The Clocktower That Knew Too Much

The Chronometer, a monarch built of brass,
Stood sentinel against the velvet bruise of sky,
Its pendulum, the Axe of What Must Pass,
Measured the frantic brevity of “I.”
It was the final Judge of all that grew and died,
The brutal mechanism of the Earthly Frame.
And in the turning of the gears, personified,
It heard the hurried whispers screaming out its name.
The city’s pulse, a ribbon of nervous sound,
Tangled around the foundation’s cold, damp stone,
As every moment, finite and profound,
Was seized and squandered by the flesh and bone.

The loudest echo reaching the ancient bell
Was the pervasive, self-inflicted curse:
The Later Lie, a narcotic, sweet farewell
To any truth that might improve the universe.
It tracked the small delay, the averted gaze,
The phone call paused beneath a false pretense,
Watching the humans navigate their hurried maze,
Promising Tomorrow with fierce eloquence.
The streets were choked with the Traffic of Intent,
Where every step was taken not in grace,
But in a fevered, frantic, long lament,
To buy more time for occupying the same place.

And in the silence, in the gaps between the clicks,
The Clocktower witnessed the Accumulation of Failure.
Regret was not ethereal, but stubborn, dense, and thick,
A Silent Deposit settled on the air’s bright patina.
It was the weight of love unstarted, words unspent,
A heavy frost upon the soul’s brief lawn.
These losses were not sudden, heaven-sent,
But formed from minutes willfully withdrawn.
This vacuum, this perfect, costly void of space,
Was filled with everything they chose to save
By failing action, chasing endless pace,
And sending wishes to an early grave.

Then came the wail, sharp as a shrapnel shard,
When consequence delivered its final, brutal debt:
“Time stole it all! The path was fixed and hard!
The final hour was something I could not forget!”
The Bronze Gears shuddered. The Chronometer knew
The terrible injustice of the human cry.
It was not Time that tore the fragile threads in two,
But the Choice Debt delivered beneath the sun and sky.
They held the Clock responsible for every rift,
Blaming the frame for the unpainted scene,
Ignoring that the most profound and precious gift
Was the raw second they let slip between.

A dangerous impulse struck the heart of steel,
A sudden, tempting urge to intervene:
To make the Hour Hand stutter and reel,
To fracture the precision of the whole machine.
To slow the gears into a Predatory Slow,
To offer every procrastinator pause,
A Velvet Sanctuary where new seeds could grow,
Unburdened by the universe’s natural laws.
Would this intervention save the fading light,
Redeem the vows that fear had made them break?
Or merely stretch the shadow of the night,
And give them larger minutes to forsake?

The ancient weight resumed its true descent.
The Chronometer held fast to its command.
It understood that time cannot be lent
To mend the flaws inherent in the human hand.
Slowing the seconds would but multiply the shame,
And make the act of choice-avoidance vast.
The relentless measure is the only frame
That forces substance on the fleeting Past.
The tick resumed, cold, honest, and profound;
A truth that no distraction can dismiss.
The only way to stand upon the solid ground
Is to embrace the brutal structure of the Is.

- Khushi Kaul