O’clock

adv.
1. Of, by, or according to an “old-timey” feeling.
As in, “A Sunday’s supper, chiming o’clock.”
2. Reminiscent of the limited dimensionality upon which the use of objects depends, that
liminally studded flatness that shines like a knife’s molybdenum flat.
3. Specifying “why?”, “what for?”, “which is which?”, or inquiry into any state of affairs in
which explanation is desperately desired and urgently requested, in loud and repeated
articulations, but in which the only assurance is that all explanations will be withheld by
knowledgeable entities and / or forces whose motivations are unmistakably vindictive if
otherwise obscure.
As in, “We were in bed, lying one o’clock, awaiting the chiming of betrayal.”
prep.
1. (Used to indicate this wild, straying off, the whole scene, at the conventional angle, a thing
with a certain weight, for that matter, the opposite tendency, now holding its ears, as far as life, a
pang that a billion people share, outward darting, that clause about the boundaries of common
decency, the way they stand out, very high and very straight, though capable of talking,
including treatments, his elegaic praise, with better prospects for health, again objects of scorn, a
tiny emerging light, what you would have to abandon in crossing, pulling it a bit out of earshot,
the latent eloquence of what they were doing, whatever that is, a world without coincidence, the
humorless, secularized Puritan, by itself from forever, unable to look up, that was show business,
and to have applied, the quitting bastard, be it in ink or pencil, jetting on a blue plume, which had
both vagueness and a point, not a dog, the speech of a rustic, when served, this utterly restless
stillness, who was destined to become equipped, this method for finding, the quaint remnants,
which deterred no one, a first member, which accepts bad teeth, this brazenness, a saint in his
vitrine, the violent emotion, the grandest pattern, the skyscrapers, armies, prisons, airs and all,
unannounced, across the big room, a self-deprecating therapist, following the burglary, as
satisfying the questions of “how much?” and “how many?”, in nearly every way, well-heeled, as
a livelihood or obligation, wonderful one, the machine, unfulfilled promises, who wouldn’t let it
move, a rather conservative estimate, this path of duty, the valley where she had passed, those
wastes, for such services, as often in those days, apparently the first, a parrot for your shoulder,
those years, the record he had worn out, the original thought, the plus and minus of it, waves
gone with the bronzed one, islands lucid and afloat, where there was an oasis of hot water, a
world on which he dined on fish and fresh fruits, only a month into his training.)
As in, “the wifebeaters hit the showers / the panties bombardier / relatively speaking / upwind
[i.e., impending disaster] it’s all / o’clock / lord kitchener’s guns” (Ceerig, “the last of the
diplomatic channels,” 1922).
adj.
1. Bound by inheritance.
As in, “I was born as though waking half-way through life, endowed with every ability to thinkand even to know and to properly hate, but upon that early arousal was unable to control evenmy eyes from rolling back under their wet lids; my head lolled on a limp, pudgy mallow of aneck. Growing up was an act of forgetting, more than I beleive it was for other children, whosejoy in discovery made me more desperate than jealous.. Inconsolable, I practiced first blinking,then babbling, and standing, and hitting balls only with the perseveration of someone who wasonly tracing through their steps from earlier in the day to find their lost keys. I repeated actions Iknow I had done, so that in doing them again I might unlock the life I had truly built, and not thisfrail, o’clock pittance in which I found myself.”As in, “You’re not thinking. Your words are all o’clock before you’ve even thought of them.”
2. Confined, as for a creative procedure.
As in, “He first examined the page for imperfections against the natural lightbox of the sun.
Upon seeing the flex of grit, or some other trace of inconsistency, chemical or physical, he
circled it with the ink of a ball-point pen, and when all of these small spots—those visible to the
naked eye—were duly check, clean and o’clock, he simply, put the page on the piano
stand—where sheet music might go—and played sounds like blood oranges rotting.”

Joe Milazzo is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry — The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places — and several chapbooks (most recently, @p_roblem_s). His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, Tammy, Texas Review and elsewhere. He is an Associate Editor for Southwest Review and the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.joe-milazzo.com. Here in these definitions in danger are what these words now mean, or might mean, or must mean if they wish to escape the new world incommensurate with the perceptions they’re accustomed to inhabiting.

Eric Lindley is a musician, writer, and artist living in the bay area. His writing has appeared in Fence, Joyland, Tammy, and elsewhere, and other work at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Machine Project, Telic Arts Exchange, The Knitting Factory, and The Smell. With Janice Lee and Joe Milazzo, he co-edited the online interdisciplinary arts journal [out of nothing] from 2009 to 2015. You can find Eric’s work online at https://likeoverflowing.com/