As I ran out one morning,
Jogging along snowy streets,
The few people that I saw
Budded like wintersweets
And along the usual winding path
I found a scribbled note
Half trapped in a frozen birdbath
Saying Time is but a joke
Until beauty and age collide,
And memories become eternal past
And eyes have run dry
I'll refuse to kiss this world
Beautiful and colourful goodbye
And deny my time is a shooting
Star that flickers bye.
The revolving clocks will never stop
Because here I hold
A hundred pages of my life
Neatly bound, protected from the world.
My corpse may lie in eternal dark
As rain hits window, sun hits skins
Though a thousand souls disembark
Time is but a joke! Let that phrase ring!
In the deepest of my impossible desires
I want every sunrise and sunset,
I would dance towards those horizons
Beg my heartbeat to grow heavier yet.
Where the thunder of the drums,
And the whine of the violins
The wars men fought, the one nature lost
Would all fail to trump my sin
Into learning I would delve,
And with a passion I'd soon
Be singing impossible tunes,
As I visit all wonders of the world on foot.
And vast poetry, stories and plays
Would be read and understood
I would compile one world anthology,
At a desk crumbling under my stoop.
I would begin every morning
Examining my face in the mirror
Plunging my whole in icy water
Enjoying a body time cannot cripple
Parts of the clock I'd dismantle,
And if I had a lover who asked
Why I chose to leave it unrepaired
I would find words to explain it to her.
People gathering at my door too
Would ask why time is a joke
And my answer invariably would lure
A doubt that makes me choke...
Because time is a joke, cold and cruel,
That I should live forever
As my friends around me all perish
And I float alone towards the void
How twisted life must be
That it can only be enjoyed
By wondering if you shall wake tomorrow
By having life lived so fleetingly.
What gives the good to goodbye
And memories their weight
I say that eternity is a sacrifice
And that mortal fear is bound with faith
Would the words and gestures
Without meaning, be worth it to see,
How far into the nothingness this will all fade
Beyond the end of humanity?
So let the revolving clockwork halt,
Let my heartbeat cease and the noises
Of the world that fall upon a wall of silence
Come to a stop.
Let the clock be repaired and placed upon a wall
Where it will be seen.
May it remind us that life is worth living
And that time is a joke worth making.
That was all the trapped note said
It was late, late in the morning
The wintersweets they were gone,
And the bell-tower chimed a warning.
So I ran back the way I came,
Up some stairs, where I undressed
And underneath the bell's tolling
Made love to my wife in bed.
And underneath the bell's tolling
Made love to my wife in bed.
