#circadian
Dark and cold
Day and night
Circadian crash
Cortisol spike
How do they hold on
Those cold weather beast
Out there in the elements
No turkey to feast
I hope you're basking in the sun
Counting your blessings
Up here in the north
The sun's been missing
I hope somehow you all enjoy a beautiful Thanksgiving.
Nov 28, 2024
Nov 28, 2024 at 10:45 AM UTC
< I >
Day arc begins. The sunflower class gazes lovingly skyward at their fire-star teacher. The newest pupils chin-strain in awe-focused attention. Reverent but energetic, their heads smooth-turn gradually westward towards their warm reward. Their blooms are a balmy destination for sunning bees. Perfect timing, rippling into the world…
A sage watched his plants while his plants tracked the sun
He thought that it wasn’t worth noting
that petals would right to keep facing the light
as the sun-facing side was selectively dried
So sagely inquiry was done
Until the idea could receive its refloating
A physical botanist noticed the same
He took it a logic step further
His plants were all placed and completely encased
in a darkness-bound dock for a turn of the clock
The plants kept rotating their aim
And he was the first timing rhythm observer
The more he considered, the more he was sure
He could, based on solid deduction,
with confidence say that they acted this way
Through an inner intense, sunlight following sense
And urged folks to study this more
With rigours of research and science instruction
Years later, two scientists lived in a cave
A one-month foray in spelunking
Still, noiseless and lightless, the cave was all timeless
Just like the plant dock, but encased in cave rock
Their temperature curves did not change
So humans and plants had some notes to exchange…
--
< II >
People invent fake sunlight. Industry never stops. A timeless, tiring blur of day into night. We sit, pale and caffeinated. A world blinking fluorescent and midnight grey. A modern, diurnal nightmare. Timing battles fought from the inside…
Perched aside the optic nerve
Perfect clock inside the brain
Captured sunlight through the eye
Keeps us synched to night and day
Time and time again
Crossing zones will lead to lags
Clock and earth fall out of step
Difficult to sleep or wake
Model it to count the cost
Measured sleeping debt
Scientists find many clocks
Timing marked out body-wide
Liver, kidney, stomach, skin
Hair and muscle, pancreas
All with clocks inside
Timing cues from inside out
Hormones and adrenal glands
Exercise, consuming food
Drinking, sleeping, changing mood
Moving clockwork hands
*It’s tricky, said the shiftworker
I’m in a real to-do
My stomach thinks it’s ten am, my liver, half past two
My kidneys think it’s yesterday
My muscles Monday night
My brain in concert with the earth, keeps timing by the light
And all I want is sugar and a quiet kiss goodnight*
Stomach, head, and heart in flux
Health and safety chrono-shock
Out of synch with social norms
Shiftworkers are precious hands
Pulled around-the-clock
Invisible clocks set with sun-travel springs
A hidden existence in all living things
Oct 26, 2024
Oct 26, 2024 at 3:22 AM UTC
Snow Sleep
the promise~warning of a fresh snow delivery
by milky white angels alters the soundscape
of the city; the early traffic is major muted; the
boisterous, ribald ribbing of teenage competition
is put away in the drawer, reserved for weekend
snow ball fights and Central Park mountain sledding
but what I come to tell you is of my beloved, who nearby,
advantaged by the silence deep sleeps in the ultra
quiet of the bedroom for I have tiptoed lightly away,
nary a squeak or a tweet to sting or wrest the cool
comfort of the concoction of dark+chocolate combo
of absolute silence, the political commentators must now wait their turn, while supping my endless Blue Mountain white mug
yes, even I, wide awake for hours, sense the ulterior
sensory deprivation, the only noise is the windage
of the air conditioning that refrigerates its humming
and the body’s humming response, a choral harmony
of shhhhh…
why matters this to you, I do not know, perhaps
a mutuality of recognition as your children exercise
their snow day privileges, letting you off the hook,
for there is always tomorrow when the dragging-
out-of-bed, the stomping of snow boots, and pleas
to help them find their hidden scarfs and gloves cannot
go ignored, or be silenced…today, this sound of snow~sleep,
a rarity for us city dwellers, who, the unfortunate few, will soon venture forth to meet obligations, completecontracts, open the shop,
write the reports and do the daily diurnal or place calls to counterparts overseas to jointly prognosticate the future of
the next twenty four, but with a snowy lethargy
I write, this, to you, to my children, to the world, but
mostly to my beloved, who, drugged by snow~sleep,
yet to stir, sleeps a soundless sleep of….
*wait-a-minute, 8:00am, and I hear a bellow of hello,
a lighthouse sound of warning, and kitchen noises,
the cicadas of circadian rhythms cannot be held back,
triumphantly awaken her, the habits of a lifetime
cannot be overcome…*
8:04am
nyc
2/13/24
Feb 13, 2024
Feb 13, 2024 at 8:15 AM UTC
We sleep
To escape the reality
And wakeup
To escape the dream
And the time
In between
It's life
That simple
Sep 23, 2020
Sep 23, 2020 at 1:16 AM UTC
Artificial city-dwellers
Discard all humanity
Carbon fired tin cans
Pierce the serenity.
Anonymous collisions
Fifty floors below
Each passer by a stranger
You will never know.
Pedestrians, travellers
And their vehicles
Droplets in a river,
Altering the tidal flow.
Irrigation passages
Absorb the elements
Hedge fund panellists,
Bankers and workers flee.
Eye rolling baby boomers
Sit, tutting one by one.
Nervous millennials adorned
In clothes for moths to eat.
Breaking point carriages
Century old tunnelling
A lone foot tapping
And quiet page turning.
Brakes hit the track
Piercing the murmur
Eighty jarred necks
External motion blur.
Sliding carriage doors
A not-so-subtle beep
Dust kicked from dawn
Falls onto the city streets.
Blue tower inhabitants
Busting out of the seams
Water molecules collide
But nothing sinks the fleet.
Smartly suited eye-darters
Push and pull for space
Rolling up the banks
Humanity erased again.
I settle on the brickwork
Until the storm retreats
Circadian commuters
Run to rest their feet.
A few lonely meanders remain
Wondering down the beach
Forlorn festivies fog over
Swinging shop-signs squeak.
As the lighting rig descends
And once blue ceiling stains
The beige brickwork turns red
The high tide admits defeat.
Pink light turns to navy blue
A faint moonbeam lights the sky
Obscured by one cloud then a few
Vague incandescence frames the scene.
The streetlights flicker overhead
One worn out passenger now leaves
Shrouded, cold, hungry and fulfilled;
Abandonment for some is peace.
May 30, 2019
May 30, 2019 at 12:34 PM UTC
The thinkers mind does not stop
It beats on time, the bob drop
a small key winds back fates date
The greeter of death's great gate
is sitting high with devil cries
and still he works, times fly by
the workers hard hands grow old
the metal inside is cold
circadian days were long
and every minute was spent wrong
this grandfather clock looks broke
from the time he spent awoke
he would work without a halt
hes been built, hes not at fault
a self made product, that's true
hes held together with glue
so with the long passing hours
he slowly lost his power
The second hand too slow to spin
the clocks sound has grown real dim
the repair men cant heal it
a crack and they cant seal it
they speak like it's only trash
It had a hart, a hart thats now ash
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 5:19 PM UTC