Experimentation in Standard Time

This 2013 poem never made it to Substack. It is one of my favorites.

Autumn urban afternoons
get shorter and sweeter -

Standing in the middle of I street
I await a very specific angle on the bow
as my ship called Earth comes about:
a unique perspective on how time passes.
In the distance you can see Virginia:
how many beats per measure
are there in Standard time?

The future is reaching back to join us,
to warn us, to help us alter course
to starboard so we can pass port to port –
the present and the future, like two ships,
passing in a storm.

I post to a blog or sing a song:
I write some non-rhyming words
that I call poetry –
and time is a social construct
a contractual agreement we accept
from fear of things we don’t know –
dawn to dusk, high noon
to the darkest part of night –

A 24-second shot clock.
I sink a three pointer
that leaves a vacuum in its wake –
the chain nets echo its refrain.

11/05/2013