Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
Time never flies, it walks, talks and squawks
Time is an egg frying in a noisy wok
Time erupts like a volcano then freezes like lava into rock
Time pokes a hole in your last good pair of socks
Time never meanders like a river
Time scars you on the inside like a dying liver
Time never uplifts like a mountain
Time is ever thirsty, gulps down all of youth’s fountain
Time is this mirrored screen, posting so-called deep reflections
Time is the sunken cake you baked when you lost direction
Time asks for the umpteenth time, Why are you still single?
Time is wishing that old auntie gets shingles
Time persists and prods tummy for unborn embryo
Time outstays her welcome, never knows when to go
Time is not the tree you hugged at that retreat
Time is the crunch of dead leaves under feet
Time is not a well, an ocean, an estuary
Time is illness, stones and itchy, genital misery
Time is not gravity, space, infinity
Time is heavy, homebound, infirmities
Time changes, spins and pivots when it likes
Time never forgives and forgets, it chooses your regrets
Time never ever flies first class
Time takes the cheap train and is always in disguise
Time is sly, sneaky and spying
Especially when you’re alone in your room ugly crying
Time never hears you out, stops and stays
Time gets cranky just searching for a parking bay
Time is a car running out of fuel
Time is a stubborn mule, a broken tool, an errand’s fool
Time is a plane gone missing
Time is someone’s ass that needs kicking
Time is a phone ringing when you’re pissed
Time says, One sec, I have to answer this…
Time makes up excuses when it doesn’t really need to go
Time says, Bye-bye, when its battery’s low
Time is suckered by every clickbait
Time is always late, ever-ready to berate
Time criticises, condemns, conflates
Time never confesses to its own cock-ups
Time plays dumb when it should say, Keep calm
Time just carries on, says, I am not your mum!
Time never heals when you’re hurting
Time shuffles off, runs, then turns
and calls out, My work here is done!
First published in The Marbled Sigh, New York, USA.
