Size / / /

(after a painting by the Surrealist artist Eileen Agar)

Here, an atomic clock blooms chronons.
Nuclear pistils strike and quiver at the hour.
The bright petals of minutes enfold me.

A Cesium fountain spouts an arc of atoms
resonating with distant stars
that spread like weeds.

A sundial, growing profusely in the shade,
cross-pollinates a digital clock's electric blue numbers.
A nanosecond flowers into eternity.

Green horological splicings
oscillate hybrid pendulums.
Greenwich Mean Time droops on the vine.

Dinosaur seedlings sprout into
paleontologic remnants of the future.
A fossil-plant turns its bony head from the moon
to watch us extinct.

 

Copyright © 2002 Lorraine Schein

Reader Comments


Lorraine Schein is a New York poet and writer whose work has appeared recently in Gargoyle, Space and Time, Full Unit Hookup, and 2001: A SF Poetry Anthology. Her work will be included in the anthologies Angel Body and Other Magic for the Soul (Wordcraft of Oregon) and Mondo Alice. Her novelette, "The Raw Brunettes," is also available from Wordcraft.



Lorraine Schein is a New York poet and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vallum, Women's Studies Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, Witches & Pagans, and New Letters. Her poetry book, The Futurist's Mistress, is available from Mayapple Press.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Friday: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen 
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Load More