Out of the Blue

The Clock That Ticked Backwards

I was walking along an old abandoned street,
When I found a store, which I entered because of the heat.
And once I entered, I looked around,
And saw a clock that caught my fancy, laying on the ground.

I picked up it and polished it clean,
Until I could see my reflection in the gleam.
I brought it up to the cashier,
Who rung it up for me without comment, which I thought queer.

I must admit, the clock was odd and austere,
Very crude and simply complex, with all of the gears.
But it had caught my eye, and was at a more than fair price,
So I kept it, but soon discovered the clock was very imprecise.

See, this clock I bought was a great curiosity,
For when I set it, it moved with extreme velocity,
The hours seeming minutes, the minutes seeming seconds,
The hands whirling and twirling in all directions.

I desperately twisted the knob on the rear,
For now the clock was ahead by a whole year!
And, much to my relief, the hands started going,
At a more sluggish pace, and seemed to be slowing.

After battling with that wretched machine for what seemed like hours,
(And could have been, according to that clock's poor timekeeping powers),
I finally got it set to the right time,
And was satisfied to hear it click and chime.

The clock was seemingly fine after that,
But that should have been my caveat,
For the next time, the clock didn't stop,
But started ticking backwards on my desktop.

In a panic, for what clock ticks in reverse?
I hurried to the clock shop, hoping that it wouldn't get worse,
But as I reached that hidden street, the shop was nowhere to be found,
And I just stood in front of the abandoned building, dumbfound.

Sadly, I trudged home, all hope lost with that malfunctioning timepiece,
And set it back on my desk, praying for the backwards time to cease,
But it never did, and kept displaying the wrong time with audacity,
Yet I kept it on my desk, despite its timekeeping incapacity.

Many years later, as I laid in my bed prostrate,
I still had the jumble of gears that couldn't keep the time straight
And I chuckled as it gave me the wrong time and lied
And the clock that ticked backwards stopped ticking, as I died

A/N
Ummmm yeah. The ending is a little sudden, but I actually liked how this poem turned out! I was planning on making this idea into a short story, but I think I like it better as a poem.