#metronome
She keeps asking what he does,
though his answers are recycled:
French bulldogs, paintball,
a seventh-grade broken nose.
The basket of fries between them
feels like an interview.
She teases about sweat-stuck bangs,
neon-laced Docs,
his faux leather squeaking when he moves.
Her smile forgives empty stories,
softens each silence.
Condensation slips down her glass,
her knee brushes his,
a spark he does not catch,
his throat working like a valve.
The door opens, closes,
a draft carries smoke and cedar.
distant wildfires.
Outside, a truck unloads shrimp.
A box bursts on the pavement,
pink shells and thawing ice
sliding into gutter water.
Curses flare into the alley.
Engines idle.
Hydraulics hiss.
The stoplight clicks red to green,
green to red,
its metronome louder than either of them.
Somewhere past Brockway Summit
a ridgeline blooms orange.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM UTC
Metronome, take me home
When the notes get too close together
Show me who I truly am
Under all the lace and leather
Metronome, where am I?
The chorus or the verse
I swear the song was just beginning
Why is it a curse
Metronome, whose hand is this
Guiding me astray
Can we count from four again?
Im scared I'll lose my way
Metronome, take me home
I don't know where that is
But the voices say it's where they go
When they wish to feel at bliss
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025 at 12:47 PM UTC
There is no huge brain inside of my dome, it was replaced with a slow metronome. It doesn't stop moving, just ticking and talking at night I'm out stalking the streets as my mood swings and sways to the beat in my head. Mania? Yeah, the opposite of dead but in depression I'm just hanging to life by a thread. Swinging back and forth with significant force like a ballpeen hammer, hard enough to **** a horse. Like a blunt force trauma bringing nothing but drama, so I tire of the fire and I suffer but whatever but the flames be growin' higher and it's an oil fire so don't be throwing water or it'll just get hotter and roar louder so dowse me with the baking powder, better yet, a better powder, ya got good coke? Can I get some of that snow chucked into my head sometimes the numbness is better than dead. To quote the great Tom Waits "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." I'd say I agree. Though at the end of the day it's not up to me.
Jun 6, 2024
Jun 6, 2024 at 2:42 AM UTC
Heartbeat reborn out of fear. Heavy thump in my chest like a lead metronome. Keeping time to your footsteps as you walk out the door. I would rather die than watch you leave. Yet here I am, staring at you, frozen in fear. My coffin lined mouth shrill, asking you to not go.
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 7:54 PM UTC
I remember how you’d say
We should spend time not money
But I spent my money on time
And not even my gold encrusted piece
Could freeze the moment you were mine
I can’t tell the difference,
Is it my watch ticking,
Heart beating or the metronome?
Is it the smoke or the pheromones?
You can’t remember the moans
But you remember how the liquor tricked you,
Made her loose
Made you lick her
And you found the gold mine at the meeting of her thighs,
It wasn’t only on her wrist and in her eyes
I’m not one to pray
But my knees got ******
From worshiping a Sunday kind of love
In the name of father time,
You - the sun
And my holy spirit
And I guess it’s true what they say
That nothing good happens after 2 AM
Then again, there was you
And then those 2 PM Monday blues
And it’s ironic how time heals all wounds,
but no drug, god or serum can save us from
tempus edax rerum
Jun 8, 2017
Jun 8, 2017 at 12:11 PM UTC
There's a gentle metronome
Resting on my writing desk
Like a robotic lullaby
Humming me to rest
Tick-tick-tick
Through the night
Let my wrongs turn to rights
A dream that's a home
Tick; goes the metronome.
There's a fragile metronome
Posing on my wood bookshelf
The only sound in the room
Echoing all by itself
Tick-tick-tick
All day long
A sharp, melodic song
Cranking out a soothing tone
Tick tick; goes the metronome.
There's a cracked metronome
Sitting on my windowsill
Clocking in and out
The worst type of sleeping pill
Tick-tick-tick
Night and day
Hypnotizing it's prey
True tranquility stands alone
Tick tick tick; goes the metronome.
There's a defective metronome
Laying on my bedroom floor
It's sickening harmony
Rots me to my core
Tick-tick-tick
Losing power
I'm awake every hour
A heart weighed down by stone
Tick tick; goes the metronome.
There's a shattered metronome
Placed at the foot of my bed
A sound that’s lost its tempo
A heartbeat that's fled
Tick-tick-tick
In my brain
Repetition in vain
Break me til I'm nothing but bone
Tick.
Stops the metronome.
Jun 1, 2017
Jun 1, 2017 at 10:23 AM UTC
Sometimes
I forget to listen
to the melody of your voice,
and your words
become a metronome.
Such
a
brittle
mind.
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 2:36 PM UTC
Caramel leaves fell as the wind shifted,
to spell the first days of Autumn.
The sun was shot westward,
hovering over the blue marble
as it radiated with playful heat
that waned out of sharp boredom.
One by one, each tree became bare
like the sound of a lonely metronome.
And within the cold isolation,
each tree said it found peace.
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
You wanna know what it's like
to be a rebel?
You wanna know what it's like
outside the salt circle
looking in?
I tell you what, I'm not dancing
as much as flailing.
Fitting enough, I am crashing
again the closer
that I get.
You wanna know what it's like
to be the other?
You wanna know what it's like
to live as if you were
not dead but
wholly aware
in stasis?
Holy stasis,
what is it like
to be alive
unmoving
and empty,
dry of passion?
I better tell
this bitter truth,
that being you
isn't worth
half the strength
you generate.
I tell you what, I'm not dancing
as much as flailing.
Fitting enough, I am crashing
again the closer
that I get.
You wanna know what it's like
to be the other?
You wanna know what it's like
to live as if you were
not dead but
wholly aware?
I would trade wealth
and mental health
for just a touch
of the sand
containing
what has gone lost.
Just a touch,
I want your hand.
What's it like to be the metronome?
I tell you what,
I dance a lot.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 3:59 PM UTC
A seed is planted,
Leaves grow,
Flowers bloom,
Fruits ripen,
The bark toughens,
The stem branches out...
Seasons change,
Leaves wither,
Flowers wilt,
The fallen fruits rot,
The bark wrinkles,
The branches grow higher...
The eternal onset of time,
As the sand escapes the funnel of the hourglass.
Invert and repeat for every empty bulb.
A life, progressing from birth,
Ending at decay.
Time, she plays her tune-
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-...
Like a metronome set to 60 BPM;
Never stopping, ever stomping on,
Oscillating to the mechanical rhythm of Time's pendulum,
Journeying to a finite end on a path set up to infinity.
***Time, she is proof, that we are alive--
Proof that decay hunts down the living...***
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 2:08 AM UTC