Best Clocks Poems
(Read later stanzas for more of the humour part ; parody of politics)
I Can't think well of a democracy
if nepotism and false promises
are part and parcel of its idiosyncrasy
A system of governance can't appeal to me
if it forever stinks of the 'stinking' rich plutocracy.
The media the ravening wolves many times their puppets,
together they howl for our divided attention
With wily words to win the masses of marionnettes
The nation's welfare merely their scheme in pretension.
Wonder why political power has to be the monopoly
of ambitious, vainglorious affluent power moguls.
Why can't they simply choose leaders
from any sincere poor yet wise and humble individuals?
The promises of a better world by 'em' politicians
are simply the oratory tricks of slick tacticians.
Demagogues come in all shapes and sizes
They come in 'perfect' future leader disguises
Pulling you and me to polling booths, luring us the dumbstruck voters
To amass as much power and wealth as possible in their limited quotas.
No wonder poor presidents are turned or burned
in the form of their rude and crude effigy cartoons
Comic sarcastic politics I say, since a caricature
it purposely lampoons!
Then the demonstrations, remonstrations
but they only invite riots and tear bomb gas
So if yah can keep your rallies peaceful
maybe you won't be such an ass.
And if yah do go ahead ranting, panting, slogun chanting
No seeds of discord nor weeds of hate be sowing, planting
for a showdown with fleshy arms, no metal arms can still be prancing, advancing
With sloguns not shotguns be ye protesting and demanding.
Thus I really wonder if politicos politicking
really do make the world tick.
Or do they simply in many places cause
timebombs to parallel the clock's tick?
(ok cast d ballot n vote 4 me as funny presidential candidate
of no-man's land ;
The Youth:
The clock's face smirks at me.
It mocks my glare and irks me.
I roll my eyes, it grinds its gears.
I tap my pen, it tocks and sneers,
its minute hand a finger
that flips me off and ticks me off...
This class will never end.
The Dead:
The clock is a useless tool,
only taunting fools who let it,
only making rules that people fuel
by immersing their lives
in stringent time.
The Elder:
The clock 's face pities me.
It stares at me with sympathy.
It counts each white hair on my head.
It counts the lines that branch and spread
across my weary skin.
It ticks and tricks just like a bomb
counting down to an epilogue.
It counts my beats like a metronome
And tocks in foreign tongues.
Still, I dread the day
this torture stops.
The Dead:
The clock is a useless tool,
measuring mortality,
narrowing vitality.
Don't let it tick-tock away
the waning moments
and fine components
of your final days.
For Craig's "Talking to Yourself" contest
Cuckoo clocks are quite ornate it is said
But those raucous squawks we suffer with dread
Why could not its designer
Have found a bird much finer
Like a sweet trilling canary instead
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Placed No. 5 in Brian Strand's "Five Lines Down" Contest - May 2011
Natures fields, plains, moors, deserts, wonders rife!
Habitats alive,
where life can survive!
Why? Civilised beings murdered all life!
For personal greed!
Used slaves to set seed!
Natures plan, the survival of the fittest.
Mans plan, to remove all not of interest.
What's changed? Nothing, I fear!
We poison oceans, deplete atmosphere!
Science always knew,
Governments poohed poo!
Now, as we've learned nought, for our lives' we fear!
We're told it's too late.
Then what is the fate
that our children's children just might have to face?
Stop pollution now, and, it might slow the pace.
What's changed? Nothing, I fear!
Back in the nineties re. health and safety,
plastics were discussed.
Virility, hushed.
A seminar did close most hastily.
I was asked to stay.
Asked how I knew, hey!
Documentary, Tomorrows World, I think?
Chemicals from plastic leeching into drink.
What's changed? Nothing, I fear!
We will stick with plastics, it's on the news.
Microplastic kills
fish, clogging their gills!
If you feel like I do, pass on your views.
On telly daily!
No longer maybe!
Plastics polluting the oceans poisons fish!.
The mainstay of many, it's their staple dish.
