two poems: 2

I am here.

The clock is ticking.

It is a double tick one-one two-two three-three
and so on.

My eyes are closed and my arm is long
over my face. I am lying down.

And then I am no longer here.
But where I am I cannot tell.

The black inky night was aérien and plump
and yet becomes metalled languor,

the dull copper reflects
a flattening space

it is shimmering.

I am here.

I know this because I suddenly
hear the clock breaking into

the metalled world. And yet
I have not moved, my arm has not

moved, and yet the world is
thickening again and filling with

air, and yet one-one two-two
it doesn't quite seem right and yet

my mind has been slicked with
the dully copper flections and

yet I am aware of my awareness and
that's not right, as far as sleep goes.

The clock ticks.

The tinny echo of a swelling sound is
coming from one of four buildings

whose windows face onto mine, but they
are far away and I am on the sixth floor.

I treasure my privacy.

This swell is swelling and the melody
has bloomed from its very ubiquitous root.

dah da-da-dah daah daah
dah da-da-dah daaah daaah

happy birthday da-da-da-dah is what I first
imagined because I hear a tinny echo.

I can not make out the words.

And yet, even not making out the words, it
should not be birthday but anniversaire.

There is a moment I think it might be in
a language completely foreign to me, that

it might be in congolese or senegelese and
once I heard a senegalese man downstairs at

the market say to his companion, for godness
sake and it was true and he was right.

This is not about the tomato at the market
or the apple in the metaphor, but godness

because I was in the metalled world
and it is how I imagine god must feel, not

hearing the tick of the clock, and yet
I must return to it, and I am here now,

and the clock is ticking

and it must be midnight for they are
singing.

Published in Belleville Park Pages 11; Mike Waser