Clock
by Sandy Florian

Water dripping through a hole in a jar.  Or.  Sand dripping through two hollows coned together.  The downy head of a dandelion in seed.  Or.  The core of an apple.  As.  Take an apple and peal him, and cut out the clocks thereof.  But.  If the spin of the globe is used as a counter, you draw twelve numbers on the rounded face and depress a pin. You look to the sky and articulate the hour.  Then.  Wind it up and hear how it hums.  While I, wandering through the Museum of My Body Parts, ask you to tell me the story of time.

You say, See here.  In plain sight are the weights which furnish the power.  The pendulum which regulates speed.  Up and behind is a Chinese puzzle of wheels.  The pendulum is hung by a thin spring of steal.  The cord from which the weight hangs is wrapped around the barrel.  Like the rope on the windlass of a boat at sea.  Push the pendulum and the pulse wakes up.  Like the palace in the story of Sleeping Beauty.  But.  If the globe now spins more slowly than it did a million years ago, I don’t know this fairy and ask you to tell me the tale.

A muzzled dog, chained, runs circles around a rabid tree in the tropics.  Thus, although we cannot live, we are bothered by talking.

You say, Measurement. I say, Certainly.  But I have my doubts.  First, this pendulum falls to sleep with the same disease of dreams.  Rigor mortis settles on my hands the same way cold settles on a lake.  Or.  The hands of the clock.  Joints lock and the muscles contract.  Language is made law by the man in cloak.  And, yes, I know the globe still spins, but this grandfather of gravity has no face at all.

For ordinary purposes, the face of the sun and moon.  Or.  The shadows of the tree.  The position of the stars at night.  In prose, you say, To discover the state of things.  Or.  A scheme in bombing.  But when I ask you to tell me the story of time and why the clock strikes no more, you say that you cannot remember ever asking me to dance.

[Note: This poem was first published in Versal, vol. 3. Check out Versal, a journal based in the Netherlands, at http://versal.wordsinhere.com]

Other poems by Sandy Florian in ActionYes #3:
Carnival
Roulette