James Midgley - The Clockmaker Assimilated by Clocks
by and published in Edition Twelve of Pomegranate
I counted what kept me awake –
a cockerel stamping the earth a mile away;
my own arrhythmic pulse.
The gold coins of pendulums rolled
over my eyes, rolled off again.
I guided the needle beneath each spring,
as a wader might dip its beak to taste
for what has not died or disintegrated.
Every river kills its fish
with the hammer and squeeze of current.
I stand at the centre of moonlight’s chronograph,
and the insomniac cog in the sky turns.
Hunched at a lamp where flies are brittling,
I link veins of solder,
construct what will keep me awake.
The luminous paints make my fingers shudder
but the minute hand thumps, unfailing medulla.
My eye adjusts its million faculties
to the second’s indifferent twitch.
My ear admits this cabinet’s
acoustic of unending rain,
and I count what keeps me awake.
I count what keeps me in the world.
James Midgley
James Midgley’s work has appeared in journals such as The Kenyon Review, Magma, Poetry Review, The New Welsh Review, The Rialto, Stand, and The Warwick Review. In 2008 he received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. He is studying towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia.