Eleven-Nineteen Poem by Andrew Jones

My master loved schedules, precision, exactness.
He hated the flexible fluidity of wine-stained, mule buyers

To shame them he ventured to vocative vocation
Fashioning furniture sure to outlast them

But I was his masterpiece, all must admit
for I had embodied his publicized prophecy:

All men must die.

He handiworked messages into my flesh
Entombed into history, buried in sweat

Atop me a scythed-lord watches and waits,
Wielding death's weapon on all who draw near.

Beneath me a sentinel goddess and crane
both play vigilante, stab back at decay

My master knew dust's veiled hospitality
But craved for me crass immortality

Tortoise shell, ebony, brass, and enamel
He homed me for show in slow, dense cavities.

I stand here today, shipped over oceans.
Enduring the goggling of hipsters and critics.

My sweet master's message still reaches them all
New customers stare at my impotent hands

The prophecy detonates though I lie still
Eleven - Nineteen is when I was killed

This museum's my tomb, this hall my grave,
This furniture family, all dead on display.

The message I heralded, mirrors to me:

All clocks must stop.