Work

WORK

Work springs from bed, time ringing,

Switches off alarm, not clock, world,

Ticking, spinning, running, rushing—

Undresses, showers, splashes—

Sun, birds, window—towels, fluffy, dry—

Dresses, belt, tie, mirror, brushes hair,

Bounds for egg, rice, coffee—

Brushes teeth, brushes hair again,

Hops in car, drives, slows down, traffic—

Rain, wipers, left, right, metronome—

Signals, turns, parks, jumps out—at last!—

Guard, elevator button, fourth floor,

Hello, good morning, sits down, breathless,

Switches on computer, types—tik, tak,

Tikkity-tak—gets up, coffee maker—almost

No one here, checks calendar—holiday.

Originally published in Boston Poetry Magazine (September 4, 2014)

Virginia Woolf, a pioneer of the stream-of-consciousness technique

Noise

NOISE

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

—Jean Arp, Arp on Arp

Construction is ongoing, banging away next door.

Metal clangs on metal, a pump machine loudly whirs.

Chop saws, screaming spirits, slice steel bars.

Sledgehammers thud solidly, breaking apart concrete.

Gravel fills apertures, ears, shuffling downward inside.

Dust and cement puffs, dry, burning in the sun,

Waft by, gray fumes at the volcano’s edge.

Mixers pour concrete, molten dough, into wooden molds.

Workers, perched birds, fashion steel bars into cages.

Walls grow layer by layer like a multistory cake.

Doors and windows appear as rectangular frames.

Jutting into the light, the first steps of a staircase ascend.

Drying walls glisten, soon to be lacquered with smooth finishes.

Day by day a building rises out of rubble, transforming—

A lady fastening a glittery brooch, a gentleman adjusting a silk tie.

Originally published in IthacaLit (September 27, 2014)

Combo (1970) by Antonio Austria

The Clock

THE CLOCK

We divide the clock

Into pie segments

To show, self-indulgently,

We are masters of time.

Serving up plates, we

Apportion hours a la carte,

Spearing minutes with a fork.

Wistfully, we sip on seconds.

We park our legs high

On a chair, lean back,

Saying, this year I will do this,

Next year that.

But time yields to no master:

Heedless brute, it is an

Inexorable mule,

Spinning sun, ruthless.

Only a cosmic force,

Colossal as stars collapsing,

Warping space like plastic

Has the arm to rein in time,

Rearing neighing stallion,

Bull kept at bay.

Time answers to no one.

We answer to time.

Already it holds us

On a leash, shortening:

We strain forward;

It pulls us in.

Helpless fish,

We must forsake fruit

Just beyond our reach.

And we are bound to tell time

Our narrative when it ends.

Now the clock strikes:

Bells ring, sonorous,

Pure as childhood,

Shining as youth,

Florid as love,

Perfect as wisdom
…the spring runs out.

Originally published in The Furious Gazelle (September 19, 2014)

Grandfather clock face, Marines' Memorial Club & Hotel, San Francisco