Poem: "around the day (circadian)"

[jjhunter]

when they unlocked my teeth of braces
I was handcuffed with time instead
clock on my wrist fastened
over (overwriting) the vulnerable pulse
of my body's time keeping heart beating
and I worried it
at night not falling to sleep
because it wasn't time to sleep
it was hour o' clock
I worried it

as I got older time became
an ally or at least required
the games we played of shifting time
made LATE now seven minutes past
and I in wisdom set my watch
to physical five minutes faster
but sometimes my math wasn't so good
and I was late or my heart was
beating time dizzy
with its pulsing

these days my phone talks
to the internet
and the internet talks
to sensors circling the earth
and who cares about what the sun
that lets us down is doing now
when that first alarm rings
I turn on my SAD light
to bathe my eyes my brain my body clock
into thinking of five o'clock
as time
           to wake up

Comments

[sylvaine]

I love this.

[jjhunter]

Thank you! I had some ideas I wanted to play with in regards to both time-as-subject (human determined vs circadian) and also time as rate-of-reading or rhythm — something the poet can establish & then manipulate for the reader.

As the latter is the type of thing that sometimes end up with me trying to be too clever by half, I am very pleased this poem works for you, and that my shenanigans in the second stanza did not derail the whole thing entirely.

[luzula]

I really like these bits: being handcuffed to time with the watch, the ticking of the watch vs the pulse of the blood...those are some vivid images.

[fyreharper]

(bath -> bathe?)

[cirque]

Ooooh. As someone whose circadian clock has never worked properly, this really strikes a chord with me. Lovely work!

[alee_grrl]

Wonderful. Loved the lock and key imagery with the braces and the watch. I remember getting my first watch as a kid and worrying it back and forth. For the longest time watches were a fidget tool. I haven't worn one for years now, but fidget with my phone instead. :) This poem captures nicely the dissonance between circadian rhythms and our societal use of time (and scientific measuring of it).