Words - passed from thought to speech

from skilled hand to awaiting page,

carefully woven and skillfully pleached -

grey to shadows and slowly fade.

Purposed strokes of the painter’s brush,

made with a defining slur

once thick and powerful and overtly lush

bleed into a chaotic blur.

Bones rejoin and bruises dim.

passing seconds, each more potent than the last

Heal cracked skulls and shattered limbs

providing new health to an injured past

Each jolt forward of the small hand’s intone,

The metronome’s incessant click,

pushes man forward toward the unknown

made less so by the promise of yet another tick.

Man marches alone onto the clock’s clean face

mounting hands and gears to measure the hours.

Unknowingly stunted by his temporal brace

reveling in his self-inflicted powers.

The countdown begins to the end of it all

where man focuses on his demise

life becomes nothing more than a tedious drawl

in which man loses all but his pride.

When man’s dark hands no longer spin,

when no ticks or chimes call out,

will the world go silent without the din