Internal parts spread out
Taken apart, way across
Hop-scotch blocks,
And little girls
Hippity-hop

Toes in each block
In time to a tune
Drums pock a beat
On the little child
Inside the watch

Icky-tickity, tock, tock
A tear from the eyes
Like a drip, faucet
Then over the falls
Niagara in a barrel

Time doesn't, not really
Exist to be selfish, always
Giving a bit more, another
Second turns in to a minute
By yourself, in a barrel

Going over the falls
And right at the edge
Toes over the top
Feet in the air
Head over heels

You look at your watch
Tickity, tickity-tock, tock
Hippity, hop, hop
Right over, toes in the box
With a roar, a tear

Coming together
Tears, not for pain
Like a band on a watch
Pinned to keep place
Just in case you fall

In love, hippity-hop
So when your feet reach
Touch the sky, tickity, top
You can check the time
So know how far you fall

Tickity, tippity-tip top
Check the wrist watch
Toes in the block
Skipping rope
Keeping time

All of the above
Inner chyld, tock, tock
Beautifully in time
Perfectly aligned
Inside your mind

Playing hopscotch
Little girls' games
Over the top
Clippity, tock
Tick, tock

Tick-tock, tickity-tock
...The sounds of my memory box
Tick-tock, tickity-tock
This insomnia's got to stop!

Around and round and up and down
My deepest thoughts do fly,
Around and round and inside out,
I think I've lost my mind

They pull me in and spit me out
Whilst running round inside,
They pull me in and SHOUT SHOUT SHOUT
I've nowhere else to hide

I cast a plan, a plan is mine
I have to fool my mind,
To get to sleep I need to trick
My mind, let's start with 'eyes'!

...My eyes are shut - its not enough
"I'M CURSED, I'M DOOMED" I cry
My dearest thoughts now that's enough!
It's time to say 'goodnight'

Now one by one, come on - do come,
Now's not the time to shy,
You've kept me up for long enough
Now let me put this right

You see, my little darling thoughts
Don't fear, its not goodbye...
....I'll reassess your case of course....
Tomorrow, when its light!!


© Karen L Hamilton, 2013

I am a visitor in the past
heavy bass and hops
a surgeon, eyes following
leaning on iron
fist pumping ire

I only live in recollection
worry terribly distortion
racking
I wore a tie
I wore leather
I wore a lie
erased you, I did

I can bounce off a memory
wave at the ****** face of hilarity
knowing I can't go back there in reality
smell my hair, comb it with a part
slick it back
I zoom on by
who the **** was that,
never could catch up
the why

Never a master at tickity tick
present never present
I'm so distant, there I go again
waving at the ****** up face of hilarity
I click, I click, I click
flying by wave after wave
no difference between each but so rapidly different
that is reality
just not really
who said so
not me
I did
no really
no reality
that isn't me
just a memory

Change the sound
vibrate charm
no hand
no form
no world
vacuous gas
laughing design
waving at nothing
never existed
no one saw it
but you did
paradox
both, yes, you read it
morphed the reality
just a memory
a picture
Green?
Smell it.

Manufacture
play strings
bounce memories
fly light speed
see the edges
laugh at the image
see all of you
none of you
some of you
the thorn of you
***** pluck plunge
please do
not end

Rickity-tickity-clak. Onomatopoeia for a bygone age.
Soon the distinct, sometimes irritating/sometimes soothing signals
of a box sailing along a track will be stuck in the past.
A vintage sound.

I’m gonna jingle a single in my singlet
Juggle Bintang bubbles in my jocks
Run wild and free in the city
No trickery tickity tock
Just flippity flip in my flip flops
See me rickety rock off your socks
Dangle the bangle and I haggle
Cha-ching cha-ching on the rocks
One dolla two dolla or three
Join us for a beer at a party in Bali
By the bay with a babe by the sea
With Marley and Ali and me

a girl, laying down
on her stone cold bed
listens to quiet tappity taps
on the pastry roof over her head

she likes to dream, to conquer (and scream)
like in three girls & a cig walking,
she likes to stop, to think, to see
but her watch's-a-tickity-tocking

the compass of 16 brown cats' feet
are keeping her company, after all,
she lies in bed and dreams about
her neighbourhood flooding with blood

We each gave the other
the gift of time.
To me a pocket watch
To him a clock that chimed.
Little did we know they were
Ticking down the time till
He would be gone.
Tick tock, tick tock.

Years later I found him on the bed
Thrashing wildly and
Banging his head.
His eyes were closed
His face was red.
Ticktockticktockticktock

The ambulance came
The horn was blaring.
Into the back we went.
I held his hand and felt his pulse
Tickity tock tickity tock

They wheeled him down
The hall so fast into a white
Room at last.
His breathing quieted to the
Beeping of the machines
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

For days I sat besides his bed
Hoping he would awake
Wishing him not dead.
But then his breathing began
To slow, how could I know
But by the ticking of the clock
T i c k
              T
                  O
                       C