Hemlocked Heart

I hate the eternal ticking of the iron clock over my left shoulder
It fills the silence with a menace, a complaint, a hasty order
I hate the tick-tock tick-tock tick as time demands another soldier
To fight in an icy, indifferent war, sacrificing patience to the fodder.

Interruptions forge haunted statues, the malnourished stand alone
Clangs and bangs of nearby movement feed the tick-tock monotone
To subdue it, work goes through it, takes the chime into your bones
Never ending, ticking-tocking clocks become all you’ve ever known

Still it ticks sending shivers, twinges and twitches down your spine
Carving static lovesongs of a future into your sagging marble rind
Starved wishes for your past lives when tick-tock was dubbed divine
Tick-tock tock-tick presses further, hailing the faceless gods of time