Friday 22 September 2023

Time Out Of Time

Time
is elastic;
it stretches as you try
to create another poem,
until words become lost in translation
and day-dreams take over the helm
to steer free-floating thoughts
spiralling through
time.

Cogs and wheels designed to fit together
seek a close harmony; any discord, jars.
Unrehearsed, it spins them out of kilter, 
and latent melodies remain unplayed
once life's gramophone-needle is static.

The interwoven records of our lives
grind to a halt. We can only stand by,
watch Catherine-wheel days spin out of control,
then spark, fizz, fade into obscurity.
Time is a certain victor in this race 
against relentless turning of both wheels
of life and fortune, twin brothers-in-arms.

All thoughts engendered by P&SU Friday Writings #95

28 comments:

  1. Life grinds on, no matter what we do.

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    1. A little oiling on the joints can work wonders. :-)

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    1. Sometimes my thoughts like to swim in deep water, if you get my drift. :-)

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  3. Time is the victor. The race is fixed.

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    1. Let's continue to hope that entrants in that race have enough love and wisdom to choose the best way to win, on behalf of the world as a whole. :-)

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  4. Will I ever find all the words I've lost? That spun out of control? Perhaps. In my daydreams. One can only hope. Really enjoyed this.

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    1. Perhaps words (of the best kind) create outgoing ripples as they are spoken, just as a stone thrown in a river creates concentric circles that grow ever greater on its surface. In this way, every individual writer/speaker-of-words must eventually connect with every other being who every existed?

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  5. Great poem I really enjoyed this. I love the last line

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    1. I think you and I might be called sisters-in-arms, as regards this week's Friday Writing topic. I'm so pleased to have 'met' you in the wonderful world that is Blogland. :-)

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    2. Thank you great to meet you as well. Indeed we have the same underlying thoughts. Your images are absolutely amazing though

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    3. Would you believe, I started looking for an image after I wrote the words, but couldn't find one that felt right - maybe next time, eh?
      Thanks for visiting again. :-)

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    4. I mean the poetic images or metaphors I should say

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    5. I looked it up The correct word I meant was imagery My English still needs work

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  6. Feels a bit frenzied, losing track of time can do that

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    1. And here's me, thinking that concentrating on any kind of artistic endeavour, makes 'Time in the real world' slow to a stop and cease to exist! Frenzy long gone - Welcome to Calm! :-)

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  7. Time will eventually win, but I intend to have as much fun as I can while I run.

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    1. Or even slow the pace down, long enough to say 'Hello Trees, Hello Sky' as per a wonderful character called Fotherington-Thomas created as part of the Molesworth sagas by author Geoffrey Williams and artist Ronald Searle!
      Hehehe - I hope this will send you to explore that schoolboy world of Nigel Molesworth and his friends, all of which might make you laugh as much I did when I first discovered it. :-)

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  8. "steer free floating thoughts"... kind of like steering a cat!

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    1. OMG - my mind instantly saw a cartoon cat which had become a four-wheeler, as opposed to a four-legged, steerable moggy! Thank you for the nightmare picture, now etched in my mind. LOL (Exits left, giggling.)

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  9. Time always wins, doesn't it. I like your line, "Cogs and wheels designed to fit together . . . " It reminds me of when I was a college dropout and worked in a factory. One of the quality control inspectors had a race car and I learned a lot from him about cars. I learned to take the transmission out of our 1934 Ford Modified Stock race car, as we would strip a set of gears about every other week. Another racing fellow told us how to cure. The gears we lost were cut straight across would strip easily under the stress our powerful engine would put on the mating gears. He was using a set of 'beveled gears' from a later model Ford and they took a lot more punishment. We got a set of those and they never stripped again.
    An aside, later I rebuilt the engine in my 1952 Ford so as to outrun the 1955 and 56 Chevys, even those with a power pack. I.e. a late model, then, Hot Rod.
    Thanks for peeking in on me,
    ..
    p.s. I did go back to school, working as an Aerospace Engineer at NASA without a degree. Plus married with five kids. After eleven years I finished with three degrees.
    ..

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    1. *smiles* Do you ever wonder how you found the time to do all that?! Well done for stretching time to fit. :-)

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  10. I've not seen the Molesworth Saga in the US. Possibly I've not been in the right part of the shops. Are they picture books?

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    1. I have the hardback version, with illustrations - old but good! LOL
      (dare I say like me?)
      Amazon UK offers 'The Complete Molesworth' (Penguin Modern Classics) at £10.99, also for Kindle at £5.99, as well as a few short excerpts, e.g. 'Down With Skool' on Kindle for £2.99.
      So, not in today's understanding of a 'picture book' or graphic novel, but simply text with occasional illustrations scattered along the way.
      All would come under the banner of 'Schoolboy Humour' here in England, but they still make me laugh at 82, despite the fact I was never a schoolboy. :-)

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  11. What a deep proding into the mind ,and a nice poem too

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    1. It's surprising what 'digging down' into the mind can reveal at times. :-) Thanks for your kind words.

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  12. I think the whole universe is elastic, an extension of us and consciousness. I like the image of stretching time like fruit leather.

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    1. A lady after my own heart. What better than an elastic Universe, eh?
      Thanks for stopping by to comment. :-)

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