Time is a human concept
Not always shown due respect
By we who put off until tomorrow
That which we should do today.
Then, when tomorrow
Comes we say
“I shall do that on another day”,
While old Father Time
Smiles his enigmatic smile
And whispers, “you borrow
Tomorrow and today”.
And we, heeding not the clock
Continue to play
Our lives away.
As I grow older
Father Time
Taps me on my shoulder
With his scythe
And says “this rhyme
May survive,
Or perchance another one
After you are gone”.
The hands are almost at half-past.
Will the clock last
The hour?
A sudden shock
Can stop
The clock
At …
And what of that?
For clocks
Are like flies,
One dies
But the great tick tock
Continues on,
Though one is gone.
Oft of a summer’s day
Have I turned away
To write.
I shall go out tomorrow
And forget my words
In the singing of birds.
But when night
Falls, I shall return what I borrow
From my ever present friend
Old Father Time
And my brief rhyme
Shall reach it’s end.
There was a young man named Locke
Who did old Father Time cruely mock.
Time smiled a sad smile
And said “in a while
You will receive a rather rude shock”.
What is behind the façade
of those who live it large?
A girl on the make.
She takes
what a poor girl can.
He has no plan
apart from fun.
Together they run.
The sun
will always shine.
The band will always play
and the hay
will be forever sweet
as they dance with nimble feet
without a care
upon the air.
Old Father Time
clears his throat
as the band strikes a sour note.
—
(The reference to dancing with nimble feet upon the air is a reference to Oscar Wilde’s “The Balad of Reading Gaol”. “it is not sweet, with nimble feet, to dance upon the air”, which is, of course a reference to men dangling from the hangman’s rope).
K Morris - Poet 