On the Clock: Time Fights for its Right to be Free
A clock is a man-made orbit
that paces it’s own cage
It’s round like a planet
made in its image
a mechanical nightingale
of gilded numbers
Alarm sounding
Money counting
Score keeping
Beeping blinking
Meter ticking
Rat racing
Fast pacing
Yo yo yanking
Bomb
In every single home
It’s ticking…………
Like an installed dictator
a slave whipping master
A clock is an industrial implant
of imposed structure
a wind-up drummer
we march to
It’s a time impostor
dream spell plot
that distracts us from our beating hearts
It’s an artificial life support system
A propped-up, plugged in
subliminal intervention
A perpetual cuckoo
with an unflinching stare
With the sleight of its hands
it makes the present disappear
Let the clock stop
It’s hypnotic talk
Let the clock stop
Let it stop
Let it stop
Turn it off
Post Notes: By my best guess I wrote this poem sometime in the mid 90’s. It was performed by Women of the 7th Veil, an improv-movement poetry troupe I belonged to, at the Teahouse Jam/Altared Space Gallery, which is now Oddfellas Cantina. You can see a rare photo of the troupe (Jayn Avery, me and Katherine Chantal) performing HERE. More dVerse poets posting for the Open Link Pub HERE.
December 13th, 2011 11:56 am
Yes! In my house, the clocks are placed so that you don’t see them unless you want to see them. Not a construct of which I wish to be constantly reminded.
December 13th, 2011 1:05 pm
I am currently trying to find a new alarm clock and have tried three that I’ve been unhappy with because they light up the room at night too bright. I want to see the time when I wake up but I don’t want to be waken up in the middle of the night and feel like a spaceship has landed.
I remember reading this poem during Y2K when we thought the time glitch on computers could shut down the world.
December 13th, 2011 4:19 pm
wow powerful write…esp with this time of year…a cage a ticking bomb…love all the allusions and yes we let it take control…time to take it back…
December 13th, 2011 5:15 pm
I will never have a grandfather clock in my house, gave away my mother-in-law’s, and now have a small chiming mantel clock that I never wind. Cannot bare reminders of the passage of time.
December 13th, 2011 6:28 pm
WOW! I remember you not liking clocks or watches. You always said to me, “I want to eat when I am hungry:…..not because the clock says it is time for me to eat”!
December 13th, 2011 7:28 pm
Just tick-tick-ticking away…curious thought, time yearning to break free of clockwork boundaries. Speaks to a basic truth of the world: we need to break those shackles…
December 13th, 2011 8:31 pm
Clocks are such an evil creation, making us go own the rat race, at some fast pace. Wish they would all just up and break.
December 13th, 2011 8:46 pm
Oh my! Can you imagine the freedom that would come if we could get rid of the vile little beasts. I wish days away counting seconds! Loved this!
December 13th, 2011 8:56 pm
A powerful write that we all relate to. 🙂
December 13th, 2011 10:36 pm
I am a perpetual cuckoo too.
December 14th, 2011 12:58 am
What an excellent poem on the concept of time! Time exists, I believe, only in this physical reality. I have experienced a dimension, through out-of-body experiences, where time does not exist.
December 14th, 2011 9:06 am
Such a powerful and evocative piece about the clocks that run our lives. Amazing that you found it..so many years later and re-posted it here. Love it!
December 14th, 2011 2:48 pm
Outstanding piece!
December 14th, 2011 8:54 pm
I, too, have felt myself a slave of clocks and wondered about the kind of time that must be perceived by other creatures, like hummingbirds or whales. Faster for one, slower for another?
Then there’s airline time, public meeting time, political time — everybody always running late by our clock.
And I have always wanted a clock that would adjust its hours seasonally so there would always be 12 hours of daylight and 12 of darkness. Would solve the whole Daylight Savings problem — an in the winter night hours would be longer (though still 60 “minutes”). Imagine!
December 15th, 2011 4:02 pm
you have no idea how much this spoke to me…was running hard against the clock..and always heard it ticking..Rat racing…Fast pacing..oh yes.. fine poem colleen
December 29th, 2011 9:35 pm
Very nice. Thanks for introducing me to your world!
September 13th, 2012 3:50 pm
[…] 12. It’s an artificial life support system / A propped-up, plugged in / subliminal intervention / A perpetual cuckoo / with an unflinching stare / With the sleight of its hands / it makes the present disappear … Read the rest of the On the Clock: Time Fights for its Right to be Free HERE. […]