Poetic Texts
Time Book for the Watch Detail
A question about duration
expanded upon for a lifetime.
Take your time.
Calm erodes the longer time is studied.
Through an alternate perspective
apprehension decays.
Second notice.
Watching being watched.
Time zones.
Lose a day, in still confinement.
Flying at the speed of
continuous sunrise.
The difference in memories.
Snow falls on silence,
blue shadow,
white on white.
Rest inside slow movements,
extended gestures.
A set of questions
released in an open field.
Uncertain conclusions,
dwelling in the fields of time.
A combination lock around a branch at age 15.
The tree envelopes the lock.
The definition of eventuality grows,
when an analogue clock is unplugged
The time is correct twice a day.
Listen for the clock of flames.
A watched kettle never whistles.
Trees, chain saw sound,
rings and saw dust.
A clockÕs circulatory system,
floats the duration of a sentence.
A number signals as the clock strikes.
The earth circles another sleep.
The year slides by the sunÕs indifference.
The weather seems more intense.
Change the time while no one is looking.
Change the subject.
Whittling away the days.
The space of removal.
Common desk calendars lined the street.
Compression, striations, layers,
schisms, sink holes.
The way a sound decays.
The way it dies out.
The echo of reflection.
Real.
Fixed.
Set.
Standard.
Lost.
Elapsed.
Variable.
Time out.
A number of clocks in toy boats
set adrift.
A number of watches held.
I listen to a number.
The expressions on the face
of the clock of water
through heating and freezing.
Rotating schedules.
No hands.
The illusion of time, the mirage,
holds pressure in the passing.
Enter into a Red WoodÕs
scale of time.
Spelunking Plato,
carbide torches,
the clock of fuel.
The distance a wound travels to heal.
Mechanical rotations of luminous hands.
Attempting to grasp
a dream on the edge of memory.
The architecture of reaction.
A duration.
Nothing sometimes feels substantial.
The building had been torn down.
Solidity and permanence
now empty. Rendered silent.
A sensation lasts for months...
leaving at an indeterminate moment.
The slippery nature of
the exact time.
Dealing with a certain discontinuity,
of always returning to the fear.
The inability to escape the inability.
Early.
Newspaper (yellows).
As if the color of time was a symbol.
Time is an analogy.
All at once the sign board came alive.
The destinations and times spun frantically,
making the sound
of thousands of little clicks.
Just as fast the board stopped
and a new set of destinations arrived.
Zero degree clock of breathing.
Vapour in a personÕs breath.
The duration of evaporation,
of disappearance.
Late.
A watch without hands.
Routine inspection
for cracks and fatigue.
The young and the old,
all eyes present, observing.
Different starting points.
The perspectives of each.
All ages present in one
with many perspectives.
Time is money.
Time to kill.
Cracks in a sandstone sidewalk.
The odor of a freshly cut lawn.
The shadows of Hiroshima.
The qualities
of the surfaces that were replaced.
The actual duration of a disaster.
The aftermath.
The loss of vital signs.
Another inch and the accident
would never have happened.
Rubbed lightly.
Formica, sitting day after day.
worn through.
Fake wood grain
1940, 1950, 1960... version.
The shape of a clock spring
The shape of memory.
A nose worn shiny through touch
on a bronze statue.
The body tarnished.
The speed of darkness.
The speed of light.
Zero hour.
Impressions are left through
the architecture of impermanence.
When one building is torn down
the adjacent structure wears
A past life of stairways,
Rooms, doors, paint, wallpaper.
All of the years of growth
were removed from a structure
for protection.
The building stands naked.
A timeless odor.
Diamond cutting.
Tree cutting.
Diamond matches.
Diamond ring.
Sci-fi.
Projections and paths suggesting
the future of difference.
The stillness of a fresh snow,
a shiny black piano and
a wind up metronome.
Just a sec.
When time dysfunctions.
The distance shrunk.
Lightening strikes and lights
a field on fire.
A vast area of land burning
out of control.
The time it has taken...
the time it takes to replace it.
A house of cards falls.
Can you hold?
A sign that has almost
been removed, almost not there.
The traces of the lettering.
The face of a digital clock
down without power.
The space of the light blank impressions
cast in the blink.
The space between these impressions.
A plane crosses stretching and bending
through waves of light.
The qualities of 200 year old glass,
adjacent to a fixed window.
A white vapour time line
across a blue expanse.
What there was
before the concept,
before the devices.
