Numbers, Up

Solemnly luminous, digital sticks on a "dial"
(I don't know what else to call a clock's face)
keep pipping the milliseconds… serenely...
no, it's too quick for serenity, too assured for doubt.
Is resolution any part of Time's onslaught?
Precise as the quills on a hawk or a lark:
millisec, millisec, millisec.

--Too trim for a lugubrious drumbeat,
the boom of doom or closed coffin tapping: trapped!
The numbers change, adding up exhaustions,
half-fulfilled love-affairs, the spark and shock
of conflict.  In there, a quartz heart tribulates,
never a blur of murders or smear of defeats,
always a consequent, nice accounting:
millisec, millisec, millisec.