this is not a poem
          
          

                       *just a mere

image
consisting of

                                         straight lines
and curves

Tick tock tick
Time runs out
Tick tock tick
I am here
Tick tock tick
I am gone
Why do we measure life
with the sound of
Tick tock tick?
Love. Friends. Life.
What is more important?

Tick. Tock. Tick. The bell chimes.
Where does the time go?
I am non-existent.
Tick tock tick.
I am here.
Tick tock tick.
I am gone again.

Silence.
Is it horrifying that time flies?
Tick
Is it a comfort to know
Tock
Our time flies, burning out like
Tick
A candle in the night?
Tock.
The clock winds down.

On the other side
of my over  
                 thinking

I’ve come to realize I still have
more questions
                         than answers

The future feels just the same as
it did ten years ago when my now
was my future
                       then

Friends are more often
thought about
                       than visited

when later today turns into tomorrow
and tomorrow turns  
                                into this weekend
and then next weekend
once a month  
                        whenever you can

because time pushes us all into
this strange thing
                            called Life

and it’s full of all kinds of *******
designed to rob you of
your money
                    your sanity
                                       your time

but don’t let this discourage you
from greeting tomorrow
                                      with open arms

and a head full of more questions
than answers

The magic doesn’t seem
to happen as often,
but on the days it does

You have a good day at work,
you pay all the monthly bills on time,
your schedule syncs with an old
college friend and you meet for
coffee, or street tacos from a
local food trailer, or you shoot
pool and whiskey at a dive bar
early Saturday evening

and it feels like the old times again,
and you learn the things you did
were your first stumblings into
adulthood and even though they
sometimes change the way you walk
forever, it’s those times you discover
again when you start your third game
and the songs you queued on the jukebox
start playing and now that you can enjoy
the taste of good whiskey more than the
quantity of well, and all the loose fragments
of the memories we carry every day, left open
on the table in a journal with more strikeout
lines than unmolested phrases all become
complete with each corner pocket called
shot, each memory recalled and retold with
language alluding Greek Epics and Shakespearean
Tragedies,

It all starts to make more sense in ways
and stops making sense in others,

and the future is the same as it always was

some things
                    you can change,
some people
                    you can keep
some days
                  turn into weeks,
                  months, and years
                  trying to make sense
of what’s coming,
of what’s gone,
of just what, exactly,
                                we have now.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Has nobody realised that it can drive a man insane?
Wasting your life away watching the rotating hands.
Daylight Savings just seems like a cruel joke.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
For Christ’s sake, make it stop.
A constant reminder that we’re dying.
Drinking too much alcohol and writing lazy poems.
We’re young now but it will watch us grow old.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
No more.

Rip it from the wall,
Torture a confession out of it,
Leave it broken on the floor,
Shattered like the hearts of feeble lovers who let it **** them.

We shall overcome.

Near frost early morning,
Packed bags squeezed
Into the old Oldsmobile,
Ready to leave for college.

I kissed my mother,
Said good-bye,
Held her tight.

My father passed us,
Moving over stones,
Carrying two buckets
On his way to cows
And milking.

I couldn't see his face...
Had no idea.

"Art, are you going to say good-bye?"
I heard my mother say.

The words arrested him.
All movement stopped.
Shoulders hunched,
He slowly set the buckets down.

Turning was agony,
I saw,
As though his efforts
Somehow jarred the world,
Disrupted natural order, and
Acknowledged chaos come at last.

Forty years later,
I still see my father's face
Coursing silent tears,
And watch his shoulders shake.

Then we embraced,
We two,
And both were torn
With my leaving.

I knew with certainty
My father's love
That morning,
Leaving home.