T-T-T-Time Monostich

a big grandfather clock  offered us

the slow ,      small,

in-di-vid-u-al   pellets   of

time .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

-- Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men (1946), p. 43

[A few pages later in the novel, that pithy abstract characterization  is fleshed out in its impact on the narrator’s consciousness:]

The grandfather’s clock, I suddenly realized, wasn’t getting any younger.  It would drop out a tick, and the tick would land inside my head  like a rock dropped in a well,

and the ripples would circle out and stop,

and the tick would sink down in the dark.

For a piece of time which was not long or short,

and might not even be time,

there wouldn’t be

an-y-thing…

Then the tock would drop  down the well,

and the ripples would circle out  and finish.