Best Sprockets Poems
I feel the clock
as it begins to unwind
Tick tock, tick tock
another second behind
Springs and sprockets
intricately interconnected
Tick talk, tick t a l k
My slow down unexpected
Pendulum swinging
from side to side
Ticktock,ticktock
Not swinging nearly as wide
The Cuckoo is coming
It will stick out it’s head
Tick tock, tick talk
I can’t remember what I said
Ding dong, ding dong
The chimes are ringing
Tick tock, tock tock
What will time be bringing?
The hands keep moving
around the round face
Tick tock, tick tock
Connecting me to this place!
I search for the key
can this clock be rewound?
Tick tick, talk stick
It’s nowhere to be found......
As a citizen poet without pretension,
I offer a true tale of my invention.
A solid everyman in my community,
with a reputation of immunity,
I was happy and content.
I shared my thoughtful insights,
and wrote about the northern lights.
My words made grown men cry.
I think about it and breathe a sigh -
I was something else!
But, one morning, I woke up
and drank acidic coffee from my cup,
which my wife served black as pitch.
Inside I felt a strange, hot itch.
Could it be indigestion?
No ordinary heart inside my chest,
was it the Devil who had me possessed?
Burning inside, I fretfully undressed,
as, to despair, I acquiesced,
and went back to bed.
But, the feeling persistently welled,
until, at last, I was oddly compelled,
and in terror, I was gripped,
so my own skin, I violently ripped,
exposing my insides.
There, I saw sprockets and springs,
gears, knobs and other things,
and screamed an existential cry,
knowing I could neither live, nor die,
for all I was, was just AI.
In the space between the moments
Myriad eternities merge,
They come like dreams
on whispered interludes
between seeding and
blooms,
As a tender touch of dew
at dawn,
With a lightness of
just dried butterfly wings.
Then the time between the pictures,
Before the sprockets fill,
Here lie thoughts beyond the number
As dreams whispering.
The clockwork
the most complex
Older sprockets, need
life cycle oils
Awareness
the vitality is impaired
- ready to do whatever it takes
follow the advice of the doctor
positively for health
The Clockmaker
The old clockmaker sat at his bench
In the shop where he'd lived all his years
With a monocle lens on his eye
And his desk filled with sprockets and gears.
Everything had its place in a drawer.
Every drawer labeled proper and neat.
Only sound to be heard was the clocks
As they ticked out a monotone beat.
Of the hundreds of clocks there for sale
Each with spaces on walls or on shelves
Not a one of them told the wrong time
And they all said one minute till twelve
The dark moment he'd feared had arrived
And the clockmaker's face gave a wince
As each clock confirmed midnight had come
And that now Daylight Savings begins
8.17.18
Contest: A Rattling Rhyme
piano rocket
jazzy orchestra sprockets
no electric guitar
no electrical sockets
careful where you dance
might get hit with a lover's locket
no security here
no need to empty your pockets
bumping to trumpet prophets
Flatbush . . . Bedford Stuyvesant . . . Saint Jerome's . . .
Our Lady of Good Counsel School . . . The Sisters of Mercy . . . The Franciscan Brothers.
Double features at the Farragut movie on Saturday A.M.:
The Mummy's Curse and Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Lotsa shorts, cartoons and Nyoka, the Jungle Girl,
Or maybe Dick Tracy or Superman if we were lucky.
Jangling trollies, "Hoodlums" Ma called em, pulling electric sprockets off
The aerial line as the trolly rounded Rogers Avenue.
Paul Chilcott, Roger Scott, Gerard Meyers.
Did I do my homework for tomorrow?
The stinking barn on East 28th Street where we pulled
Drags on Chesterfields and played Caught-Caught Ringaleveo and punchball
On the dirt side of the old barn.
Eggies no halvsies and aggies and yo-yo's and 'territory'
With a big fat pen knife.
Flipping cards in the afternoon: Ralph Branca, Gil Hodges, Pee-Wee Reese.
Vic Rachi was hard to get -- even though a Yankee.
Pop taking Billy and me to Prospect Park Zoo. Always the seals first.
Had to be back by Four. Sunday dinner was always at Four.
"Pass the bread, Jerry." I threw a loaf to my brother.
Grandma, all eighty pounds of her, quivering in her raspy Sicilian voice,
"Don'ta throw God."
O' woe, begone betwixt machine,
Breathe clowns galore this Halloween,
Lay tricks played game, device for fools,
Be sprockets, chains, and things learn I,
What need be fixed, of me, they vie,
Deny me naught borne bag of tools.
