One-a.m. Ticcing.
Ticking. Clicking. The clock can’t
Stop saying that word.
Momentarily…
Momentarily… out loud
Thoughts flood in the dark
Staccato stillness –
Cascading electrical
Pulses. On. On. On.
Numbers are other
Worldly: bright gluey dew goo
Axons, glitterly
Reverberating.
Precision tuning fork chimes,
Through the scaffolded
Crystalline lattice
of genetic hyperspace.
– Counted on fingers.
Hemispheres diffused.
Fresh alloy-ground bean nuclei
Funnelled up over
the meniscus’
Intermittent taut quietude…
Before the rippled
Circles, concentric
Memories, skim like polished stones
to the hulled, rind rim.
I stir my coffee
Round and around the wrist-click clock:
Syncopated ticks.
Not tics – just ticks and
Clicks and spoon stims. Caffeinated
Pill peristalsis
Cream and green pep pods
Split from the pack on the kitchen
High shelf allotment.
Psycho-
Neurotic
Phonetics:
Demand avoidant
Octadic heptades, gently,
Undisguisedly
Teasing out the count.
Short of a conscientious
End beyond itself.
Images purl down
Celestial shoulders, freed
Gestural droplets
Lapping and tapping
Phobic mosaics. Fogged folk songs
Ink stippled glass lights;
Torrential elbows
Angled juxtapositions
– Windows painted shut.
Low clouds cast jewelled
Shadowy splays at brick walls
Taller than stone trees
Soporific stills.
Quivering pearl-petalled bulbs
Question cold, bared roots
Afraid to look up,
Contemplating dulled amber
Night’s street lamp sadness.
Thirty one million,
Five hundred and thirty six
Thousand orbital
Clicks, three moons removed
From familial collisions;
Asteroid ice. Trimmed
Paper plate planets
Hung out to dry but left there
To rip in the rain…
