Clock

Time wastes, slowly ebbing, the dull scratch: idle pens
Re-writing the past through scripts gone wrong.
The conundrum of what, of who, why and when
Will the hand ever move, its Titanic struggle echoes
Eyes that cannot entertain the book and whose hearts
Lie flat like the slain: crosses dignify, mud stains.
The afternoon, buzzing a gauze of sound beyond glass
Other shadows hidden, cooler than this glare.
The silence of the machine that shuts down their hope
Straining of minds at the closing down of time.
Their questions come more slowly when the clock
Seems to slow, they wait in youth, a steady afterglow.
A bird sings past, a streak of freedom, a dart of hope
But the clock holds them back stroke after stroke after stroke.