Tock Tick
Tick tock as we drink our coffee.
Tick tock as we check the scores.
Tick tock as we sip our cocktails.
Tick tock when we close the door.Tick tock the clothes are dirty.
Tick tock the bills lie unpaid.
Tick tock the lawns grow wilder.
Tick tock the beds sleep unmade.Tick tock our griefs grow colder.
Tick tock days are long in age.
Tick tock the twilight’s failing.
Tick tock the low candles fade.
“Tock Tick” | Poems by Massey
November 15, 2014 by Peter Galen Massey
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Peter Galen Massey 
So why do we say “tick tock” and not “tock tick”? Do you remember the old rhyme that starts like this:
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
Forty ’leven by the clock.
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
Put your ear to Grandpa’s ticker,
Like a pancake, only thicker.
Weeeelll. No special reason I can discover. I find tick tock easier to say, since tick puts my tongue in position to say tock. I also think tick is a “faster” word than tock. So tick tock is smooth and time starts fast and ends slows. I wanted an awkward, problematic title and I wanted time to speed up, so I flipped them. Or … Or is it also? … I needed a gimmick for the title, and a gimmick is the familiar with a twist.
You may like to know that I read your poem without first reading the title. When I came to the end of the poem, I immediately said, ‘Well, Tock Tick, that’s that.” It was only later that I realized that Tock Tick was the title of the poem. Tock Tick just seemed the right thing to say.