Tick-Tock [poem]
A clock chimes — and lifestyles are defined
by time’s relentless cowardly march as
tock after tock kills tick with serial precision
in unforgiving jackboot waves of rhyme.
This orbly sphere spins crazily both on its axis
and around our burning solar centrum heart
which thus enables us to measure what we
think of in our heads as something starting
going forwards shunting shifting from a former
backwards place (but nothing really moves).
There is no left or right or up or down or even
upside-down or inside-out or months or years
or anything our teachers (bless their cotton socks)
in all their ignorance of waves and vibes
and energy or whatyouwanttocallit whizzing
pulsing bleeping everywhere and nowhere
like a stroboscopic stun gun rendering us
blind and dumbly deaf unless we welcome
crumbs and smatterings of life (and death).
Appointment books are tinctured with
a plethora of what we call white lies;
and pallid green illusive trysts melt from
the pages like the leaves of elms in Autumn’s
swellful breeze and nothing’s easy here to
comprehend unless the mind dissolves
its doll or robot diadems (we then ascend).
Glimpsing every moment’s truth is understood
by lion tamers drowning sailors victims of
the jaws of sharks and angry alligators —
or, in fact, the grasp of any brave adventurer
who knows which side the bread is buttered on.
Future past imperfect — all are suave impostors
selling you a rosy-coloured-water wine;
a magpie’s hoard; a sun which cannot shine;
a goldless Labrador; a discontinued product line.
The only real and honest time to know is now
and now
and now
and now
and every moment glows.
.
.
© Alan Morrison, 2013
The Naked Troubadour 