The Poetry of Time

You stumble forward into potentiality,
But you can’t escape your own brutality;
The future may be an untilled soil,
But as for the past, it’s black spilt oil.

Take out your small seed and plant it;
You’ll find the ground no longer wants it;
You think it might be easy to split;
But didn’t you always want to quit.

The past is absolute hate;
The future is just a bit of bait;
Your cone of timidity escapes
All possible contemporaneity.

But there’s a region of time
Where all theories fail;
Try as you might to rhyme
All your lies will turn pale.

Raw desire passes through
A long physical causal chain;
Yeah, the past is free of the future;
But the future is not free of the past.

When the observer crosses the line,
The observed falls into time;
The future is a function of your destiny;
What you did to me was as certain as fate.

There was a time before time
When there was no time at all,
Not a single number, not a single digit,
We were one, and we were love—

Time they say will give me grace,
But all I ever do is lose face.

Time they say will grow the child,
But all I ever do is grow more wild.

Time they say will cast a spell,
But to me it’s just a sounding bell.

Time they say is a crashing wave,
But then why do I feel so trapped in a cave?

Time they say scatters to the wind like birds;
But then why am I always at a loss for words?

Time they say will leave you beguiled;
And it’s true, I’m still just a child.

Life comes at each of us all too fast;
Don’t you get tired of always coming in last?
Seconds, minutes, hours, days: do the math;
I want to find a way off the beaten path.

I want a special room where I can wink out;
Then when I’m good and ready, I’ll wink back in.
There’ll never be a single reason to pout,
Because there’ll always be a way to win.

At the single blink of an eye, I want to disappear;
Time’ll freeze, to a secret special room I’ll go;
I’ll stay there for a minute or even a year;
There’ll be books: seeds to sow and ideas to grow.

i

Too much time wasted
while I was wasted.

ii

The time you’ve been given
Is not yours to choose,
But what you do with that time is.

ii

If time heals all wounds,
Then why do my scars ache so bad
Every time it rains?

iii

Between this moment and the next,
There’s half a moment,
All the way down into infinity.

iv

Time is the transformation
Of the infinite into the possible;
Regrets continuously increase
Until age overtakes you,
And then only letting go,
Can free you from time at all—
To escape time,
You must live with yourself.

v

In time even walls fade;
So no prison can ever hold
A free soul;
Free souls are timeless.

vi

God created time.
What was there before time?
God knows.

vii

He spent his time earning money;
And finally when he had plenty of money,
he found he had no time at all.

viii

I only feel the now,
When you are here with me.

When you are far
I’m lost in the past—
My memory of having been with you.

When you are far,
I’m lost in the future—
The hope of being with you again.

ix

I’m caught
Between a sunrise and a sunset,
Between darkness and light,
Between yesterday and today—
Someday a choice will set me free.

x

In the distance I can hear a single chyme;
I reach out toward the implacable future,
Yet beyond my grasp shifts the sands of time.

Fate will change on the turn of a dime;
I’ve always thought my intentions pure;
In the distance I can hear a calling chyme.

To find you was my long life pine,
But now I see you never were my cure,
As beyond my grasp shifts the sands of time.

I stole your sleek soul, was it such a crime?
I’ve always followed that allusive lure;
For in the distance I can hear a calling chyme;

When I catch you, you’ll be everything sublime;
My desire for you is what leaves me sure;
Even if beyond my grasp shifts the sands of time.