Stop all the clocks

Stop all the clocks! The hours must halt
their slow and steady marching on;
let all lay fallow in default
until this fickle mood is gone.

Stop all the movement of the sun
and stars against a sombre sky;
let fall in finish what's begun
until this darkened thought goes by.

Stop wishing, stop your work commute,
leave off that endless exercise
until that dream that convolutes
and busies us lays down and dies.

Stop forward motion! Stop retreat!
Let all momentum slow and cease;
pretend, for once, the world's complete,
and does not need to be policed.

Stop watching! Look for no more signs
revealing subtle Divine thought
Let that watch halt; do not rewind
its mechanism. Let it rot.

Stop all the clocks! Keep time no more
inside each minute's careful cage;
let structure collapse on the floor,
and words escape the page.

Stop reading! Let the lines of text
begin to swim and blur to black;
throw out your plan for what is next.
That moment's gone. It won't be back.

24 JUN 2005

Re: Stop all the clocks

Impressive to the max!  This poem, in its formal structure and lucid statement carries great power.  It is beautifully written, and its message rings true for the times we now live in. For those raised in Western Civilization, I believe that the constant challenge is to keep weeding out the mental, spiritual and emotional clutter and “just stop.“  We have many bad habits inherited from hundreds of years of dogma, old theology, puritanical compulsions, and deeply dysfunctional ways of relating to one another.  Your fine poem is a masterpiece of wisdom for those of us who can understand how much is lost when one lives in the trance state of compulsion.  Bliss is knowing everything is complete,right here and right now, there is nothing to win, nothing to attain, nowhere to go, nothing to buy, nothing to sell, and that the only task is to align with the perfection of God's Universe, and let all action and thought, when it is necessary, radiate outward from that center. Superb. …