Just Before Zero

6am. Wake up. Horror.

Brush teeth, freshen face.

Doubt belief. Straighten faith.

Just have to get on with it.

It's got to be done.

Check the time: 0609.

Shower? Rush.

No time. Bus.

Dress. To kill.

Dying to eat.

Breakfast. Tea.

Look. Don't see.

Function body.

Focus mind. 0639.

Don't think! Don't think!

Just stay in line.

In a mere half an hour

More worry lines growing.

And two more years of your age

is showing. Then 0648.

You better get going!

Got everything? Check.

And an aching neck.

Forget it. It's old.

Just have to get on with it.

It's got to be done.

Outside there's no sun

though the day has begun.

It's 0654. God! Open the door!

Six minutes. Check. I'm cutting it fine.

One last look around. One final time.

At all that is mine.

I really must go.

The clock on the wall

-I wish it wasn't so-

Marks my heart, ticks its beat.

I'm a watch-maker's meat.

I wish it meant nothing.

And I wish I could stay.

Sit all day at the table

staring into its face.

Relaxed by its movement.

Following its trace.

Careless and carefree.

No debt or cold sweat.

No morning or evening.

No deadline, no fretting. 

No fetching or getting.

No want and no need.

I will never be freed!

I'm a victim, a seed

of someone else's greed.

A fat man with a bomb

from a movie long-gone.

I'm the nick-of-time hero

and just before zero

I snip the right wire

Get the girl I desire

Save the world from destruction.

I'm a pawn of construction.

The champion of the system.

A man with Its mission.

The show must go on.

Just have to get on with it.

It's got to be done.

Work. Factory. Office.

Metropolis. Necropolis.

Clock watches.

Hands. Faces.

Check gauges.

Chain-gang of Ages.

Pressure. Raises.

Day-dreaming. Time? 0709!

For The Grand Design

from which one day I'll die

I'm destined to be late.

It was always my fate.

Reviews

[Sweet_pale_cacophony]

You always come up with something new and so very fresh..This was very very fast paced,the reader was with you all along.No one holds the attention with their words as you do,you have such a skilled grip on your words and such finesse..from the starting till the end.
We are such vulnerable victims of time and our demanding lifestyle that even we don't realize how we have become so..This seemed more to me like a Monday..oh but then i have a special dislike for em days but yes the way you begin..Doubt belief. Straighten faith.
Just have to get on with it.
It's got to be done...this reminds me of my Monday morning reassurance rambling to myself.Then again..More worry lines growing.
And two more years of your age
is showing...oh how i love this phrase as it leaps on to 6.48..I like the poem more when it begins with 'mark my heart,ticks its beat'.'.I'm a watchmaker's meat' is such an exquisite phrase.I just love how it sounds and how it contains so much in that phrase.We all are watchmaker's meat..unabashedly so, :)...Though this poem has so so many phrases which are so very well written i want to repeat this stanza,
I wish it meant nothing.
And I wish I could stay.
Sit all day at the table
staring into its face.
Relaxed by its movement.
Following its trace.
Careless and carefree.
No debt or cold sweat...I couldn't take my eyes off these words in specific.I read them so many times.How many times have I wished so..just how many times.I just like the idea of being relaxed by the way the clock works,to trace its hands.It is just amazing to think how 'careless' and 'carefree'..are such guilt words these days,and all cause of an accustomed coerced thinking.Oh 'metropolis,necropolis'..such contradictory twin words..:)
Thank you for always bringing up something new and brilliant.

[.]

how this is written the reader is rushing with you, really clever, to keep it short and choppy. Your rhyme is always spot on. No mean feat. enjoyed it alot

[Rose]

Great! The short lines really showed the urgency of the poem, and how the person is rushed. It was brilliant!

[FlawedByDesign]

This is an excellent piece. As Alessandro said before me, this has a stream-of-thought feel to it and I think that makes it stand out. I can see this as a piece of spoken poetry. it has the flow and rhythm to make it so.

I can't say much more that hasn't been said before, but this is going into my favourites :)

Very nicely done.

[Alicante lullaby]

woosh....i wish,i wish,i wish i could review it...i love it absolutely...specially the neck part...

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

Hurry and read I felt .. the poem is hurried ..time ... I wonder if it is our enemy.
I like this as it is true .. wake up fall out of bed get dressed rush rush rush ... and i thought of a day in the life by the beatles.. im sure you know the song so i won't 'sing' it !
Very fast paced poem and message.

Chloe

[Onyx_Rayne]

Wow... all of this in the span of an hour! Most of us go through this, without even realizing it, every day. It's a bit surreal to see it all in print... not only the words, but the emotions, the pace, the analogies.. all of it.

The form is one that I am unfamiliar with, but it works...it's perfect! No other form could have given such shape to this write.

Excellent work - I really enjoyed this :)

[Ed Hart]

all that, and you got this poem out too; it takes a master to do that...just brilliant, but of course it's you

[Alessander]

in spite of the format, this piece has a very streamofthought tone to it - it's almost a morning checklist/inventory, which playfully digresses to other topics like violence (bomb), economics (greed) and subtly points to movies that deal with those themes, and the themes that are firing off in the character's head as he rushes off (Metropolis/Necropolis - and DrStrangelove, though this may very well be my own connections). It got too general and abstract in some places, for my taste, and the rhyme and line lengths seem random, but that's how streamofthought, digression and inner musings work. The ending I like, even though it ends in a rhyming couplet, which are hard to pull off, because it adds a sense of mortality and doom to the otherwise innocuous details we call life.

[Antonio Valentino]

Oh god, everything Jenn said and more. I'm a freaking clock watcher me own damn self, stopped wearing a watch to work years ago because I have to wash my hands so many times during the day, so always reaching in the pocket now for the phone. This reminded me of my every morning, monday thru friday, racing against the clock to get to work on time to, punch in. With an hour commute and unpredictable traffic, it is always a mad a*s rush journey, whizzing past cars in my red dodge charger, music blaring, cigs burning... zoooomm!

Contrary to the saying, the only thing I ever will be on time for, is, my funeral.

Genius and brilliant doesn't even suffice, you're just, the s**t dude!

You're one of the select few, who truly inspire me.

Never stop my good friend.
Our will couldn't afford it.

Antonio

[Ashesh]

I am not much of a reviewer but I really like your work in total. And this one is yet another masterpiece!. The rush and the tension is depicted so accurately. This poem takes reader to a journey.. it's fast and free-flowing.