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David Chin Jan 2012
Tickety* … tock
Ticketytock
Ticketytock

All I hear is the ticking of tha stupid clock.
With each step I take
With heart beat of my heart
With each inhale and exhale
All I hear is that stupid clock.
That clock is someone you know.
It’s someone you care about.
It’s me.
All the words that you say
And all the actions that you don’t do
Is making the clock go

Ticketytock
Ticketytock
Ticketytock

Molding me to fit your model
And dressing me up in my sister’s clothes
And putting her shoes on my feet
Make the clock go faster

Tickety tock
Tickety tock
Tickety tock

Let me live my own life
The way that I want to live it.
Let me be the person that I want to be.
Let me wear my own shoes
The same pair that I have been
Wearing my enire life.
Let me be me
So the clock will not go

Tickety tock
Tickety tock
Tickety tock
Tickety tock



BOOM
Matthew James Apr 2016
Tick tock
Tick Tock
It's late
tock Tick  
tock Tick  
I'm wired
Tick
I'm tired
Tock
I'm wired I'm tired I'm tired I'm wired
Tick-tock tock-tick
Tick tock tickety tock  
tickety tick tickety tock
Shut up
Shut up
Shut up-shut up
shut the **** up
you stupid fu-cking clock
I'm tired
I'm wired
If I don't get some sleep I'll get fired
Tick-tock tock-tick
Tick tock tickety tock  
tickety tick tickety tock
Shut up
Shut up
Shut up-shut up
shut the **** up
you stupid fu-cking clock
Some sleep
Can't sleep
My mind
Just creeps
Just blind
Count sheep
Do'n't work
Each peep
Alert
Can't sleep
Create
Won't sleep
And think
Don't sleep
Excite
**** sleep
**** sleep!
**** SLEEP
Tick-tock tock-tick
Tock-tick tick-tock
Tick tock tickety tock  
tickety tick tickety tock
Shut up
Shut up
Shut up-shut up
shut the **** up
you stupid fu-cking clock
Alarm
Goes beep
Oh well
No sleep
Need sleep
**** work
I'll sleep
Abigail Shaw Jun 2015
“Here’s your morning PSA,
Laced with saccharine and anaesthetic,
Unfortunately the missiles are on their way,
So leave the sick and try not to panic,
Ignore the hysteria, and those calling your name,
Avert your eyes as the world sets aflame,
We apologise for keeping this from you,
Secret for all of these years,
But please keep in mind, though we’ll aim for your rescue,
Death is the least of your fears
This will be our last transition,
I’m afraid the president must catch his flight,
You may wait to hear from us but until then,
Goodbye, goodluck and goodnight.”

We were the PVC plastic barbie dolls,
Waiting to be burned alive,
Unlucky enough to live,
We woke up to an absence of we,
No Nevada left to test in,
So I’m a model mannequin,
Melt me down,

Tick-Tick-Tick,
The light was white and empty,
Tick-Tick-Tick,
My madness steeped in silence
Tick-Tick-Tickety,
Geiger is telling me to run,
Tickety-Tickety-Tickety,
But it’s no use now,

I threw up on Monday,
Tuesday, I choke back fallout,
Ignore the bubbles when it hits my skin,
On Wednesday, my gums blink bright red,
Thursday I know I am all alone because the wind has ceased to blow,
And Friday I realise I am not,

They came with rubber masks,
Silicone,
Respirators and coils of filters,
We both had ******* eyes,
But neither of us saw people reflected in them,
I counted three,
Alpha, Beta, Gamma,
One smiles by exhaling clean air,
Reaches out a hand across the barren wasteland,
Fingers tipped with lead and tells me:
“There’s a prize for the last standing.”

I am not ionised,
So I bruise every time they touch me,
These guides through plagues of acid rain,
The graveyard of monuments stripped bare by a world of rot,
My hair falls out as I breathe dead air,
I don’t remember what PSA stands for,
I don’t remember my name,
I bleed sand and the echo of a failed civilisation,
But with heavy breathing and a muffled voice,
Gas masks filtering what used to keep me alive,
I wonder if there is anything behind those masks at all,
I know there is nothing behind mine,
None of us are human anymore,
And we haven’t been for quite some time,

