"horologist" poems
In soft afternoon sunlight, flopped on my small yellow couch, I look over to the shadowed side of the room.
My apartment is pretty sparse, but in pride of place upon some modular furniture there is a white marble mantle clock that used to belong to my grandparents.
It is imperfect: part of the pedimented top is gone; it only works sometimes when I wind it up.
But it is beautiful, particularly its face of ornate numbers surrounded by a bronze filigreed bezel.
I majorly coveted the clock when I would go visit my grandparents as a girl.
After once being shown how to open the glass cover over the face—such a satisfying click when it opened—I was unable to resist doing so each time I saw the clock, lightly touching and pushing its hour and minute hands, probably contributing to its current damaged state.
Looking at it now takes me back to my grandparents’ home and those moments when I would wander around the house and yard while the adults conversed in the kitchen, the hush of the house a little nerve-wracking.
Where were my grandparents when they bought this clock?
What did they think would happen for the rest of their lives?
I research the clock’s provenance online, looking for the maker and model, and imagine my grandfather selecting this particular clock with care, wanting something to fit the house, the family.
I open a YouTube video of a horologist—who knew?—and he greets me amid a pleasant patter of ticking from the collection of clocks behind him.
I look again at my clock.
Find the meaning in the marble.
Those ornate numbers, that shape of classical architecture—they quietly reproach me.
Am I going about my hours with the dignity that these shapes suggest?
In the face of the clock I see the face of my grandfather, and while the clock does not strike, I hear the voice of my grandfather intoning slowly and deliberately—maybe trying to sound a bit wiser than he was—but wise all the same.
I am still attracted to all things shiny, but hopefully am more restrained now.
I stop the video, and the room is quiet again.
My smartphone is the only accurate timepiece in my apartment, and it of course does not tick.
It has its own sort of shine, a friendly colorful brightness from the dotting of apps on the home screen, but to save the battery I have set it to go black after a few minutes.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 2:21 PM UTC
My vivid thoughts got me feelin' like a narcissist,
I'm nothing like a senseless nihilist.
Compelled with false accusations I become an arsonist,
I'm stuck in the moment like a horologist,
My actions have me feelin' like a monotheist,
The gist is I'm a God crafted mere automaton.
Mar 3, 2020
Mar 3, 2020 at 2:02 PM UTC
Hello, its been a while since I've heard from you darling.
Do you not read my poetry anymore?
I write these poems for you
Late at night to the light of a candle
Have you missed me?
I've missed you
Are you happy?
Is your sky still blue?
I'm running out of matches and candles
Its getting cold down here
I don't think that its a waste
I don't. Know
Yo u ar e so far away
it seems like
I can
Reach out to touch you
I miss your bed and your pillows
I miss your smell most of all
Yes, your smell is what I miss the most
When the rocks creep close to me
and try to scare me with their shadows and echoes
I remember your scent
It lingers on each breath
My mind tricks me
I swear it must
For some nights I am awoken out of a dead sleep
And I can smell your skin on the air
I follow you wherever you take me
I have been following you for so long
I know you are leading me to saftey
Although...the paths are smaller
And the rocks squeeze my chest sometimes
When I try to go through
I'm not afraid darling
When I'm stuck
And the candle goes out
And I can feel
The rocks squeeze tighter
Haha and I think its hard to breathe
And it gets so hot in here
And I'm squeezed in
And I'm breathing heavily
But no air seems to get in
Sometimes I cry
Sometimes I laugh
Sometimes I lie on the stone floor
Screaming until I sleep
You must not hear me darling
It's alright
I forgive you
I don't want you to do anything
You don't feel like
(The candle is almost burned out now
Its quite dim)
If I have learned one thing it is that you must
Learn to release that which you have loved
For that is the way of nature
And time
oh. I. Am sorry
The pencil has broken and I am using the
Burned match to write
I am filling my flask with dripping water
It seems my final
I'm sorry the last candle has gone out
I. Am.
Quite hungry
Now
Darling
PLEASE HELP ME I AM LOST IN THIS DARK
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
Feb 11, 2012
Feb 11, 2012 at 1:21 AM UTC
I'm a mime stuck in time
you can only hear my hands
and I can talk all I want
But when my mind is sick
I need a Horologist.
Like my fumbling fingers fail to
pick the tick out my mind
Infecting my thoughts and
******* my time
Seems like the sun's
always setting on my dial
As it waxes and wanes -
I haven't seen the man's face
in a while
Look up for reflection
but only see Khronic-Introspection
Jun 29, 2017
Jun 29, 2017 at 9:36 PM UTC
My vivid thoughts got me feelin' like a narcissist,
I'm nothing like a senseless nihilist.
Compelled with false accusations I become an arsonist,
I'm stuck in the moment like a horologist,
My actions have me feelin' like a monotheist,
The gist is I'm a God crafted mere automaton.
Oct 29, 2019
Oct 29, 2019 at 5:50 PM UTC
Hope is a word echoing down the corridor
after a friend just out of hearing range
Beauty is an imperceivable imperfection
impossible to detect
Remembering is the bittersweet chocolate
you can’t help but eat again and again
Knowledge is the admission of your
minds’ omission of omniscience
Music is the ray of sun peeking out
after a day of gloom and grey
Society is a broken clock without
a horologist to fix the hidden gears
Metaphors are buckets
bailing out the sinking ship of life
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 7:47 PM UTC