2019 October 21
Perhaps one day the world can change
remove this grain from the gears
those sprockets seeking to rotate
have no need to compensate
an irritation that few admit
except to step around the grit
damned by silence without regard
for the feelings of the gnat
allowing gods to have their way
with full knowledge of good and bad
the highest wisdom with least pain
divinity spawned is then made plain
at last all others may depart
the annoyance finally purged
from the sight of those who rule
nature blessed with the void.
hello hate
say i say sayd hello hate
contemplatory emotional tags
these sites drag lips womb walls are stretched
my eyes have been sifted through sculptors
beyond castles dreams
clouds lines with the very thought of me
clones they come bulging from sulfur
fingertips wagging chalkboard remarks
shreal eclipses eardrums as fingernails ring
painted beyond my sobriety are rainbowed sheets
each one of them we breathe colours are less than me
so bright less than me word bathers seek me
thoughts are bound on spools
my thoughts are bound on spools
sprockets from lost generations cling to me
cling to each open space between my ears
love can be found in these moments
love can be found ing these moments
love can be found they make hello hate
?
Time will tell, just gently listen,
to the sound of gears and sprockets
conveying a concept quite complex.
ask it a question and watch the position,
of the needle telling you what you want to know,
as an unstoppable force compels it to do so.
You cannot make it go faster, nor can you stall;
The clock house’s burden that befalls us all.
When the orchestra of chimes combine,
commanding suns to dusk and fates to intertwine,
the pendulums sway starts to slowly decline.
succumbing to the weight of everlasting time,
The logic of the herald of order will fade away,
telling us lies, but the truth at least twice a day.
Don’t just raise your glass, stand up to cheers
Until each and every one gets audibly clinked
Repeating Ike-ism’s stretching memories years
Keeps the good ones up front and spirits linked
Not so subtly cheat (just a little) in a crokinole game
Enough to get caught to see who’s watching most
Laugh when he’s busted, “Who me?” He’d exclaim
Get the cookie anyway and make a little toast
But don’t just raise your glass, stand up to cheers
Around the table meeting each glass individually
Sing old songs loud enough so everyone hears
Then head to the garage to smoke an O.P.
Overpaying the grandkids to repaint the fence
Who wasted the paint on each other running amok
A sense of good humour even at an expense
So off for more, piled into the big orange truck
Fixing cars for the cost of parts and a chat
For family and friends over sprockets and gears
Here’s to the happy man with Ike on his hat
So don’t just raise your glass, stand up to cheers!
I wondered what I’d do If I had chosen a career
Would it have been based on challenge or overcoming fear
I could have been an electrician
Working with plugs and wires and sprockets
Or maybe even a politician
Putting my hands in other peoples pockets
I might have been a mariner
When my ship was moored I’d rig it
Or possibly an undertaker
But I just didn’t dig it
How about being a dramatic actor
Playing a part that would make you cry
Study law and be a lawyer
Put my hand on a Bible and lie
I could have been a doctor
And helped ease somebody’s pain
I could have been a congressman
And sold my country down the drain
Be a horticulturist with flowers
From a daisy to a rose
Or a plastic surgeon with pictures
So my patients could pick their nose
I might have chosen to be a weather man
Being wrong most of the time
Or the CEO of a major company
Believing being a thief wasn’t really a crime
If I had to choose a career
I wouldn’t know where to start
So I’ll just be a poet
And stay true to my heart.
Johnny jonquil jerry justified jilly’s jeu jeu bee
Dilly dally Doolittle dodged debonair simon legree’s degree
Freakish freddy frogmouth forever frolicked footloose and free
Michigan mike’s handy hardy heart hovers over a wild monkey
Photogentic photons prance prettily in posey’s poignant plea
Sparkling sprinkling sprockets on a special soupy spree
Verigated visiting venomous vines vying for an upside down vee,
Neopolitan negativity knicking nora, knocking knibber’s knee
Tricept’s trepidation tripping towards tutu bubu trees
Hampton’s heavy hyenas heading home with loud heehees
Doodles and dabbling
Pillow stuffings in the hall,
There is toilet paper
Colliding in and out of each stall.
Perusing and cruising
Space shuttles standing tall,
There are sprockets and things,
In each hand, ready for the belle of the ball.
It is time for school,
Paper planes turned into sails,
Spelling bees to be won,
From the war of words and its tales.
The air is sweet,
Smelling of confections,
And sugary-decadent treats.
The children leapt in wonder
Of a sail going down
Its fragrant wind down asunder.
The rain fell down,
In quiet sheets upon its reeds,
Its fiercest storm, colliding into golden deeds.
The hurmphs released,
The liver tards rise to the air,
In bursts of laughter, bright and fair.
Laughter, rises upon her stare.
Its starlit beauty to the sky,
And she chimes a song to the air.
Calling the children back to school,
In shirts, crisp and clear,
She was my bus driver, both loved and dear.