The ticking of the counting clock
Comes to pause in full
Silence now is broken
As eight chimes begin to toll.
From my study I have sat
And watched the fading sun
Sink behind the trees
And darkened night has just begun.
Still and silent at my desk
I stare out without seeing
As a darkness black as night
Washes o’er my being.
Days have past without my knowing
Silence in these walls
Not a tear or word and now
Another hour calls
How long have I sat unseeing
Fading into night
Numb and empty, contemplating
Death by candlelight
All day silence presses on me
But I hear a tick and tock
Nothing moves within me
But the counting of the clock.
She took the laughter from these rooms
And filled them with her leaving
Stolen is the past that was
Before my lack of grieving.
Tick, Tock, and all I hear
Is wind that presses on the house
Lulling creaks and cries to echo
Her, my missing spouse.
Night grows ever darker
As the bells now chime eleven
Rooted in the spot still
Where I sat when they called seven.
The house is sleeping it would seem
And my eyes weigh heavy now
Pressing down upon me more
Until at last I…
Creak.
Creak.
From behind my office door
Two steps cry out in terror
I turn around in shock to see
The creaking floorboard bearer.
Alone for days I turn around
Not expecting anyone
Standing in the doorway leans
My palid, sleeping son.
“I can’t sleep tonight dad
She is standing at my bed
Making faces, gross and wild
Pulling on her head.”
Who is standing over you
There’s no one in your room
There is no one in the house
This catacomb, this tomb.
“She stands there smiling, gasping, laughing
Then she starts to peck
She seems to think its funny
There’s a rope around her neck.”
And now the clock begins to toll
Her favorite midnight hour
As I stare dumbfounded at my son
And start to cower.
In my chest my heart is racing
Reaching for my throat
Daring to betray my tongue
With thoughts that she had wrote.
There is no one in this house
It’s as silent as before
But my son is staring shocked
Refusing now to leave my door
“She needs help though, she can’t breathe
You look too cool and calm
If you’d come you’d notice her
You’d recognize it’s mom.”
The ticking grows much louder now
It’s clicking fills the air
Staring down my son’s confession
Hoping I will scare
My chest is rising in me now
I stay rooted to my chair
I won’t leave, I won’t endure
His taunting of my late wife’s haunting
She won’t be there in his room
She cannot still be there.
Out! Out! I cry in fury
Screaming for them both to leave
My heart is racing through what silence
Is still left this darkened eve.
The creaking of the floorboard moves
And paces down the upstairs hall
Every step, cacophony
That echo’s off my study wall.
Out of time with the clock
The shattered silence strangles me
The ticking tocking of my heart
Now rising to my eyes to see.
But every step within his room
My son torments me with his walking
Back and forth and back and forth
Always mocking, always mocking!
Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!
From my chair I spring and run
Down the hall and rap the door
And burst upon my son
Screaming rage into this room
Through my eyes that cannot see
This familiar scene still plays
Her haunting out in front of me
Lying there and hanging there
Staring from above the bed
Are their two white bodies
Now already three days dead.
Life In Hyperbole 