Clocks Poems

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
...

Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
...

Elan that lifts me above the clouds
into pure space, timeless, yea eternal
Breath transmuted into words
Transmuted back to breath
...

arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
...

1. Cogida and death

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
...

Things get broken
at home
like they were pushed
by an invisible, deliberate smasher.
...

Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing
Now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind

Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace
...

For my poems, my friend Valsa George has a hunger.
She’s over fifty, but, compared to me, she is younger.
She suggested I write about ‘the advantages of being old’.
It’s a challenge, but, Valsa, on this idea you have sold......
...

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.
downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
...

My friends without shields walk on the target

It is late the windows are breaking
...

We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
...

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
have someone to sit by and be with.
I would like to cradle you and softly sing,
be your companion while you sleep or wake.
...

There was a time when in late afternoon
The four-o'clocks would fold up at day's close
Pink-white in prayer, and 'neath the floating moon
I lay with them in calm and sweet repose.
...

WHEN daisies pied and violets blue,
   And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
   Do paint the meadows with delight,
...

Tell me not, in doctored numbers,
Life is but a name for work!
For the labour that encumbers
Me I wish that I could shirk.
...

One day people will touch and talk perhaps
easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as
sunlight,
...

The sounds of home greet me
the trickling sound of the fish tank
my mother's eccentric cackling
and my step father's loud voice
...

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
...

THEY sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
...

Middle-aged life is merry, and I love to
lead it,
But there comes a day when your eyes
are all right but your arm isn't long
...

The unemployed watchmakers have gone out
to put a stop to time by any means necessary
the mechanical clocks took up the fight
mechanical clocks stopped
...

fascinating age of atomic clocks cellphones
replacing worn wrist watch seen alarm clocks
it is easy to forget importance of light shadow
...

Before you wake up
You notice its night
Blaming biological clocks
Feels so right
...

Time changes with life and life changes with time.
October grows too old,
Hobbling backwards
With the burden of years,
...

In prison while doing time they even cage the clocks
they're scared one might kill oneself with it! M
...

We shared so many happy times, sitting by the fire me, listening to your stories, of sadness and hard times. You were the life and soul of our parties at Christmas and New Year, always singing here in my heart by Al Martino with such emotion, dear Mother. You left behind so many cherised memories that stay with me! When you passed all the clocks stopped and my world was on hold, a huge void lay ahead. Without you these twenty one years feels like it was yesterday, but you said don't cry me Michael, if I depart this life, as Jesus will open a door for me and I will enter his world. So knowing that you are in his all encompassing heart gives me inner peace and a unique insight into his love for each one of us who know the holy spirit through the Lord of Light.
...

Four seasons, that's all -
Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.
Change clocks on the wall!
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How had it been the clocks,
Tower clocks,
Table clocks,
Wall clocks,
...

My father's days were ruled by the tick of clocks
Punctuality was his watchword
He was a genuine time piece
He kept my grandfather's waistcoat watch on a chain
...

Breathing of seconds - off digital clocks, cast iron church bells and distant, hard-fought memories,
The pacing of life,
The purpose of days - together, apart,
This journey half sung rings loud now,
...