Clock

Us stuck in traffic, minutes’ small stumbling block. All well at home, or homesick. Eh, what’s up, Doc? The sound is slick, a gift or shock. Give it the flick, it will sit and mock. The moment it picks, solid as a rock. As surely it out-tricks footfalls’ lock-step lock. Then, again there’s a click. For whom does it knock? Metal verbal schtick, oscillator’s schlock, nitpicker’s frolic, Time Lord’s phonebox. Pendulum’s uptick, pendulum’s downtock. It makes sticklers sick, timeserver’s take stock. Seconds servings forensic, hours unlocked, locked. Hands perfectly quick, a face just like a [clock], stopped or not stopped.  

Us stuck in traffic

Minutes’ small stumbling block.

All well at home, or homesick.

Eh, what’s up, Doc?

The sound is slick

A gift or shock,

Give it the flick

It will sit and mock.

The moment it picks

Solid as a rock.

As surely it out-tricks

Footfalls’ lock-step lock.  

Then, again there’s a click

For whom does it knock?

Metal verbal schtick

Oscillator’s schlock,

Nitpicker’s frolic

Time Lord’s phonebox.

Pendulum’s uptick

Pendulum’s downtock.  

It makes sticklers sick,

Timeserver’s take stock.

Seconds servings forensic,

Hours unlocked, locked.

Hands perfectly quick,

A face just like a [clock]

Stopped or not stopped.

 

 

 

Clock

 

Glistening cold grey sea, rainbow tree dawn.

Squalls are cockatoos, laugh a kookaburra.

Houses discover shadows, their former forms.

Light colours everything good and thorough.

Glass face resumes its imperious look.

Six o’clock points both to heaven and hell.

Seven forgets all the work that it took.

Square face for ten dollars with alarm bell

Stays put, emotionless, amidst the objects:

Spectacles to re-wipe where night lines left off,

Money jar’s pillar of silver gold subjects,

Crystal bowl filled with key-rings and stuff. 

Writers awake with metaphors to settle.

Others get up and put on the kettle.

Clock (November)

Its ridiculous alarm. Its tendentious numbers. Its very tiresome wakefulness. Its intrusive roundness. Its insufferable squareness. Its very insistent tic. Its Swiss manners. Its American omniscience. Its very Chinese structures. Its Monday predictability. Its November niceness. Its very millennial mindset. Its stressful accuracy. Its demanding precision. Its almost unnatural perfectionism. Its circus arms. Its unflinching face. Its very small brain. Its holiday countdown. Its examination blues. Its very unavoidable deadline. Its total indifference. Its infernal inference. Its very untimely entrance. Its entropic stupidity. Its fallible slowing. Its very abject stop-work. Its bung battery. Its dead beat. Its very sorry, not.

Clock (April)

He never reads headlines, has no prior awareness. Or is clock she, never straining for effect, never at a loss for something to say? Clock has an unassuming significant look. She drops soft surprises, won’t let us forget. She’s persuasive, her non-argumentative hands close arguments. Though some say he, fixed on regulations, nothing if not predictable. Tense making: after a breakdown we wind him up. Though he, she, they all of them are it, sitting about ticking off the minutes. It sticks to its position, scarcely moves a fraction. April or August, it’s the same old sounds from time immemorial.