Together, we watch the sky rain black ash.
Maggie Emmett Jul 2015
PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi
This poem is part of a longer poem called Seasons of Terror. This poem was performed at the University of Adelaide, Bonython Hall as a community event. The poem was read by local poets, broadcasters, personalities and politicians from the South Australia Parliament and a Federal MP & Senator. The State Premier was represented by the Hon. Michael Atkinson, who spoke about the role of the Emergency services in our society. The Chiefs of Police, Fire and Ambulence; all religious and community organisations' senior reprasentatives; the First Secretary of the British High Commission and the general public were present. It was recorded by Radio Adelaide and broadcast live as well as coverage from Channel 7 TV News. The Queen,Tony Blair, Australian Governor General and many other public dignitaries sent messages of support for the work being read. A string quartet and a solo flautist also played at this event.
Gigi Tiji Oct 2014
Clicketyclick —

sickly screens,
shooting
sixty
picture-frames
per second

Tickety ticktock, rapid-fire
photon cannons,
ripping holes
through our
faces

rectangles,
riddled with anxiety ridden
read scripts

the resultant
retinal scarring

Wicketywicked, weary eyes,
dripping with serrated pixels

triple dotted,
typing-awareness indicators
create silly suspenses,
inducing temporal
dramas,
emotional
micro-traumas

every second a slice
through my,
now practically nonexistent,
patience

Am I a server,
or am I a servant?

Eyes, sunken, with
withered skin

I'm waiting for my fix

Ding-ding
Bloop!
Pinggg
Here comes the dopamine! —

—Clicketyclick
karen dannette Oct 2015
Tick tock
Tickety-Tickety tock
My hair stands at end
Ready to fall, a superior time to walk.

Away from here
And gone from this place
That fills me with sadness
And such disgrace.

Will I ever know the reason behind
The choices made, etched in stone?
Can I be forever sorry
Or just happiness eternally postponed?

So, here I am in complete surrender of will
I give up on self-sabotage and futility
I kneel to pray for mercy and grace
And for the gift of God's love, humility and grace.
Leaving las vegas??  Probably.
wordvango Oct 2014
tick tock
tock tikety
tee too
time so
tocks ticks
await you
your return
tock ticks
eye flash
hope you
o k
tock tick
await again
life so
tock tickety
long when
listening to
clicks clocks
tickety tocks
gears gnash
hourglass
sand sifts
seconds
hours
days years
tick tocks
alone
awaiting
you to
return
and still
I wait
for you
hear the
ticks tocks
anticipate
ticks tocks
cant sneak
up on me
as i sit
here awaiting
tick tock
click clock
count me
my life
as a
dream of
sand shift
ing down
the glassine
clear vision
ary dream
awaitin'
again
tic toc
to when
the beg
inning
Carlo C Gomez May 2022
~
gone to earth

left for dead

everything is tickety-boo

forget your iron-on measures

and scuttled installation

your life is a bakery

that cake is like your head

bittersweet

and full of regret

what am I reading these days?

a book across the stars

where dreams in the throes

of giddy aerosol cans

**** the passersby

and sleep against

the exit sign

~
Peter Cullen Aug 2014
Sat here with the clock
and its tickety tock.
There's holes in my heart
and holes in my socks.
The wallpaper peels,
reveals wallpaper from,
two decades before,
when we were still young.
Now aged with the years,
covered over in time.
Lost to the new,
lost to our eyes.
Its beauty, still present,
so I peel back some more.
Listen to records
and lie on the floor.
The ripples of smoke
swirling to the ceiling
kinda portrays
the way that I'm feeling.
Floating around
always lost to it all.
My mood just like wallpaper
can rise and can fall.
squiggles Aug 2014
Time is like a snail
today
       slow
             slow
                  slowly
the hand moves around the
clock.
        tock
            tock
                tickety tock
My thought become stagnant
primordal things
              attuned to nothing
just white noise
                     and static
as I wait for the world to deliver me
            something anything
different to the
                    tickety
                           tock
                               tock
                                   tock
       of the slow moving clock

white noise
               and static
                          white noise
and static....
            
