Member Poem

An old sapphire clock peered menacingly on the drole  smiles of this extraordinary couple.
A hail and hearty man of Eighty and his partner 20 years his junior.
They enjoyed a rippling river of urban passion between them spanning twenty years.
This affair coursed at an unstoppable gleaming  frothy  speed.
They nicknamed each other in terms of time
Their many overarching enthusiasms.
And as I’m writing the clock tick tocked in various  bizarre forms.
Now in retirement the lady was called present tense and she in turned added the moniker of past tense to him.
“Ooops… eerie violin seemed to sound.
It varies in intensity.”
A flitting spasm of fear crossed the faces of both these two people.
“Always sounds… that thing when we talk about time.”
Past tense said when we have time on our minds.
“Have you forgotten? I have that thing … prerecorded sound installed somewhere
Just to remind us time is passing.”
Each time the hair-raising violin played it emitted a different  damp sonic squeal.
The astrologer opined.
But what about tomorrow was one of their favourited rejoinders.
“Heavens above. Yikes
Shrieksville.
Isn’t it your birthday tomorrow, Present Tense?”
Present tense whose real name was Phoebe  mananaged to reply.
”No my divine past tense, my birthday is today.!”
Past tense whose real name was Phoenix shuddered while contemplating an escape mechanism or other
“Huh… how can I forgive myself.
Will you … birthdays are an awkward upwards slope at our stage.
You know our fetish about time.”
Hangdog countenance on Phoenix as his fidgety digits were gesticulating in  anticipation.
“Just taunting and teasing.
Phoen. PT.”
Phoebe comic abbreviations for her partner’s names.
“There are another two days pending.”
Hmm a favourite rejoinder of  Phoenix when his dictionary clad articulacy deserted him
which wasn’t often.
“Oh that  opulent purple burst moon  caressing the window.”
And again the clock ticked icily as if it had a human projection.
“Wait, here it comes again.
The sinister  violin.
Did I hear a P  letter or P word?”
Phoenix had distain for too many p words.
Phoebe n Phoenix exchanging something’s going on glance.
And all those tomorrows!
This and maybe the creep of a  crawling evening tide and later pearlescent piquant  moon’s fleeting intrusion.
“Do you know the postulating  world and its pinpoint phrase  galaxy of elements seem to be clued into us.”
Phoebe observed.
Maybe it was the decor.
All the while this dark whimsical  mild menace  humour permeates the atmosphere.
And the metronomic ticking in tandem.
Among the idiocies that could bond them were the gothic decor with hilarity.
Ghosts too led lively lead astray themes.
“Is there really such a thing as a modern ghost, living ghost.
Are we on the same time frame  though?”
Phoebe idly muses.
Sudden impulsive steps often regaled Phoebe and marveled at how her partner could summon up such energy.
They were both age defiant.
“Anything we could do today beyond the usual.
I’m an astrologist who is at the cusp of retiring.
And you a Shrink.
Perhaps that A to Z alphabet linguist project we have yet to complete”
Phoebe again.
“Have you that one piece I recall.
You wanted to do something with.
Was it mislaid?
It showed itself to be a little puny, peculiar, lacking  something.”
The astrologist Phoebe trying to relate time space and things.
And  a gentle poke at Phoenix’s thing about P usage.
One strange recurring feature always down the years Phoenix noticed Phoebe often eyeing the clock.
“I could swear my partner as astrologist has some influence on it or the other way around.”
A lull inexorably followed their conversations as if some intrigue was at stake.
Certain patterns  like needless repetitions could make the otherwise stoic Phoenix quite irascible.
“Having been a shrink, might have learned inadvertently  about a fetish or three.”
Hmmm said Phoenix at his contemplation.
“I know one of my obsessions is with the letter P.”
The angular jawed Phoenix nodded slyly in conformity with his own preoccupation  which deliberately or otherwise accented his rather porcelain imperious brow.
Things past have this retro strangle hold.
Casting a wide critical eye at the surroundings of this habitat revealed even more about them.
