Granddads Confounded Clock - Poe Style - Second Part
“My grandfather was strong and mighty, till he died at age of ninety.
The clock then stopped to run no more.
Then one of my relations wrote a song, sung for generations.
I think of it more and more:
“My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor.
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a penny-weight more . . .”
Shaken from his quaint digression, his face in tense expression,
He renewed his dire obsession
About what made the clock strike in the night.
He slipped to the room adjacent, above an empty basement,
Where stood the clock’s encasement – opened so very slight.
Moving with stealth, and in no hurry,
He saw an object hunched and furry;
His cat stood vigil in the night, with eyes reflecting light.
A mouse, the cat had faced, into the clock was chased,
And up the pendulum raced, quickly taking flight.
Climbing the clock’s encasement, the mouse’s weight displacement,
Tripped the spring so tight; it struck with awesome might!
Striking twelve it had numbered, his muddled thoughts encumbered,
Scared awake from slumber in the night.
“All of this is so confusing, could I, these years be using
The clock with spring so tight?”
In his mental delusion he added to the confusion,
For this intrusion in the night.
There was nothing he couldn’t handle
With his shotgun on the mantle by the door,
With it he could surely even up the score.
With the menace looming bigger, he quickly pulled the trigger
Then the grandfather clock was no more
And the cat and mouse— a taxidermy chore.
Copyright © James Tate | Year Posted 2011
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment