I am tethered to ticking clocks,
the tick-tocking envoys of the rising dead;
the hours that leave me shackled to the ravenous dead, who would kill me with radiation poisoning;
the dead who circle me playing old-fashioned ragtime ballads, with a chorus of alarmed ticking.
Paupers in the alleyways try to pawn me their watches!
Vendors in the streets try to drown me in hour hands!
Though today I may be tethered to the weather-vane clock-faces,
I am not a watchmaker.