Metronome

Metronome

​

My cousin,

Lonely and eager to leave an impression

Set the pendulum ticking of the family metronome

A million years before my time, its monolithesque geometry

Imposing and unsettling, its towering lines

I stared into its slow predictable tick

Like a hypnotist’s watch.

​

The first of the four-beat sounded its end

And a new one followed immediately after

And Cousin ten said to me at five,

“If ever it shall stop, your heart will follow,

And in that moment, you will die”

​

The jarring ring, one after the next

Each cycle waxed and waned

And that predictable four beat came around

Again and again in perfect interval

And showed little sign of slowing

With the swing of the hypnotist’s watch.

​

In childish terror I stared in half-belief

At the evil my playtime chum had bestowed

The starting gun fired.

He grew tired of my introspection

And dragged me away to play cars.

​

Out of earshot of mortality,

I ran my little hotwheels across the carpet

And hoped in the back of my head,

That the pendulum downstairs would stay ticking

And wondered whether I’d know when it stopped.

​

​

[One] (https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/9kzwt1/the_sun_the_moon_and_the_naked_words/e73zw2l/?context=3) [Two] (https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/9l2xbz/poor_taste/e73zh0e/?context=3)