I’m in full-force editing mode right now, and I couldn’t quite drag myself away long enough this morning to write a new blog post. So I hope you’ll forgive me for sharing one of my old poems with you instead. This one was first published in the Wichita Falls Literature and Art Review, Volume IV, in winter of 2010. It was one of the first two poems I ever had published, and my mom still loves it because it reminds her of The Syncopated Clock. For those of you curious about poetic forms, this is a modified villanelle, similar to a stretched sonnet. Enjoy.
Digital Implications
The visual tick of my
digital clock, missing the old-fashioned
sound of a tick, makes me imagine
the sound of a tock.
Neon green lights blink around
the block, since the lightning
gave our starter a shock. The visual
tick of my digital
clock harkens back to when
all awoke to the cock crowing loudly,
an alarm gone rustic—making me
imagine the sound of a tock.
The numbers will say 12:00
for an epoch… or until I reset
its buttons that click.
The visual tick of
my digital clock anxiously
urges me not to talk, but to
listen to the silent air,
so thick—making me imagine
the sound of a tock. And though
time has passed, it’s still
twelve o’clock,
in spite of the flashing:
steady, rhythmic. The
visual tick of my digital clock
makes me imagine
the sound
of a tock.
© Annie Neugebauer, 2010.
All rights reserved.