One of the phobias referred to were certain projects  of Phoenix composed in a certain fashion.
Maybe purchases accentuating scariness.
Collecting joke shop items gnomes, elves, figurines, moon theme globes among many other.
“Must hone my attempt at writing skills when scanning  all theses things we snap up.”
Phoenix acerbic  as usual.
“Limp comic  landmark stuff where p words and p letters might jar.
Say, would be my first attempt.
As for things you wear like hand cover.
Well, they are for the one I GLOVE.
Get that, get that about  our GLOVE AFFAIR.”
Phoenix guffawed  as Phoebe  eyed that clock on the wall.
Did it know or feel something?
“I am compelled to say OUR GLOVE has a durable quality.”
She retorted.
“For heaven’s sake … did I see something moving up that ornate stairway.”
They both looked at each other askance.
“Is your mind that pet passively at pains?”
I know you don’t like letters strung a particular way!”
Phoebe opined.
Creaking sounds emanated from both walls and windows.
They both had very, very vivid imaginations as one might expect from a psychologist and astrologer.
The lightweight dreaded menace caricature might add a spine tingle.
“Perhaps it was one of those cats you sometimes describe  or dream about.”
Phoebe remarked casually.
“There’d  hardly be one of those about the house.”
Once more Phoebe.
“You called one of them alarm.
A pick and pounce type,
sneaks in here sometimes.”
On occasions this poltergeist like cat had this uncanny motif in its otherworldly  climb.
It was scheming in its eyes yet also seemed hungry.
Phoenix now thinking.
Time ticked away as both Phoebe and Phoenix were in one of their jocose phases.
And of course the clock interjected … the floating sound of the apparently rain drenched violin.
They moved suddenly from their enigmatic shrouded design on their quaking antique table.
The chairs had a deceptive sheen based on its reflective beige  seat cover.
Time markings  were etched on the above objects.
“Tomorrow seems like a code word for us late in lifers. In thought or expression that is.”
Somehow these two quaint age preoccupied  beings were poles apart despite having so much in common.
Was there an inevitable phasing out of some kind for both at what might appear to be there twilight years.
And that clock again intervened with its winter chill  meter.
And the wet raindrop always endemic violin squawked macabre … with macabre.
Phoebe’s engulfed surprise  accordingly.
The irony of the P fixation  which a psychologist isn’t in theory supposed to have though, one might wonder about a letter symbolically linked to passion.
“We should tell each other about the pathways of our intense peculiarity.
Our skewed notion of time has many ramifications.”
An earnest expression skimmed across Phoebe’s countenance.
An eerie meowed feline carting its charcoal silhouette
up an apparently dank stairway.
It loitered there.
And as you may have guessed the veering violins piece segued doleful tick tocks.
“When we met I think I was reading an unwieldy tome about passage and movement.”
Phoenix quite detached.
“Oh the clock rang … just for a few seconds.
Did I hear something .. well.
I am hallucinating.
It couldn’t be that.”
Phoenix perturbed.
“The Cat …. Alarm!
Horrors … look at what they have.”
Phoenix almost screams
“PT … what is the white look on your face.”
Then Phoenix shouted.
“It’s the P THING I  was going to edit
Oh no.”
P laden verse  I  felt  had too many P’s.
“Picturesque  piece missing depth as well profound inklings perhaps and it’s a pithy because a person’s real penchant might seem absent.”
 
I now know what that scheming cat was up to
Phoebe said.
“PT look what’s happening the cat is tearing it the poem up.
Eating it … eating your words!
Pun … not much pun I mean fun.”
Phoebe’s ghostly scream!
At that point the soggy violin screeched with the cat then FROZE IN TIME.
And the sapphire clock crumbled  to its own death in smithereens.
Just outside two moon faced children, a boy and girl peeped in at the ongoing plot!
“They say this haunt  is haunted!
Are there ghosts inside?”
What the voices.
They seem almost human.”
Unearthly chuckle from children.
“We can always return with our parents.
“TOMORROW!”
Maybe.