“Muzzle Velocity”, “In the year before the last year” and “Any street”

By Marc Swan

Muzzle Velocity

Some would say chipping away 

but leveling with a blow torch 

is closer to the truth

Just over a month

and the world we once knew 

shutters in disbelief

Services and programs taken 

for granted

down sized, eliminated,

cut to shreds

Where will federal workers go

somebody said   An afterthought

in these dizzying times 

of muzzle velocity

exploding into media head on   

The juiciest story

gets the byline 

as other atrocities splash

into our daily lives 

like venom milked

from a coiled rattlesnake 

---

In the years before the last year

she would sit in a green recliner and drink iced tea,

eat shortbread cookies and boxes of Sun-maid raisins

watching CNN Headline news by the hour,

and when she had to get up

her eyes cast a dark shadow on the narrow hallway

as she turned away from the open slider 

to the sun room nearby.

It was her fingers and toes that caused her 

to weary before the clock

struck nine. She said it was ant bites 

when she was much younger. 

I never tested that theory. I saw the inflammation 

wrenching strength and mobility 

from aging fingers and toes,

the other parts less visible.

She wore wide shoes, sometimes none at all. 

Her feet bent sideways, toes curved like

scimitars in a Kirk Douglas film, 

fingers twisted, knuckles 

swollen and sore,

her eyes saw changes she never imagined.

---

Any Street

It’s cold and the wind makes it colder

and the news adds to the chill

I’m in a warm spot 

in front of the fireplace listening 

to Eva Cassidy sing Imagine

and I think of a world 

where we could live together as one  

then I think of this time of upheaval

where people on Any Street

can barely live together as one 

and my heart pounds   

not in fear 

but sadness 

that this is what we’ve become

then I watch the news of the LA fire

and see everyday people

not movie stars or billionaires

regular folks living side by side

working side by side 

with garden hoses and shovels 

in the spirit of every one staying alive

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