          *.Nunc Cocleam.
Kayla Nieto Dec 2015
Tick Tock
The mouse ran up the clock
The fish swam up the dock
Tickety tickety tock
I don't know how to talk
The only things I say
Are thoughts that someone gave
Me, I don't speak for my thoughts
They riot
Underrepresented
They riot
They're turning on me
I'm not doing them justice
They scream on me
They shout
"Let us go"
"We want you to speak us"
But I don't know how to talk
"I can't, I can't"
I tell them
They ignore me like I ignore them
Tick tock
Back and forth I rock
Sanity is a casualty of freedom
zebra Aug 2019
she kneels in a fire place
******* off a midnight entity
of deformed shadows
and hinged erections

rickety tickety tin
sang clutching muffin
in Neolithic fires
caressing
tinker toy femurs *** deep

a dark heaven chants
**** ghosts and gorgons
while sea witches and dwindling waves
like goat steps
edge twilight princess

Zex depraved lord
and lick my lips
crucify her spread wide
coiling vacant maidens
yielding angel hemic tides
in rituals of *******
skinned on scarlet pavement

as she is dragged
on her knees
where moaning thighs perch
on nailed sticks
like white picket fences
and invisible doors burn
she communes with oracles of lust
that incinerate rafts of solitude
windows slam shut
like shuddering robes of thunder

and a headless god
pours her glistening tears
over his arterial bludgeon

resurrection of eros
in the Golgotha
of swarming incubi

she called to hell
i am prey
The authorities can authorise as much as they please but they have no authority over me.
it's the rule of austerity
It's a dog eat dog and if you're down on your luck,you might as well **** on it,they don't give a **** and once you've feasted on failure it don't hurt a bit,
and a pound in your purse is as much of a curse as no money at all,you want to buy this,you want to buy that but you ain't got a bit of food in your flat.
'Live off the fat of the land',
like those buggers in Whitehall who sit on their hands and yet still have hands free, as they wave them around to try and authorise me.

And in those ivory towers the powers that be who think of roast beef and not about me,carry on, as if it's all tickety boo,
but you know,it was never like that as you sit in your flat with no food,the TV shows a riot,you should think why not try it and you're becoming unglued,
falling to bits and it's them effing ***** what's to blame.
Dave Hardin Sep 2016
Medical History

I believe it was Churchill who said
History is written by the victors
delivered, one imagines, dryly with

a dash of pith, an ounce or two of gin,
words clipped and formed in the space above
his derbied chalk hill dome from gathering

clouds of ominous blue cigar smoke,
veddy proper, tickety-boo and all
that rot.  A life insurance policy

after all, read in a British accent
is boilerplate made sublime, all this
as I sit in the waiting room checking

off rows of little boxes, writing
my medical history, to be read
aloud in the event of my demise

by Englishmen; Bill Nighy on
the subject of my LDL levels,
Patrick Stewart breathing life into a

family penchant for colon cancer or
Gary Oldham giving a dignified
reading from the list of male fore-bearers

who’ve toppled headlong over the pale
clutching their chests.  Perhaps Steve Coogan
or some surviving Python could coax a

chuckle at the expense of my total
hip replacement, snatching victory from
the jaws of inevitable defeat.
Thescientist Aug 2015
Almost one o'clock,

                      Insomnia doesn't rock

                         Tickety- toc- doc
It's astounding,amazing
like cows we are grazing while the
world falls apart,
I hear them cry
from Kenya to Mumbai
and all points on the dial...meanwhile
we stuff ourselves with food off the shelf and we
don't give a ****.
Twenty first century man can do no wrong just
as long as he lives in the West and the rest?
we try not to think about them
because we are the twenty first century men.

We are selfish,
going back to when we were just shellfish,before
we marched onto the land,before we colonised and
then realised
how big and how grand that we were,but
we'll get there in the end
until then we'll pretend that it's
all tickety boo
but who
are we
trying to kid?
Surprise
surprise
even the veins write lines
inside my eyes.

When I sleep
which I do,
I shoot up the ink
that makes me blink
more lines.

I need no pat on the shoulder
no cat for me because I'm older

Methuselah lives next door
and he has the ***** of Babylon
that keeps
him young and big
and strong.

Not for me,
I love the pain
I like being the bain
of my own life

and words more words
there's always more
come knocking on the bedroom door
prying into eyes and spying out the
land
some other hand writes the lines that line
the artery
but I can see it,

just as I got over Casanova
Judy punches me,
I felt it
the belt, it
hit me like
she meant it.

it's la di da as far as it can be or
all tickety boo to you.