Around the clock
construction, fabrication.
Lost in a work ritual.
Attempting to focus so as to transcend.
A clockwork repetition.
Around the clock.
Allowing oneself to
lose track of the time.
Dwelling
taking on the air of history.
Sheer fabric wall,
shear stone face,
wall of light.
Glass worn round and smooth.
To Sand to Glass to Sand.
The positions of the tide.
Returning.
Over wound.
Winding up / Winding down.
The wind up and the pitch.
Second wind
Wind up winded.
Wind up wounded.
Wind up lost in thought.
Make good time.
Fingernail dirt, beard growth
sole taps, dust.
Every moment was articulated
through a visceral beat.
I could hear my heart through an ear infection.
Waiting.
Sleep.
The time at the tone will be...
You sound so close.
Biological standard
Internal frame.
The child waits longer
having lived less.
People who wear watches
Keep time.
The locations of
all the clocks in the city.
A part of memory
that has not been explored.
A day where I would
attempt to do nothing.
A day spent recalling that day.
Discomfort seems to slow.
A work in abbreviations about longevity.
An abbreviation that is
under construction for a lifetime.
All of the houses one has lived in.
All of the houses one will live in.
The housing of this memory,
nested and projected.
Fix the time.
Renovation.
We are different ages in memory.
Clockwise, counter clockwise.
Real time (a realm other than).
A room in wrapped in string at seven.
Reflection.
The nature of focus gives duration
to a chosen element in a field of vision.
Growth drawing
pencil lines from the tippy top.
A childÕs stature.
A measure of change.
Second hand positioning.
Second hand furnishings.
Second hand information.
Second hand clothing.
Second hand words.
Second hand light.
Second thoughts.
Puns and paradoxes.
Quartz and pendulums.
Oscillating constants.
The balance of conclusions.
As many histories
as the perspective of everywhere
one cannot be.
Accumulated subjectivity
appears to be objective.
The boat is driven in a figure 8,
over and over.
I am not yet a teenager.
The symbol for infinity is drawn in water.
Our slippery hour.
Turning around and about.
The little hand and the big
exchange places.
The left becomes the right...
the right, the left.
We never see the same thing twice -
a subtle quality of aging.
At 13 the boat is driven
in a circle full speed.
Lines spiral out
until the water regains flatness.
The function of forgetting.
A violent event
As seen from this distance.
Define a resonant situation
where time is concerned -
where concern is timed.
Inside out.
Collapsed time.
Black holes.
Memory fails.
Time folds.
Clocks are sometimes empty.
The history of nothing is not.
After, (always)
the re-composition of the event.
Unless the event is the act of re-composition.
Second wind.
All of the books on the shelves
one hasnÕt read.
Temporary repairs.
Moving music for relativity.
The pitch of passing vehicles.
An ephemeral light event
arrives unforeseen,
leaving the book of notice open.
Is there leisure time?
No. But there are leisure suits.
Within the dimensions of a memory...
just outside.
Half-lives.
The time it takes a clock
To run down and stop.
Dice - the quality of the throw,
the call, the roll, the fall.
The housings of light,
of luminous hands.
A gold watch,
silver hair,
bluing the grey.
Rust, amber and black.
The color of time.
The song of the unknown.
Seeking a resonance
through many passages.
The voice of clockwork.
The litany of the labyrinth detail.
Many observers form
The Watch Detail.
The night watchman is only one.
A compression
or expansion within
a moments notice.
Before and after
pictures.
The flow of glass.
The decay of wood.
The life of stone.
Resting,
within the house of time.
An informed sense of probability sings
to the navigation of possibility.
The unknown also sings.
On the road,
the ticking of the broken white line.
Spring rain
erodes a temporary passage.
A person picks up a stick
and scratches an alternate rut.
The clock of erosion is diverted.
The internal clock of light.
When I hear a song from those years...
November Light
Dusk.
Long Shadows.
Futuristic Car design of 1950.
A broken dashboard clock.
Awkward Clothing.
Burning the candle at both ends,
a circular wick re-invents the wheel.
Night drawings
in passing - bending.
Headlights follow
the angles of the walls.
The way sound gives clues
to the day.
Cicadas on a white hot day.
The drone of traffic.
The physicality of silence.
Day to day life observes
lost time.
An average day.
Infinite information
Finite time.
Silence.
Two Loons on a moonless night.
The sound in a vacant house.
Blinds.
Worn stone steps.