Pollution is killing, and, we're all remiss
What's changed? Nothing, I fear!
Clocks ticking, can't you hear?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5/9/18
QARINAGE - Any Topic' Poetry Contest sponsored by Gregory R Barden
When I'm away from you, time start to freeze,
I get all cold inside, as if my heart is zero degrees,
I can not concentrate, all i can hear is tick, tock,
Everything gets motionless, even the hands upon the clock,
I try to walk around, but it's like zero gravity,
My soul start to hurt, like i got 10,000 cavities,
I start to lose my mind, like its serious insanity,
All i care about is you, to hell with all of the humanity,
You make my heart fly, lift me miles above the ground,
And you make it shine brighter than the stars that i surround,
Up, Up, Up, you make my head reach the sky's ceiling,
The clocks might stop, but nothing can't stop how I'm feeling.
Box
One Christmas I got a box of six clocks
Shock sent my heart all flippity-flops
Now I am watching time
Going out of my mind
To find some sleep I keep counting tick-tocks.
Though I'm always grateful for a gift box
I asked my friend, why a box of six clocks
She said so I'd have time
To write poems that rhyme
And still have time to scoff a box of chocs.
A poetry addict I admit it
With chocolate I'm over the limit
But a gift of six clocks
Just does not tick my box
Not for a day an hour or a minute.
*+*+*
27th April 2023
Writing Challenge - Words with 'X' - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
Word choice - Box no. 5
she is alive dreaming
limbs like serpents growing
an embryonic adult on board sprawling
spawned
learning
she escaped a naked bed
her art stolen into law school
time decorates her shoulder
clocks tickling ticking
….
decorate her shoulder
always time and numbers
nipple oozes round innocence
lost are all her paintings past lives
her naked bed cold
canvasses half complete
entangled her limbs outlined in
blue
she dreams an illusionary future
in silk and law books
she
sleeps
awake
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Art piece : She is Sleeping : Iqraa Daniels
Oil on Board :30cmx41cm
Date: 2014
Style: Expressionism
Genre: Nude
Source : Private :
Pic at website : ghairodanielspresence.WordPress.com
Blog post : She is Sleeping :27/3/26
Certain clocks obeyed
By springing forward on their own –
The ones on the computer
Or the TV or the phone.
But my old-fashioned watch
Required a turning of the stem
And clocks around the house
Needed assistance changing them.
Our Subaru was trickiest
Though after several tries
The dashboard showed the time
On which our traveling relies.
We’re all caught up now for a while
Until the next date when
It’s time to fall behind and then
We’ll do it all again.
Clocks
Remind us
How fast
Our lives pass
Clocks
Throw numbers
In our faces
Seconds and minutes
Clocks
We glance at them
In the beginning of the day
And often at the end of our work day
Clocks
Always keeping track
Re-arranging our day
Without fail
Clocks
Always watching
Keeping time
Reminding us
Our constant
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If time were currency, the markets would thunder~
seconds sold at sunrise, minutes bought at dusk.
Would the rich wear hourglass cuffs, their palms full of sand?
Would moguls hoard eternity in vaults of will?
If time were currency, the markets would stall~
seconds faltering at the altar of the inevitable end.
Would beggars clutch crumbs of twilight?
Would the wretched fold their hands, praying for a minute to survive?
If time were currency, ruthless time smugglers would flourish~
stolen seconds and rusted gears bootlegged, hidden in their pockets.
Would a grief-stricken widow purchase one final glance?
Would a remorseful thief return his first mistake?
If time were currency, time bankers would be ecstatic~
our seconds and unspent days bartered for kindness.
Would an abused wife purchase a moment of random kindness?
Would a cancer patient trade her kindness for a cure?
If time were currency, would we...
...be cognizant of clocks with hollow hands and hourglass smugglers?
…hoard the dawn, stuffing our pockets with moonlight spilling between the blinds?
…learn to spend time wisely before the last invoice of our soul is paid?