The meds are wearing off right now
the portcullis lowers down
the castle guards are keeping watch
in this great Northern..
..did I say
they all wear gowns of heavy pink brocade?

they'll feed me lemonade laced with cyanide
must keep my eyes opened wide to

write lines with veins where all are class five choo choo trains
it's only being insane that keeps sane
I feel good and how are you?
well,
that's splendid that you do
in fact I'd say,
'just tickety boo'
but if at times you think you're not
and if sometimes you've got an ache or pain,remember I feel just the same,but what's the point of harping on
before you know it that feeling's gone and once again,free from pain and all's the same as it was.
Mike Jan 2018
The birds went missing for some days
I did not fail to see them
For I can keep tabs on their commings
By the feed level in the silo

I wonder, have they departed?
Did the entire gathered multitude
All the species and varieties
At once get summoned by a grand poobah

Ah No.  They’re back
Voracious, suddenly.  Perhaps an appetite
Built up from long journeys South to heat
Returned as quickly to a stable staple supply

El viejo, baggy clothes and vaguely rancid
Arrives at the tickety tockety place
The pigeons dance head first, feet next
He knows each by his dull colour

At the trough they proceed in size order
Pleasing my delicate sense of propriety
Titmouse, cardinal, blue jay, woodpecker
A grub abides among the seed

I observe
On the scale of  
'one to does anyone care'
we're nearly there
not long to go
and when we fail
everyone will know
because
they'll all be there
with us.

I watch the inconsistencies,
kind people taking liberties
cheapskates paying over the odds
sinners praying to gods
oh
there's lots not tickety boo
they're all in a hurry
always too much to do,
and then there are
the camera's that spy on us
the files that they keep on us
all of them watching us,
we're never alone.
In the turning I would spin
about
begin the magic
roundabout

twist the ropes and
in the twisting
I could cope

untangled I become the greater mess
hopelessness
like
homelessness
knows many houses
and
in those houses though there mansions be
I am adrift
admitting finally

which explains it totally?

It's as if I never understood what works of art that good men are

and by men I mean mankind which includes the female of the species

are we still **** Erectus?
do you not detect the irony?

derelicts and broken men lay anywhere
I see them everywhere

colluding with protruding avaricious eyes
I am wise to those ways.



and so like Whittington I turn,
returning to the origins
Darwin grins and says,
I told you so

I know
but because I doubted much like Thomas did
I saw it for myself and
felt the blood rush to my cheeks

He who seeks needs better sight than I and I have
blurry vision
except in 20/20 dreams.

as they say
It's all tickety boo until you
understand the reasons why

and I never knew.
Sinking back to the core
blood freeze,
she's
stolen my heart,
my body reacts all within a
Sun's lifetime and
I heat up only to become
a dying giant.

Back for more
back to the core
into the fray and
burn for yearn for
turn into a giant
again
and die.

Sod's law,
everything tickety boo and then you die.
Glenn Currier Jun 2018
the errrrrr skip of skateboard
propelled by half-drunk foot
the tickety ticking ten speeds
coasting to bikini smiling blonds
tattoooo tattoooo rollerblades
and swooshing bicycled dads
pushing strollers with style
screaming roller coaster
and surfboard Suzies
rainbow parasails over
beeping muscled jeep
Ah the sounds
and commotion
of hormonal
locomotion
10/06/2002
This poem was actually written back in 2002 when I was visiting San Diego, CA for a conference.  I took a walk on the boardwalk or sidewalk right on the beachfront and this piece is my impression of the experience.  Actually, right now, I can't remember if I made up the name of the beach.  I was not able to find a listing of this beach in Google.
Lexander J Jul 2016
There's a difference in his eyes I cannot see
the thought of letting loose, of setting him free
enough to churn the stomach, to gurgle, to rile
his ammonic state of mind corrosive and vile

he lives his life surrounded by taunts and mistrust
hiding deviacy beneath lies and thick dust
the remnants of normality obscured but still there
he hears their cries but no longer cares

desperation desperation where hath thou gone
skin pallid upon where the sun once shone
***** cakes the carpet, blood up the walls
bits of babies and adult men strewn through the halls -

[Listen! Listen! Can you hear that sound?
It's the sound of your ignorance, of morality unwound]


I sat down today and looked into the mirror
through a curtain of cigarette smoke,
I never used to indulge in such filth
a fool to sin, guess I deserve to cough, to choke

there's a jittery malevolence within I can feel
with every tickety-tick-tock of the clock something unreels -
a prisoner to the past, I revel in divine incense
of pathetic excuses and irreverent adolescence

he's inside me now, there's nothing I can do
it's the way of the world, my little flower bloom I grew
now I'll nurture it, feed it, watch him flourish
then maybe someday I'll finally be ******* noticed.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2019
I wish I wuz a sheriff’s deputy
The traffic laws would mean nothing to me

I’d cruise through the red lights and all them stop signs
But give everyone else lots of tickety-fines

At the café  I’d park in the handicapped zone
Then drive by the school yakking on my cell phone

Turn signals for me? A thing of the past!
And when scooting through town I’d drive real fast

Yeah, if I wuz a sheriff’s deputy
The traffic laws would mean nothing to me
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is: Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  THE ROAD TO MAGDALENA, PALEO-HIPPIES AT WORK AND PLAY, LADY WITH A DEAD TURTLE, DON’T FORGET YOUR SHOES AND GRAPES, COFFEE AND A DEAD ALLIGATOR TO GO, and DISPATCHES FROM THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
Reeling down Broadway
and feeling there's no way
to make a wrong situation right.

