Stacy Walker

Between a question
And an answer,
I wonder
How many options
Exist.

In that pause
Between the two,
I feel a need,
A desperation
For what’s next.

A buzzy feeling inside
Tells me to hurry,
I fill the moments
With a scurrying body
And brain.

Tormented
With the waiting,
I squirm
Through the space
Of the unknown.

But maybe,
An answer isn’t the goal,
In waiting,
The question becomes
Another,
And the stillness
Can tell a story.