Friday, 9th April, 2010 Tock

 Tock

Time tonight is a blank face
where the fingers are
ripped away
but still and always
its tock ticks,
pointless,
relentless,
absurd.

There is no mechanism now
to measure these silences
or the spaces
that fall between them,
no neat graduations
to show how life
lapses by minutes
and degrees.

When a chime
strikes the ear
its long note
whirs and winds
at random,
divides silence
to make then
and now
but leaves
no mark
or sign.