Followed by phantoms
shadowed by lanterns
makes this a long lonely night.

There's a rainbow or crossbow
not sure which so I wait
for the lightning to strike.

When I'm lit up I'll light out.

and it's the sand flowing through
every hour glass I knew
that crystallises these thoughts.

Elementary central on the tube
going mental
which is always the way that it is.

The station clock
going
tickety tock
seems to rock with the
carriage I'm in.

Chancery lane and once more
I refrain from crying today
still
reeling down Broadway
feeling I should pray

I read the 'Metro' instead.
The archangel is friendly
though a deadly enemy
of his arch rival
the devil.

I met him in the local market hall
with that fellow from Scrooge who
was still chained to the ball

it seems that time
doesn't heal all

I'll be tickety-boo
if I can wangle
my way in through
the pearlies

hey
if the Beverly Hillbillies could,
for me
it should be a piece of cake
and
palming Peter a fifty
will I hope
lift me
into that hallowed place.

Everyone wants some moolah
even the cherubs want in on
the act.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2020
chopping two heads of garlic for:
however long that might have lasted -
each tooth cut into a fine matrix
of miniature cubes -
cut to the point where a fattiness
oozes from each garlic tooth:
sticky saliva-esque ('l) and it's not...
the kind that comes bursting
with onions spitting venom -
how bewildered to be answering
the door when a delivery man
has just dropped a package
and you've also... just been cutting
onions...
   a tear that has to transcend
both grief, happiness and pangs of
beauty -
the garlic?
     the feel of fingers after having
fingered and slobbered and
come glutton on the equivalent
of **** and a devil's dozen
of oysters -
                a recipe for pickled
cucumbers: that they were cucumbers
that would become gherkins...
yes... thinly sliced 4kg of cucumbers
to 1kg of sugar... this and that:
some curry powder...
left in 2tbsp of salt to gush with brine...
and then... the pasteurißation
process - fudge packed into jars...
the lids not fully twisted on...
some breathing room -
"baked" in an oven at 120 degrees
for less than an hour...
taken out... the lids firmly ******* on...
then the jars flipped upside down
to stand...
for safe-keeping...
to boil the impurities away...
boil giddy broth and all that scratching
youth of cucumber away
for a smoothness accustomed
to marble...
funny that... the onion - how it is
the only vegetable to have some variation
of a venom and is still
the only metaphor of a snake -
the tears i shed over these Baßil plucks...
   in english: ß is an interchange:
once a sharpened S...
i know of sharpening eSSeS...
cute acute is the final form:
           ślizg (off ślizgać: to slide -
i.e. one has the slang attache -
a bit like: having the groove)...
you can almost hear it: at the end of
each hush: it's never a hush:
it's a huś of a librarian...
        a howl of it might i add...      
- crude caron is the: not yet blunt...
meat-eater.... teeth indentations... grooves...
          shackles...
the crown: šaro-
             followed by two halves
of a crown -ść               i.e. greyness -
which is still not borrowing from
the ingenuity of the russians:
szczera (too many consonants my ***...
too many vowels you roman dogs!)
   SH-CH -
                       Š + Č = Ш + Ч = Щ
        we could have the "ingenuity" process
of this evolution of... an "apostrophe"
from the depths...
   but... catherine the great was
a german lass... and even though: Ц
sits proud and could have been...
                    it wasn't... since...

