to the one who knows or examines his existence
explain the relativity of time and distance
from the instance of creation;
the expansion of self
to the bold bearing of a life lived well.
now picture the presence of a proclaimed faith
through the face of a Galilean reference frame
but refrain from the mention of preconceived notions
which pertain to gnomon-wise motion.

© Matthew Harlovic

The king of what was stands in silence
and surveys his sunsetted realm.
His spine is straight in stiff defiance
of the twilight of the kingdom he’d helmed.

On a plastered pedestal high he stands
surrounded by the waste of his times.
Carved into it, once acclaimed in his lands,
was his name, now covered by vines.

The pale sheen of low sun as winter nears
casts shadows across his etched face.
Its grooves grow deeper year after year —
he’s the gnomon whose shade this sundial has traced.

He takes no note of the thorny brambles
that have entangled his fixed stony feet.
With flinty gaze and wrapped in a mantle
of granite, he keeps watch through storms and sleet.

Now stripped of his titles and even his name,
the proud king of the ruin’s still there.
For while the long night has broken his fame,
still he stands, marked by his unbroken stare.

At the heights of a Surrey valley
is where I stand alone.
The clouds roll in with attempted suppression,
wuthering, as one may say.
Yet they succeed and I do not.

All this vacantness on the moors,
in turn: suffocation.
All this gale of violence and madness,
not a single shiver,
but a private, intense burning sensation.

Would it set fire to the moors, the libraries,
and the red curtain theatre?
Or would it melt the defendant themselves?
I wish for the former,
yet I am already melting.

I put my hand on the gnomon-less sundial,
and still I stand alone
drunk on the all-consuming emotions
inflicted by these brick walls
or rather the crowds of unpredictability within them.

No sundial’s gnomon could cut this air before—  
the dial long-slept, moonlight glows, lines our palms,
its grip of frost, its calculus we tore,
until our spines aligned, unguarded—warm.

The gnomon’s scorn now bends to our skin’s dawn—
its frost-etched law undone by breath’s slow rise.
Our shadows fuse as Brahms unwinds the calm,
rewriting fate in tongues that flesh denies.  

The gnomon’s edge, once steeped in solar lies,
now bends to taste the salt along our throats,
its calculus of light a husk, takes flight—
a butterfly that drinks what dawns promote.

Let ruins chant the creed of numbered skies—
our pulse, a clock that dares to harmonize.

i wake to a fetish of b.b.c. radio 4, i lie in bed for about two hours listening to it, makes me feel like i'm hovering in my bed through a busy street, all that talk talk talk; that radio station broadcast has all the perks of quirky things, only the english could have moulded such an organism, like today, listening to a play, with with bill nighy (the last remaining old **** with a really distinguishable voice) about an actor's career, i never experienced acting on the radio, that pure monologue where either rasp or slur or lisp of the actor's mouth -interior gave you more than ****** expressions akin to that farcical maxim: i cry but in secret laugh - i laugh but in secret i cry - look at the eyes. well he was in it, apart from geoffery rush ol' bill is the next in the line of distinguishable voices - distinguishable voices tend to have some distinguishing visage characteristic - the villain φ' - backward upsilon / the english y - φυωσις- / phuosis + -γνομον / gnomon - physiognomy - backward upsilon i.e. not a pigeon coo-coo likening, a dried out plateau of the mandible jaw droop stressing the larynx's counter-u expression - less kiss-kiss prune of the lips - physiognomy / φυωσιςγνομον - also not the theological megalomania of likening y with i as implying no distinguishing need for the study of the tetragrammaton - i have no phonetic unit to shot it, unless it be akin to: hydra - saying the word hydra without association the y with i, as in hi- -dra; i guess you'd have to learn polish pronunciation; oh yeah, and the news of the beatles' producer died today, dubbed the 5th next to john paul george and ringo, george the 2nd... and why did the greeks with their beautiful alphabet start using diacritic marks? i know the roman alphabet is ugly like 1 - 9 / too musically abstract and would require stress marks of accenting the symbols, but why would the greeks need that too?*

