Killing Time

“Just Killing Time” by Tommie Olofsson

 

smashing clocks

with delicious

delirious anger

fed up with the

cruelty of time

bash the face

break the hands

kill the tick-tock

that arrogant

voice of a thief

sneering even

while dying in

grip of your rage

like he thinks

you a fool like he

knows something

special a secret to

take to his grave

 

 

From my book Small Noise

Tempus Edax Rerum

 

Image by Wojtek Jarco

 

 

all my clocks
and my watchfaces
talk to each other
incessantly
sounding their
maddening chorus
of tick-tocking
stern inquisition
determined to find
which unsynchronized
self-expressed
time tells the truth

but in all of these
years with their
billions of seconds
not one has proved
guilty of virtue
and I am left
ignorant knowing
for certain if none
of my moments
are accurate
I must have
never existed

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Cancel Morning

 

Photo by Shutterbug74

(Originally posted February 2014)
 

 

what grows in the winter but the cold
pushes lengthening fingers of frost
along sidewalks and down dead-end streets
up the stairs into parlors no purpose
at hand but to freeze every clock and
with that put a stop to the end of the night

Disappearance

“Watercolor Eye” by rahmschnitzel

the clocks in the eyes

give off silent alarms

overwhelmed by

unwelcome abundance

of aqueous humor

trabecula turned to

embezzling time

an insidious draining

of ocular life through a

terrible tunnel without

any light at its end

Timepiece

Image From hdwallpapers.com

asleep in the now

awake in the then

from my window

the ground crystal

face of this timepiece

parades the past

into my view

fresh and new

flesh and blood

full of youth that

had died of old age

words and insights

long since become

quaint once again

apt and timely

old years drained

of sepia tints given

back to their living

original colors

each piece of each

year caught in

stutter-stop sweep

of a secondhand

pointed at memories

mostly forgotten

no place for a future

in exhales of gears

in the whispered

precisions of

movements or

tacit escapements

whose energy

transmutes the past

into present

…..the present

……….the present

……………the present

Another New Year

 

“Clockworks” by Jessica Rice

 

 

almost time to rewind
add new tocks to my clock
turn the key in my navel
ratchet my workings
but each turn gives hint
my mainspring
escapement
and balance wheel
will not endure
many more
tightly wound
new mechanical years

aging analog gears
obsolete
in the reign of electrons
familiar old internal ticks
sound increasingly lonely
among smooth
atomical ambient
quantums of silence
my human machine
bears no warrants
beyond its organic
quaint custom of
lifetime guarantee

I used to love time
at a time
when I thought
time was endless

 

 

From my book Onionskin

Regulator

Bulova Ashford
RegulatorSchoolhouse Clock
Photo from princetonwatches.com

articulate octagon

speaking of time

annunciates crisp

startling ticks each

alone in its moment

creating a standstill

of silence to separate

one from the other

effective detachments

a series of movements

a marching in circles

precise of a progress

escapement attuned

to invisible action

of gravity pulling

young life stop-and-go

stop-and-go through

the sway-weight of

seconds of minutes

that mark out the

schoolhouse experience

leaving their lasting

impressions on minds

unaware just how much

they’ll remember

Fooling Einstein

 

Image From Pinterest

 

 

when time ticks too loud
watch your clocks through a mirror
become young again

 

 

From my books Small Noise and Riverthink

 

Long About Midnight

Photo from jjsanders.wordpress.com

11:59 pm…

wakefulness spent
in uncertainty
fumbling for faith
caught in clockworks
makes filigreed hands
sweep in stutter-steps
knowledge and truth
trapped in hesitant
chase over doubts
cracking faces
of rational thought
lacking trust
reason fails to fill
gaps in experience
moments unlived
foil endeavors
designed to achieve
full expression
of life in the pure
perfection of time

12:00 Midnight…

the cleaving point
splitting existence
with temporal blade
between daylight and dark
colored active and passive
before cut from after
cerebral the rift
shifting instant
sinks consciousness
under its physics
behind rising dreams
that Morpheus lifts
unconstrained by the
drag weight of reason
form taking on shape
of abstraction
when freely received
dares to manifest
mean metaphysic
of life in the pure
perfection of faith

12:01 am…

the subconscious mind
unfamiliar with logic
retrieves tandem
shunned opportunities
down among spring
coil and flywheel
restoring the whole
of immortal experience
meshing the past
that is known
with the future of all
that is possible
giving the movement
perpetual gear with
jeweled cadence
to drive its escapement
with smooth whispered
tick-tock
of life in the pure
perfection of soul