Ц ≠ CH(eap)
         or CZ(art)
           or ČaXa...
      it could have: what was it...
a mirror inquisition of mu to begin with?
give me 100 years and a book burning
and i could "correct" this burden...
so it ******* fits...
i'd even call in the mongols to implement
this change...

the germans already say: цentrum
and write zentrum - herr tseit!
                                 herr schtick-a-lot: цar...
щerość  - truthfulness...
                                         / ščerość:
two coronas halved -
or... sharpened...
                     and to think... this little adventure
has me dancing above a latin script!
and... deviating from some ur-greek...

we could do this minor change:
"pan-slavic" borrowings from
the 19the century in the balkans
under the ottomans -
           this hypered breathing tool
to extract the yet Siberia - Hades bride
a near pristine ****** -
in this cosmopolitan confused multi-
of an english...
i am here to express and drag back
into the "darkness" of the east
memento...

  that the greek had names for
some of their letters: omicron, omega,
alpha, beta, gamma...
but that the latins had:
vowel-and-consonant: syllables
instead of proper names...
delta - a sensation for a prefix letter...
and a suffix name scoop...

cut my ***** off and feed me
operatic candy...
when you open a bag of
    chimichurri chimichurri:
chim chim churri...
no... when you open a bag
of been-sprouts after
the best-before-date...
    you know the perfume if you have
ever... fermented grapes:
it's that in-between scent
of fermentation -
it's quiet off-putting...
but it's passable...
              but english is both
the currency of the present...
the language of empire
the lingua franca: although:
the crescent moon in the shackles
of the sheikhs:
who moved these youths into
europe if not the project harem...
and fatso old cat laze'ohs of
the woman's drudge:
a heaving tide of custard flesh...
boiling with lazy bop-bop of
bubbles...
                    we can discuss it in
english: never mind the natives...
we came, we saw...
some of us didn't bothered feeling
at home...
although: we once hoped to be...
never... *******... mind!

i'm here for two "letters"... well...
sounds... in the russian text...
great orthographer that i am:
the english can have their metaphysical
this certain debate that...
that uncertain debate this...
it's not like the english will ever
employ diacritical markers...
a recurrent theme: a stressor on my mind...
it will never be allowed
a pop fission - it will not claim
an epidemic status -
mind you:
the priests the psychiatrists and the
prostitutes... minor of the 3:
the four horseman... the "poet":
the poo-etcetera...
  try try, try bring fail...
"ignore, ignore": "happiness"
will find its trail...

                 but once! in a time of...
poesy and cerebral palsy!
sound: ping pongs of echoes pf
dying elephants or whales...
            the stomach of the disgruntled
indigestion that's the best assumed
presence of: sea...
            
it's become certain:
in youth to write while listening to music...
tone deaf i: too could reach
a tornado of words... that...
let's be frank: i never recite what i write...
i write best from what's
yet to be seen... i uncover what's hidden...
i don't pretend to measure sounds...
if my voice had the same sensation
to encompass blowing into a saxophone...
no... a horn...
this monotone gravity of breve -
this great aeon bespoke sloth of
an otherwise riddling tongue turned
into an ancient worming from:
from a time when man did not pass
onto his futures -
a memory of some ancient - fabled oned -
a once that turned out to be:
full of replicas! i.e. archetypical
wounds... that forever bleed...

best this written in a silence that
wakes up with an imitation wind...
two letters... russian... beside ur-greek
to me... exported to as far east
as Kamchatka.... which is practically
north of Tokyo -

it's a contested scenario... this...
Цц vs. Чч -
if it was handwritten for the envisioning
of... the:        Ш + Ц = Щ
i'm sold... aren't you sold?
  ah... envious of handwriting fluidity -
now: digit plucking - each letter a solipsistic
"counterstrike"...
     yes... looks like we have ourselves...
the... *****...
             clearly...   zee... ШИЦ!

inversion of mooment - the crows are
near tonight: they are quarreling with the gods...
or perhaps that's just the ***** foxes
teasing leather -
   that i write and there's no music
to distract me: elevate this already
impossible...

i go to sleep with alarm bells ringing...
robert duncan's realisation that he was a poet
aged 17... upon leaving high-school
i did stand before the entire cohort
of my contemporaries and recited a poem:
over which i cried two days prior...
an epileptic seizure gripped
my body from neck down...
but i did manage a recitation...
    i was supposed to become a chemist
now i'm looking for a part-time occupation
in the n.h.s. as having:
good organisational skills and...
a sense of humour...
or some BICS: for... part time gigs at
the ol' B... B... C...
i don't mind i just want something
to execute an elevated trance of
robotics to let my mind wander...
outside the confines of robo-brutus-robos:
anti-caesar: oh look! "us"!

two "inconveniences" of the 20th century
motivate me...
the despots and the shan franshishko poets...
there's that famous gozilla
of a tornado... there's that...
Bulgakov centre piece of a collection
of... best kept hush-hush among
the moth community...

