Poems have this unique way of communicating different things to different people. The use of poetic phrasing and the images that they create all depend on the reader’s experiences. I believe this poem by Andrew Ian Mobley will have that effect. “Clocktowers” was first published in the June 2021 issue of Among Worlds.
"Clocktowers"
by Andrew Ian Mobley
Time reaches down here from the evening sky
And my neon reflecting eyes beg why oh why
Why must my mortal hands fail to grasp
Why must my heart's song be barely uttered gasp
Eternity offers me the ocean
And I am afraid of vast water
Afraid to drown and be servant to blue motion
Afraid to dissolve
In either emptiness or infinity
I am surrounded by mountains of peril or beauty
How is it that this dust bears grace given duty?
I've seen your eyes before
Lifetimes ago another countenance they wore
Now, washed up on this foreign home's shore
After lifetimes of drift and sway
I still don't know what my heart is looking for
Looking into those eyes I still don't know what to say
I cast my spirit above between a thousand clocktowers
Rising and piercing clouds wishing they could weep the Flood
Oh God the gift, the curse of timeless hours
The tick tock the drip drops of a Lamb's blood
This dust yearns for its solemn dissolution
This fading ghost yearns for its final absolution
Oh Life, where is your sting?
Oh World, who unravels my heart of string
I am not your plaything
The cords that bind are the very threads between the pages
Of my volume of centuries and a thousand dusty stages
Tonight under a star neon boundlessness I dare cry
For and against the never-ending goodbye
The silent tick tock of a thousand clocktowers rising high around me
Oh God, the dusts of time.
Bio: Though an American citizen, I’ve spent most of my life thus far in Asia, namely China, Indonesia, Laos, and Taiwan–sometimes moving around and living in multiple places in the same country. The TCK label is further confused then by the constant moving and also the fact that I am half white, half Asian, my mother being Chinese-Indonesian. You can find more of Andrew’s content here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl4mHP4CjNhM5mM3ot5TpTQ/videos
