Time, or what passes for time,

Is a culprit, most unkind,

Stealing what we find,

Emptying our mind.

 

Time should be the music

Which everybody plays,

Adding to our days

In unexpected ways.

 

But time is made of windows,

Shattered one by one in hate,

A commentary upon this state,

Where rescue parties come too late.

 

Time is the gun, time is the shell,

Time is the piercing winter gale,

Time is the gas that some inhale,

Time is the wretched prisoner’s tale.

 

This time is the pure time:

An undiluted substitute for fear

Of the bogeyman, drawing near.

Please send him somewhere else, not here.

 

And time is two years, precisely;

And though we strut and we defend,

None among us will pretend

That we know when it will end.