so that's the morning fetish done and dusted,
it used to be classic f.m. prior -
now it's talk talk talk -
then the metabolism counters of alcoholism,
diluting semi-skimmed milk with water,
**** won't stay down, jumps right up,
then the nicotine tuberculosis cough
of a nicotine hangover that's worse than
alcohol abuse dehydration -
cough cough - ah please just shut up!
then waiting for the faeces worm to poke
it's ugly head from my **** -
******* on the throne of thrones
to ease the pressure on the *****-duct muscle
because that's what stimulates it like
food entering the oesophagus -
and then abstracting while reading the sunday
newspaper magazines (it's wednesday today,
a lucky day to revise sunday prints of the fashion
magazine and book reviews - and that's the odd
thing, many reviews of books of fiction and non-
and no review of a book of poetry,
england and it's grand poetic history and no one
reviews poetry books, just a little poet's corner
in the news review section, a ******* in a dark
alley in the shadiest bit of the east end
somewhere near the docks on the isle of dogs) -
but straight to the point...
red hot chilli pepper's warm tape (album: by the way),
and ***, yeah, boy, lots of it running through it,
you put it on, and you're not expecting anything,
the verses are so-so, but then... boom! the chorus
strips you into O... i like songs like that, the hidden
chorus agenda, no over-burdening solos, clear funk
of the bass actually being heard unlike in metallica songs
(of course, exception, devil's dance, but then hushed
by too much rhythm guitar),
and it's not like a ****** loosing his / her virginity with
an immediate ****** akin to free's all right now -
poem done, heartburn already fuelling me with acids
of fasting... a day about to begin: at 6p.m. - running through
to ~5a.m.

"Praefectus,
What does it mean to grow?" Said R & R

For I am Hellas - Helios,
But you shall be Rhṓmē.

"Is it just to take a name?"

For all of this is taking?
You, I shall name Romulus.
For you I share nothing.
For it means brutality.

"What might you give me?"

For all of this is given.
You, I shall name Remus.
For you I give favor.
For it means kindred spirit.

"Where are you going?"

You two are nearly yet full grown.
I have given a verdict,
Remus is to lead the people.

"That isn't fair! This is an injustice!"

Come back with me to Hellas,
If that really is your perspective,
Your family shall still welcome you home.

"I deserve this! All of this!"

Deserve what?
Who are you who I named?
Who are you who I raised?

"I reject these ways!"

Good. You may still yet come to understand them.
Heed my decision. When have I ever acted against your interest?
Praefectus is the most honorable of professions, I sense no honor in you.

"That's your fault! Your perception! Your perspective!"

You are still very young, Romulus.
The brutal mind can incapacitate,
Both problem & thinker.
You 𝘤𝘢𝘯 choose to be either.

"You speak in riddles, fool! No one can understand you!"

Your brother understands fine.
In fact, he understands them perfectly.
For your brother, not you, has wisdom.

"I will **** you!"

Save it, child. I told you, I'm leaving.
Heed my decision. When have I ever acted against your interest?
You are not fit to be a leader.



What can one who learns everything
Always still have a chance not to know?

To be unbiased, to be impartial.

For to rest in the gymnasium
Is to watch others wrestle.
There is no pendulum
Which is not but itself a pebble.

I am the gnomon.

For all are free
And each person is their own mason.
From the block of marble we chisel
Out who are ourselves.

I forgot to remember,
I remembered to have forgot.

You know the crazy thing about clocks?
Well, eventually,
They all stop ticking.
Like a sun dial,
The gnomon stops
Without light to make shadows.
But the funny thing is,
Time goes on.
Time is a constant.

I remember to forget,
I forget in remembrance.

Is Time despondent?
Is Time ebullient?

Memory. What's it mean to me?
Thoughts. What's it mean to be?

Is Time periodic?
Is Time cyclical?

What I remember
Is all; that I haven't forgetten.

If Time had a name,
They were called Kronos.
If Time has a title,
It is the Ouroboros.

What I forget
Is nothing; that I haven't remembered.

I remember in forgettance.
I forget to have forgot.

It is the only country in all
the world, with a stainless
steel lightening conductor
for the entire nation, on the
main street of its capital city.

But what is more intriguing
is that it has a connection
with the ancient Druids and
the solstices because the
rod is actually a Gnomon.

Universal pulse is measured
  from an apparatus which
  has been attached to the
  pinnacle in what is known
as a ‘Guinness-Time’ capsule.