More clocks

justam

I dreamt my friend gave me a watch (just like the one I have) to thank me for helping him wake up. A watch, to show me how time was passing and how I'd better remember there was a bit of urgency in the air.

Yeah...well...if I think about that whole-time-thang it's clear that I feel it. I'm the one who's been steadfast and loyal this whooolle time. I'm stuck.

I suppose I could smash a few clocks to the ground to vent my frustration, or unplug every piece of equipment with the time flashing, but I don't think that would help. Whether the time passed quietly or with a tick-tock, it's still gone.

And I still respect another's freewill too much to force anyone to do something they don't want to. Maybe you could just come out here and bring a replacement battery or maybe something with a really loud alarm?

Being Enlightened

Whenever I think of clocks, especially smashed clocks or time melting, I think of Salvador Dali.

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Clock-Explosion_i96971_.htm

I like your comment on the passage of time--it keeps ticking on whether we're "watch"ing it or not. Damn, it'd sure be nice to not have to worry about what time it is--am I late?, am I early?, am I really getting old?, do I have enough time?, what time is it?, what time does that open or close? is it time for the clocks to be set back/forward?...

Okay, time for that alarm clock to start blaring, justam! *BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP* Just to wake you from your dreams of watches and clocks to remind you that it's TIME to get up!

justam

Hey thanks Being Enlightened! I like that Dali picture.

(I just woke up this morning and was thinking about my last dream and this came out.)

Being Enlightened

Your welcome! Dali's work is very strange and very cool, IMHO.

Nothing better than plucking poetry from the dream-sea!

Ali

Good thought just am.I wrote a poem relative to time as well.
And dying.
Thats what were counting down til...isnt it?:);)

justam

Ali wrote:

Good thought just am.I wrote a poem relative to time as well.
And dying.
Thats what were counting down til...isnt it?:);)

I think that's the count down, yes. No biological clock for me 'cuz my boys are already born.

grooveamatic

It’s his old house-
He lived in it for
A few years,
Just him and his mother-
That I drive past every day
On my way to work
That crawls into my flesh
And won’t leave go.
I knew him while he lived there,
Although not as well
As I do now,
But I took him home
A handful of times,
Drove around that circular driveway,
And left him by the enclosed
Front porch
Searching for keys
In the dark.
It seemed a nice enough place-
Perhaps a bit run-down,
In need of a few repairs,
But never destitute-
With a liberal sprinkling
Of shade-bearing trees
And enivitable critter-housing shrubs
That, as a boy,
I’m sure he loved to play around,
Imagining all kinds
Of bizarre world-changing events
Taking place to and because of him,
Right there in that shady lawn.
And inside
On windblown evenings,
Hot mother-cooked meals,
The smells of which
One can never forget,
The textures and spices
Of maternal food and the kitchen
Where love made it
Shining through to his adult world
Always, especially when he couldn’t
Remember it.
And then,
A short time after I came to know him,
They simply moved,
Although I’m certain
It was quite involved for him
And his mother,
To us-his friends-
It seemd they had just
Transplanted,
Picked all worldly things up
And trotted off to another home
In a nearby trailer park.
It wasn’t so bad:
We still saw him just as much,
And it wasn’t any further away.
Strangely, though,
The next people to
Take residence in his old home
Were acquaintances of ours:
Party friends who approved of us
And liked to do
What we liked to do.
And so it was
A short time indeed
For my friend until he returned to the home of his mother,
A short time until he saw his bedroom
Again, now belonging to
A rancid friend with a poor moustache
And stained skin
Who had his bed in the very wrong spot.
The bathroom that had been
Ruthlessly spotless before
Now a colony for any live,
Microscopic entity who felt like moving in,
The sink now a brown problem
Instead of a pearly white altar,
The toilet barely flushing,
And the lightbulb refusing to be changed
So that one was forced to pee in the dark.
The kitchen now not that of the mother
But of unkempt communal
Post-adolecent living,
Issuing not aromas
Of hearty, oft-prepared
Casseroles and soups
But the microwaved plastic
And congealing trash
That comes with being awake all night
Or not knowing where your money is.
And no one eating their vegetables
Or drinking their juice,
But ingesting all varieties of terrible things,
From three-day old chicken
To high-grade opium
Which any mother
In her right frame of mind
Would surely disapprove of.
This is not to suggest
That we had anything less
Than a marvelous time there-
My friend included-
And after a few hestiant moments
Everyone seemed to forget
That he had ever lived there at all,
That it had ever been anything but
What it was now,
Or that it could ever be anything else.
Soon enough,
The friend with the questionable moustache
And the marked skin was arrested,
Followed quickly by the others moving out,
And the house was out of our hands,
Forever to be becoming something new
For somebody new.
But it still crawls into my flesh
And won’t leave go
When I drive past it
On my way to work;
The way it stubbornly denies
That any time has passed for anyone,
And the way it cages past
Like a commodity.
I imagine what my friend must have felt like,
Doing what we were doing
In that place,
Perhaps he was searching
For some sign that what he knew
To be true remained true,
That what had happened there
Somehow remained there,
Only finding the more you examine
Things you have already done,
The less those things tend to acknowledge you,
And if you allow yourself to,
You can end up in the center
Of a room that doesn’t care about you,
Wishing for portals to your former self,
The loosing of clocks.

justam

grooveamatic, that was so good! Another one of your stories that was compelling until the end.

It reminded me of how I felt when I went into my grandparents house when they were dead and gone. How I didn't want strangers buying it and moving in. It was a sacred place to me.

You captured that feeling people have about a place they have lived.

grooveamatic

justam wrote:

grooveamatic, that was so good! Another one of your stories that was compelling until the end.

It reminded me of how I felt when I went into my grandparents house when they were dead and gone. How I didn't want strangers buying it and moving in. It was a sacred place to me.

You captured that feeling people have about a place they have lived.

Thanks! Your thing about clocks reminded me of it so much--it is an older poem of mine.

Time haunts me.