Distant highway metal bridge gridwork.
Melting ice.
Memory fails.
Breaks down.
Slips.
Senility.
Lost in a moment.
A suspended sense.
When repetition
breaks down perception.
The scale of time is lost on us.
A watch held.
Left in the street.
Run over and over.
Broken shards
embedded in tar.
Just lost in the viscous warm black.
A clock from a distance
just out of range...
Almost real time.
A slight slowdown.
An internal clock sometimes sings
with a note of friction.
Bathing in the light of blue gravity.
Red in the light of evening
goes on into blue light escaping.
Headlight lit details.
Threshold into black.
Revolving door - counter clockwise.
Ever so slightly,
eventually
the characters were altered.
Speed was more important
than intricacy.
Her handwriting
became barely legible,
against slow words
hand held.
A shadow
follows intricate directions.
Attempting to take in
the specifics of the moment.
Night driving trajectories of
color in light motion.
Night flying over light energy grids.
The qualities of notice
in relation to velocity.
The shadow of a decoy
in artificial light
A drone holds a place
where the scale of time is erased.
Drifting where water is all horizon.
As if sound events were landmarks
for navigation.
Slow light just now reaching
a very distant source.
The speed of a neural response.
The velocity of a thought.
The in-between.
From time to time there is
rapid change.
Temporary repairs...
masking tape,
flimsy plastic, etc.
A piece of plywood.
The bottom of the Ford Falcon rusted out.
One could see the road as a blur
through this hole. Age 12.
I become unsure of my age.
Search time.
Watch.
With one hand.
The memory of a diary collecting dust.
An analogy
that sometimes seems
to stands still.
It can never be held.
Still life room
when light streams in -
dust hovering,
slowly circulating.
Forgetting the date and day.
The properties are mapped
onto devices.
A tree merges with a fence
through growth.
Trees,
up-rooted after a storm.
The branches removed.
The distance of time
smooths the violence of an event.
Black trees after a rain
lit in bright side light.
A strong early morning wind.
The splitting of a log.
A rusted wedge.
Concentrated energy motion
breaks the rings.
Rust transferred by fingers
Graftings.
Binding the grafts.
Circling the branch.
Reflecting.
Gathering.
Translating the thought.
into the gesture.
Worn arc
where a tree
has blown against a house.
A tree.
The same location.
A set of atmospheres.
A Tree removed, becomes this chair.
This paper, this light.
Stone sanctuary.
Shadow on a sundial.
A carved chess set
abandoned
in the last position.
A sundial lit at night.
Yard light.
Stalemate.
Sharpening a sense of clarity.
The sound of all the clocks
Striking together, slightly off.
Trying to Determine which clock is
correct by the sound.
A wash of rust down a brick wall.
Copper bleeding across a stone face.
The delicate expression of erosion.
A proximity to a hotel empty of activity.
The occupants have left traces.
Crystal chandeliers-vacant hall.
Cut granite facade.
Each room holds many stories.
Each story holds many rooms.
From a distance
a tall building speaks eloquently
through schedules of light.
The perfection of a particular chair.
The way light enters.
Blue housing.
Blue evening light escaping.
Threshold lit by a headlight.
Standing before empty stands.
Scratches around a worn handle.
The gardenerÕs wrists and hands.
Time lines in leather gloves.
To maintain, to seed, to trim,
then cutting back.
The dank odor of soil,
temperature and humidity.
Greenhouse light.
The old rotary push mower.
Walking the lawn spreader.
Fertilising row by row.
The sound of garden shears
and the electric trimmer.
Watering schedules.
The coiled hose.
Coverage in winter.
Wooden guards stand watch.
Boats in bright blue plastic tarps.
An hourglass resting on itÕs side.
The internal mechanism of a clock tower
with moving figures.
Obscured torso.
Someone falters and adjusts.
The gestures that go on inside.
Time lines.
Intersections.
Springs.
Winding motion.
Runway architecture.
Airport lights.
The control tower.
All of the places designated
for observation.
Landing gear.
The moment of deployment.
Breaking the timelessness.
One plane relative to another
crossing at different altitudes.
Shiny black shoes.
Old black shoes.
A proximity to a person watching.
A group of people looking on
after an accident.
People waiting to see something
then going about their business.
Someone obscured / hands fidget.
Hands in pockets.
Keys.
Trying all the keys to see which one fits.
Emotional architectures.
The gestures that go on inside.
Bill Seaman 1989