- Non-Erotic Poetry
- The watchmaker's hands
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Click hereThe day the watchmaker's hands
twitched
and the first of many springs
danced madly across elbow creased rose wood
to play hide and seek behind a virginal carton
of brass cogs,
he put down his loupe and tweezers,
put on his hat and duffel,
and walked six miles and back
to the hardware store.
He leaned the shovel,
pristine in the corner
behind the umbrella stand.
It did not make a fuss
did not speak to anyone,
and the watchmaker
sat down with tweezers and twitches,
a firmer grip and elbows heavy.
And did what he did what he did.
The day the watchmaker's hands
twiched
and the last spring
sprung out of hand
and into history,
the shovel spoke and clattered,
louder than sound, stronger than motion.
The watchmaker
put down his loupe and tweezers,
put on his hat and duffel
and walked six feet and out
to bury a man
hunched over creased
rose wood.
The day the gardener's hands
twitched
he laughed and let them tremble.
Petals are more forgiving than cogs,
and there's enough beauty in fractals
to fill anyone's heart.
- COMMENTS
greenmountaineerover 13 years agoI read this several times, which I hope you take as a compliment. I keyed on the word fractal, and I thought it pertained to the precisely shaped components of the watch, on the one hand, and the shapes in nature suggesting not only beauty, but perhaps a far greater precision and design.
Of course, we all have a tendency to read our own biases into a poem, and I happen to be one who is in awe of both the beauty and the wonderful mysterious design of the universe.
Anonymousover 13 years agoShouldn't it be rosewood, not 'rose wood'?
Typo with 'twitched'.
Easily a five.
SeattleRainover 13 years agoYou have always had a way with sounds in your poetry, the mechanical repetition in the early stanzas that mimic the motion of the watch and the twitch of the hands. I would have liked to see more of a motion to organic sounds and rhythms as he moves into the world of forgiving flowers, something soft, flowing? Maybe that is just the romantic in me :) Well done, so good to read you again
buttersover 13 years agosuch a quiet man. the acceptance here is beautiful. i see no mystery, just a man who accepts he's no longer able to make the world of minutiae obey his will and so, instead, finds joy in tinkering in his plot of land, finding beauty in the non-mechanical ...
vrosej10over 13 years agoMaybe that's just me cause I got a chronic tremor. Weird fairytale imagery but I liked it. This poems a puzzler to me. It seems that you are uneasy writing this. Maybe you were going for making the reader uneasy and it backfired? You walk that fine line between sentimentality and maudlin and manage not to fall over, so kudo for that. You're getting a recommend.
GuiltyPleasureover 13 years agoAnge saw Grimm brothers, I see Poe. Woven and rewoven back on itself it's full of mystery and foreboding. I was left wondering if "springs", "cogs" and "the shovel" are symbols or euphamisms. Sphinx-like to the point of obscurity but still worth reading, there's a smile hidden in all the gloom.
Tess
Angelineover 13 years agoI had to read this a few times to get what was really happening. I like the contrast of such a dark tale set in a rather mundane scene and childlike voice (which is why those fairytales work, too, I guess). I also like that it's a sort of dramatic narrative that reveals this awful story in little details as it unfolds. And I like the ending because it's quixotic and abstract set against the stolid details that precede it. Still I feel it needs more poetic imagery to make it transcendent, but maybe that would work against the tone. One nitpick: I think "stronger" doesn't work so well with "motion." Maybe something like "faster/motion" would be a better parallel to "louder/sound." Overall though I sense you are writing outside your comfort zone, your typical "Liar" voice I've come to expect, and that, imo, is always a good thing because it leads to growth.