   that language toys with me that
i don't want to have a competence with it
concerning that i don't have a narrrative
that i'm all tickety-fuckety
when it comes to clocks and eternal silences...
a clock on earth... vacuum...
a boiling kettle on pluto...
given only these two ***** for juggling...
it's... kinda boring... isn't it?
how is one expected to juggle
only two *****?
two oranges... better image... get go image!
i juggle time... i juggle space...
both so impossibly impersonal:
i'd loot a grave for an epitaph that
might make an irish joke down
a pub about them...

       and they kept 'em "*******" in the sports
and kept 'em prized athletes... coz cousing
'arab?
well... they knew those hebs
were expendable from the ghetto-go
prior to the gassing stipends...
it's not these whites keep:
samson strength of david-esque
ingenuity...
it's not like the hebs matter in the world
of sporting events...
gift of the gab... i guess that's what
prizes them above all else...
gifts of "superstition"...
to me? there is enough phonetic evidence
to summon me to showcase
that... the tetragrammaton is...
a spider in a web of english:
surd H(atches)...

        a breath of a dying man
about to... pOUNCE!
but the jews were never cotton pickers...
they were never athletes -
if they ever built the pyramids...
i wonder...
it's not like... they... possibly...
hebrews are intellectual creatures:
they are not... about to be caricatured
with fully functioning limbs
readied for the ******* colliseum...
unless they might me...
nero's torches...
and the greek conspiracy -
after all...
           wouldn't the greeks have
conspired....
to topple rome...
in order to therefore...
retain a dominance of power:
byzantine: years after the western
"concept" crumbled?

you don't keeps jews to have
the masses entertained:
you keep the ******* to falsetto
the ******* roll-a-bit sort of gimmick...
run around... kick a coconut...
come back with a lion's golden mane...
jason and the argonauts...
casimir and the ******* cosmotaunts:

*** note on biGGer?
better: sniGGer!
i count less in niGerian -
the offensive sound - less by scent
of "things": a heb is not a jew is  yew:
from a ***...
you can't leave these tracers or:
otherwise we: shun the *****!
that's great: i too spell a sound without
a necessity to connote malice...
but of course: borrowed lithuanian
that i am: under the hellish
anglo-saxon brute manifesto...
all is glacier and glycerine and
toughening of Karen east of any
that's east... the mouthful of
the Danube...

       to "bleep" out a sound to
mishandle the necessity of meaning:
if the blacks can own a ******
why can't i... not own a ******
in his stead of... to tattoo myself
all aryan:
the jew that never made it to
the coliseum as a gladiator -
this burning ***** hair floss of
st. peter's crux...

  we are still in favour of african
mind: less productive:
readily this body made...
there's now clue as to why
a thought concerning:
Proteus - Herr Frankenstein's monster:
Einzstein: Zuerst- also a -stein / - shtein...
zweite-christus-und-stein!

it's unlike a must it's not this
competition with: social inclusive standards:
of what?
the saxon: project that -
one year excluded the irish...
other year: made great fictions
surrounding Libya...
i have before me a history:
that in part i cannot inherit...
i have these... fickle restrictions:
panderings: walking on egg-shell
moments for...

in my own wery brittle: sam's son:
didn't herr voltzwitz stress:
son of sam-
         em... -uel
                 or... -son?
                          jacob my dear fiction...
continue: bring forth
these nuanced goods...

and my two morning synchs...
a cat that wakes me come nearing 5am:
to watch him: entertain myself...
him taking a **** or a ****...
into a tight bundle of imitation
sahara...
or another... to attire her with
creases of the hand...
to pet her... so that she feels
obliged to sleep in my bed...

there i was concerning myself:
does my beard reveal the cubism
of a violin?!
i still have two russian letters on
my mind...
i'll burn them into my forehead
so that i can allow myself to sleep...
but besides?
there's this, courtous conversation
i am to be having - past participle
and future: yes... i mean no...
i will not be having this
african gladiators contra the yiddish
intellectual sludge extension:
no anglo-saxon sensibility will
save me from this: it's own...
hidden lick o' "squander"...

   pandering... for... enough ******
autonomy... to clean offices...
and find the joy of a mind's escapism...
pandering to who beside
the ******* tended to orators
and giggling politicians?

this is enough of a night's vanquish...
to have: as i have: have tamed.

p.s. there's no proof in you "not being" racist
by having ****** a black girl...
i just wonder: could it have been enough
when the trans-racial incorporation
sequence to create the copper-skin
pseudo-arabs begun...
when it was still a taboo...
   not now... i don't know vot "vey"
vont.... or'zzz dunst noot vont...
lebanon?

             i can see myself, though...
******* some copper-skin imitation
h'arab as far tainted as:
lemon-squinting: there's no sunrise:
come the blessings of beijing...
yeah... i too would like to marinade...
or at least have that prawn flesh
tenderness:
to be able to cook in enough
critic acid... without the use
of over boiling water...
it's called tenderising or:
some other magic word...

