De Scott Evans, American
“It’s Called a ‘Clock,’ Honey. It’s What People Use To Tell Time When Their Phone Battery’s Dead, Their Cable Box Is Off, and They Can’t See the Microwave,” 1881
Oil on canvas
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Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived, if necessary), here, here, here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page.
/// It’s the first time young Nina was shown
the old Grandfather’s Clock they now own.
Mama opens the door
which had been locked before.
(Where’s the pendulum? Isn’t that bone?)
/// Nina never knew she had been lied
to about how Ma’s grandfather died.
Not of old age in bed—
struck twelve times in the head.
Then the old man was chained up inside.
/// They’d inherited grandfather’s manse.
He’d made millions in Wall Street finance.
Was a planned revised will
someone’s motive to kill?
(The revisions were leaked in advance.)
/// What weird reason would Mama have for
now unlocking this clock’s hidden core?
And subjecting her daughter
to this scene of a slaughter?
Only Nina could fit through the door.
/// Mama asked her young daughter to squeeze
through to inside, where, on hands and knees,
she would loosen the chains
on the old man’s remains,
and then bring them outside. “Pretty please?”
/// Ma would bury his bones in the ground
at a spot where they’d never be found.
Then the clock could be sold.
(It was trimmed with real gold.)
Nina stood there, not making a sound…
/// Little Nina knows Mama is scary,
and that’s why she has learned to be wary.
More disaster she’s feared
since her sis disappeared—
her identical twin sister Mary.
/// Nervy Nina, refusing to cry,
had decided she’d better comply.
If she dared to refuse
there would be no good news.
Oppose Mama— you’re likely to die.
/// They have not cleaned that old clock in years,
so the hourly chimes no one hears
isn’t faulty design.
It should function just fine,
but some mice have made nests in the gears.
/// If the servants had troubled to wind it,
it would chime and the household would find it
a most charming device,
but they won’t chase the mice
because then ‘twould need dusting behind it.