Keep up with the latest news
Smart watches do more than just tell you the time
From ancient times we had clocks that were more environmentally friendly
Roosters were natural alarm clocks
It's the rooster that crows, but it's the chickens that lay the eggs
Personally I think it is time for a women's liberation
Up before the rooster crows ?
Thank you for long and faithful service ... the smell of fresh coffee
24.01.2017
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Torn from my slumber in the early hours
by a Blackbird outside in a tree,
as it performed for us a solo dawn chorus
as loud as can possibly be.
Now fully awake, no way could I sleep
all because of that darned noisy pest,
so I stumbled about with one leg in my jeans
as I quietly tried to get dressed.
But I woke the missus, she looked at the clock
saying “ it's only three forty-six!”
which meant that last night when I checked all the clocks
my watch I'd forgotten to fix.
Next year when the Government say 'put your clocks back'
can somebody please have a word,
and ask them when they start reminding us all-
can they also go tell all the birds.
b>Time Management and the Art of Throwing Alarm Clocks
by
Lemuel Griffiths
March, 2,017
Apparently, there's a God damned dog out there - according to my neighbour,
And his wife, Thelma, needs to understand this and know about the mess and understand it's consistency and have this information and keep it and hide it and all five minutes before my alarm goes off.
The trees sway in the distance as I run the water into the kettle - wiping my eyes with a knuckle.
The gulls saw past., thrilled at the the new morn.
In 200 hundred years, they'll all be gone.., and these trees.., and that neighbour and his nemesis and Thelma and the alarm clock and me.
The kettle clicks and the steam rises -
Up and onto the large mirror.., made of sand and heat that the former tenants put on the ceiling.
I look up..., and down.. we're both amused for a second.., The phone rings.
It flips onto record mode
A voice , a man.., an angry man.
There's an authority in his voice.., like a..,
Damn it.., my boss.
It's not the weekend anymore.
His weekend, mine.., Thelmas, the dogs
The weekend is unowned now.., by anyone.
Gone, never to return.
The first one of March, never to return..,
This March, the dead end job.
And all the things come.., right along to pass.
Once in a while..,
I wish back,
With all my beating heart..,
For those glorious and golden five minutes of dream and non existence - I lost..,
Before that Dog damned God. <>
Surgery waiting room clocks move very slowly.
Pages in the books people brought with them are read over and over again without the reader ever knowing what it is they read. Magazines are picked up and put down again without being opened. Windows are looked out of without the view outside ever being seen.
And, the clock hardly moves.
If fish could be described as pacing back and forth, that is what the angelfish in the oversized aquarium appear to be doing. People sit in one chair, get up, walk around and sit in another chair, as if that one will bring them better results. Bathrooms are entered and exited and the faces reflected in the mirrors within look more worried than the person looking at the reflection had hoped to see.
And, the clock has barely moved.
Hands that are seldom held are being held by friends and family. Hugs that are seldom shared are being freely distributed. Vending machines are being stared at for minutes at a time, but items are seldom purchased.
And, the clock remains the same.
Each new person that enters the room attracts every eyeball wondering if that person’s loved one is in better or worse shape than the one they are waiting on. Then, the eyes return to the page that has been read fifty times; the magazine that remains unopened; or the window that looks out to an unseen scene. Cell phones ring. Strangers learn the story of other strangers through one sided phone conversations.
And, the clock appears to have stalled.
As surgeons enter the room, everyone listens for their name to be called. You watch other families converse with the doctor, gather their belongings and relocate to other rooms with slow moving clocks.
Once you hear your name, your anxiety heightens and you learn the status of your loved one. You gather your belongings to sit vigil by your patient’s side to be there when they awake. Upon leaving the room, you glance one last time at the waiting room clock and notice it has skipped ahead seven hours.
You leave the few remaining anxious strangers behind and hope to never have to see that surgery waiting room clock ever again.
their clocks tick away
I see time is running out
countdown to the grave
time leads me to be alone
waiting for my clock to stop