            *** notes: yes yes...
thoroughly throughout...
fishing for russian nazis...
            ah ha ha...         deaf-tone... joke.
The space between here and there,
the no man's land of anywhere different,

any spare change Guv'nor?
which we mostly ignore,

fearing the wolves at the door
we lock ourselves in and
close the curtains
only then are we certain
we're safe,

but like
in so many dreams
when everything seems
tickety boo,
I know and so do you
that
it's only a stone's throw
to skid row.
KorbydAngyle Oct 2022
Tis Best to Find A Book Not Graceless Netflix
Snickle it snuck by the text of tickety tucked
Burmese and Maine **** Panther and Typhoon
The guise of the ill imbrications of tiles of lore
Betwixt the center and cast aghast into the seas on naught
Sheilds fell short and velocity of the beast did comport
Thee with little hope of finding truth or vanquishment or champion lore..
At behest of the demons the civility once again was swept out the door
I have not braver notion than the jasmine and fools language
Yet distinguished are the bedfellows that save us they fight the truly savage!
With nor Godless notion
nor piety in tow the folks amassed to have a go!
"I can accept only an acumen and candor from the least of the less to
the greatest of all angels that upon grace I swear!"
They had decreed in the hope of making past dilemmas
But the unctuous beacon the Harold of evil the overpaid and underscored rose again
As faith had put it they were stifled not by nuance or systems
Only the deafness and the undertow that had created
  an egocentric and thoughtless causeless follow through.
If every story we read is turned into a movie then you don't have a place you live your life with the written wonder and fascination of reading.
TJ Struska May 2020
Its all tickety boo
Mnemosyne,
All the squirrels go swingeling along.
Here, have another.
How did you hear about yourself?
Perhaps from the flatware,
They all had lunch one us.
Voluptuous potato pancakes
In pickling brine.
Who would draw up such schematics?
Prudent farming engineers, that's who.
My lesions are legend,
I know them all by name.
They came up all Humpty Dumpty.
It configured a conflagration,
It was like a coming out party
We took up a collection,
It was a formal gratuity-
Like graduating from Radio school.
Who said "ALL ****"?
Sounds uppity at the cocktail convention,
With the swaggering lounge music.
Its really quite benign,
Like sipping soup through a straw.
Its been factory sealed for your protection.
It's safer than a school of sleepy piranhas.
Have I blown the 9 hour interview?
I wore my best Captain Crunch uniform,
It's standard issue.
I checked the latest at Phlegm Central,
They said I best check my shirt.
Then we had light refreshments.

Later that Century,
I was feeding the current machine.
Greedy Son Of A. B!#ch,
It was such a de-happening.
It became much to empirical.
Like a month of Tuesdays every other weekend,
That's the price to be paid
When you haul it up. Snaggletooth Mountain.
It was bemusing, if not hunderstruck.
We crossed into the International Sinus Zone,
From there it got a bit hazy-
All the trains were late.
It went well with the weather.
Cletus wore his camisole nightie,
While I was in my haberdasher hair shirt.
It effulgent, in mocking undertones.
It's peanut pastime of reinforced paint peels.
How does that make me an irregular object.
Let's all get up and March
To the swinging sounds of Sherezade,
Forgetting your conscience as we sidle along.
Hold up the Opera while I make up the lyrics.
How do you turn this **** thing down?
Many poets try to sound like other poets. Me included. I am trying go go back to natural voice.. I'm not putting a star out there. I would like to see if my natural voice sells
How's your mindset,
have you lost your marbles
yet,
going slightly crazy
getting really lazy

have I got some fake news for you

we've all been signed off and
we have to go on the sick
we're in line for some treatment
but that won't happen quick
so we have to pretend for the sake
of our nation
that
all is tickety boo and we have
medication,

well
they kept chipping away
and now we're all cracked,
traced and tracked
by
big brother.

— The End —