Thursday, August 24, 2006

Poetry Thursday: Time Travel



This week's totally optional Poetry Thursday prompt was to write about time. Here's my offering. More wonderful poetry on time and other relative dimentions in space can be found here.

Time Travel

The clock on the arrivals board gleams green,
the numbers winking in and out of phase
as they change. Twelve thirty one, twelve
thirty two. No sweep of reassuring second

hand to measure my anxiety against. Displaced
travelers stand in a jumble behind etched glass doors.
They step across an arbitrary line, welcome
to the United States, anything to declare?

Flight crews avoid the crush of hugs and camera
flashes, jaded men in business suits set rolexes
to local time. Your plane landed exactly seventeen
minutes ago. I track a young man wearing

your smile and a taller version of your body.
In the car, you talk non-stop. You will get
to reclaim seven hours stolen two weeks ago.
I will never have that time with you again.

ljcohen, 2006

5 comments:

  1. I have been here! And those times wasted, waiting for all the delays, endless, cutting into that time to be with a child, an old friend, a loved one.

    I also like how you delay the heart of the poem, getting a little lost with all the others passing through, etc.

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  2. oh the taller version you pick up at the airport. The last stanza spoke so clearly to me.very nice.

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  3. What a great idea for the prompt - the idea of air travel. I like how you really encapsulate this moment, very original.

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  4. Thank you, jim, superhero, wendylou, and twitches. I haven't been blogging this week with my push to finish the current novel and the rush to get the kiddos ready for start of school.

    Talk about time and lack thereof!

    best,
    ljc

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  5. what a coincidence?
    I wrote a poem by the same title a few days back.
    Imaginative!

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