Time by Chris Martin

February 25, 2015   Time   Chris Martin

Among many tongues may clang the bell of ten thousand names. A clepsydra with veins of blood. A caravel on a tide of bloodletting is also our necessary clock, so the he who is I at the time lets out my elephantine toll. Vein of granite, vein of quartz. Piezoelectric hum wherefore we cast a tiny ear of water, we who clang and unmoor our fleet.            Copyright © 2015 by Chris Martin. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “This poem is one of fourteen poems called ‘Time’ in my forthcoming book, The Falling Down Dance (Coffee House Press, 2015). It’s an invocation of sorts, a launch. Electric time, geologic time, sea time: there’s no end to the durational array.” —Chris Martin   Chris Martin is the author ofBecoming Weather (Coffee House Press, 2011). He will be a visiting assistant professor at Carleton College next year and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo Credit: Mary Austin Speaker Most Recent Book by Martin   Becoming Weather (Coffee House Press, 2011) "Figure" by Marjorie Welish "Paper Swallow" by Stanley Moss "08/22/08" by David Lehman Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006,Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.