Poetry
Tick Tock
a poem with 0% foreign ownership
Sucked dry by each tick of tyrannical time;
every tock of the clock is a crime.
Small seizures of cesium ceaselessly count,
though we don’t know the final amount.
The epic of epochs, opaque from within,
earns the minimum wages of sin.
This sentence runs on past another blind bend,
but a period waits at the end.
The fuzzier end of life’s sweet lollipop
used to make me hope that it would stop.
I’m no longer seeking the great escape clause
and content now with just hitting pause.
The show must go on, but I’ll rewatch the clips,
hallelujah broken on my lips.
No sleep until Brooklyn and miles yet to go;
I am watching the woods fill with snow.
© Thomas James 2023. All Rights Reserved.
For the Curious: This poem contains references to entomology, atomic clocks, the Bible, prison, grammar, Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen, Leonard Cohen, The Beastie Boys, and Robert Frost. If you saw one or more of those, I hope you now feel validated. I’m just pleased by how much Robert Frost would have hated this.
The Kindle version of my debut poetry collection “Nuclear Family: Poetic Fallout” is on sale for 99 cents US on Amazon.com through October 28!
