Clockwork
May 15 2008


I bum time
like cigarettes —
“is it 4 yet?”,
as if hitting-up friends
for smokes.
Or even total strangers, when I’m desperate
for a quick fix of when.
I ask politely “do you have the time?”,
as if I had none, all my sand run out
— a panhandler
hoping for a spare second,
or a minute you’ll never miss.

Because I’ve quit my wrist-watch and cell-phone,
the conceit that I can step serenely out of time.
Except here I am,
glancing up at the sun
and calibrating shadows
and consulting random clocks,
smug at how close I got.
And even without knowing when
it’s all timing, in life
— the time you stepped-off the curb
into traffic;
when you got up the nerve
to ask her out.
And right there and then
your whole life was set.

I sit on this bench, watching,
people rushing by
heads-down, eyes-front
— determined to get there
on time.
While I live from dark to light, and season to season,
a refugee in a foreign land
who can't understand
the clockwork culture that surrounds him.
Where everyone’s trying to save time,
as if they’ll actually get it back in the end.