A friend and I are writing poems based on a word a day at the moment. Today’s was ‘clockwork’.
Clockwork: 28.3.18
The ancient flow of liquid history over which
A glance at my wristwatch has brought me to rush,
Knows of greater clockwork:
Tertia: the northward race of cog and chain and gear
Then stand to attention at the gate,
The castle of the desk-diary and the spreadsheet.
The Sixth Hour: a rush of suit and tie to convenience
Of plastic bread and stimulant
Or the scholar, mind electric, to his drink.
Hometime: back to below –
Chuffing of axel and wheel
To wives and children home.
And nonetheless the river flows.
Or else, the wax or wane of other wheels:
Two-yoke chariot of crescent moon
Turning hands of pebbled bank along the edges.
At summer, Zenith of the sun ignores
The rites of change in human time:
An hour shifts; the crest remains at after-noon.
What ought that snakelike city scar to think -
Our talk of tick and tock as if in mastery
Of the one who turns the key?
Though written in the codex of the sky and star
As if at Paley’s watch we laugh
And urge the wrist to mark the nine to five.
