Old Clock Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Life ticks
like an old clock
falling
out of pace,

springs too weak
to pull in
and push out
a tottering
and racing pace.

Between
squawking chicks
and loud
chicken cackles

the hatched
egg and built nest
covered

by sun over earth,
an umbrella
of eyes paced
by a new clock

to keep pace
with a fleeting
hawk's eye,

when doves drool
in their floating
walk is captured
by the hourglass
of pace

too fast to put
up with
and too slow
to catch up,

as snail
sitting
in its shell stool,

overtakes an elephant
ambling
to an island

with no
sun's hourglass
and no ringing bell.

(ii)

But an eye
shot to catch
eye
with a cruising
hare
and a slug,

as a pace
gallops
with a catapulted rocket
cutting through

the wind of a wheezing
albatross,
when man cannot

choke a giraffe's gallop
or fly
a trotting slug

out of the freezing
nimbus glue
of age.

Steered
by a clock's broken
bones
and a pace's

stringless muscles,
no pull, no push,

ship and aircraft
trailing
a creeping ant

on wheels
breathing in
the same floating air.