A History of Alarms

They have a history
those alarm clocks
beneath pillows,

the morning bells ring
as the killer dressed as air
chimes in dust streaked rays
from Croons Hill down.

They have a routine
those alarm clocks
on dressers,

the flowers of sleep
still in full bloom,
ripe upon eye lids heavy
with midnight’s tilled soil;

keep me pastured
in these unpolished fields
with no novelty C3P0 bleep
or Simpsons catchphrase on repeat
left to protest,

no lens LED, no long, ticking hand
pointing Sistine-like
at your unformed man-

just endless spools of unwound green.

.

.

Grant Tarbard is the chief editor at The Screech Owl and co-founder of Resurgant Press.
He has worked as a journalist, a contributor to magazines, a reviewer, an interviewer and a proof reader. He is widely published in magazines, has been a finalist for nomination for the Pushcart prize and won The Poetry Box Dark & Horror Poetry Magazine‘s Sinister Poetry Award May 2014 for the poem ‘Crows Feet’.

His first collection, ‘Yellow Wolf’, is out now, published by WK Press.