Clock Watching edit1

[billy]

Clock watching edit 1
Thanks to billy,erthona, addy,heslopian

She walked the desert, stooped and halting,
broken backed, bare shinned, bare boned; works much better
her eyes were not aligned to time the sun. time works much better.
Too bright for life, she shunned its glare,
as if the truth of light was just too sure for her.
She, in her shrivelled world, uncertainty a daily constancy;
tick-tock, the clock chimes out from need to need
so time becomes a useless, child-play toy.

Her rhythm, hunger synchronised, precision guaranteed,
counts down to oblivion. She lives for one but dies for two.
See, in her wake, a gift to many, a child too many;
a binding umbilical and reminder of her best forgotten days.

The child is bloated, drawn and sexless; lacking the clues
which clothes bestow upon the infant frame
but more due to the androgyny
of pre-pubescent, famine present years.

The woman stops and turns, a glancing gesture
meant to indicate that love, somewhere, is there;
the tender tear is wasted on the wasted.
The night is coming to their day. Tick-tock.


tectak
2011

i think all the edits add up to a considerable improvement. that said i already liked the piece.
after a few more reads, i see places like the sudan and ethiopia; because of this the poem feels much more powerful. it's like a window to death. of course i'm well wrong but it's what i see, it isn't about the clock. it's all about the waiting... (my take)

thanks for the edit