All the Time Blues Villanelle

Hard to watch somebody lose their mind
Maybe everybody    should just go get stoned
My father said it happens all the time

I knew a woman    lost her to soul to wine
But who doesn’t live with their life on loan?
Shame to watch somebody lose their mind

Don’tchu gotta wonder when people say they’re fine?
Given what we’re given, I guess they actin grown
I think I used to say that      all the time

When my parents died, I coined a little shrine
And thought about all the stuff they used to own
Felt like I was gonna lose my mind

Used to have a friend    who smiled all the time
Then he started sayin he could hear the devil moan
Hate to see a brotha lose his gotdam mind

Doesn’t matter how you pull, the hours break the line
Mirror, Mirror on the wall, how come nobody’s home?
Broke my soul for real, when my mother lost her mind

Tried to keep my head right, but sanity’s a climb
Been workin on the straight face—I guess my cover’s blown
My father tried to tell me     all the time

Had one last question, baby, but maybe never mind
After’while, even springtime starts to drone

Hard to see somebody lose their mind
My pop said, “Boy, it happens all the time”

Copyright © 2022 by Tim Seibles. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 21, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“I wrote this poem in the year after my parents died. I had struggled to speak about this loss, but eventually something my father said came to me and the writing began. I’ve always loved the blues—the raw feelings captured in melody, the language play concerning varieties of damage to the heart—and the villanelle, with its agile repetitions, seems to echo the blues. Both forms evolved from work songs. I love the way rhythm and rhyme tacitly nudge us toward singing, and song carries away some of the ache of sorrow.”
—Tim Seibles