A Clock is Ticking
In the background a clock is ticking
we see an egg timer flipped
and starting over three minutes
from empty once again until
we cut to water dripping
from a branch then panning out
to an unimpeded view of the body
outside in the rain where finally
the music begins
there will be no presumption
of innocence to try and appease
the melancholy of an unforgiving world
a landscape which has been corrupted
someone must be the victim
of bad faith needles have fallen
from a pine tree forming a carpet
atop the mud as the blue overhead
gradually fades to a star-pointed canopy
of dark silence everywhere
from here to the distant mountains
it will take an entire season
to solve the crime because
that’s how television works
everything must be named
before we move to culmination
translation made from darkness
to light what began as a memorial
must end with the pain of labor
and there’s more to come in season two.
About the Author: Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Pirene’s Fountain. His book “Fragmentation and Volta” is scheduled for February 2025 publication by Gnashing Teeth Publishing.
Image Credit: John Hamilton Mortimer “Skeletons with an Hour Glass” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 