Drinking up time
On the centenary of Einstein's Theory of Relativity
Back then we spent our Friday nights
down at the Goat and Compasses.
Albert, the gaffer, moved among us
collecting empties and calling:
Hurry up, please, it's time-space.
Ain't you got no homes to go to?
Last tram may or may not be about
to leave. Or just left. How we laughed.
Just the once we went to the Rising Sun.
When the landlord acted like he was god,
we played dice until he told us to stop.
He didn't even get his own joke.
We asked why the clock behind the bar
always said twenty to eleven. Is it because
we're moving away from it at light speed?
No, he said. The clock's broke.
Schrödinger's dog can remain in its kennel
When Schrödinger's cat is put into a box.
So Schrödinger's dog contemplates the eternal,
While Schrödinger's cat comes to hate paradox.
Schrödinger's dog is still feasting on marrow
When Schrödinger's cat finds a cyanide phial,
And learns that its options are suddenly narrow.
But that's not why Schrödinger's dog wears a smile.
Schrödinger's dog can behave with persistence:
No need for its status to be re-defined.
So while Schrödinger's dog is assured of existence,
Poor Schrödinger's cat goes clean out of its mind.
In the kingdom of the deaf,
the man with one good ear is in purgatory.
He hears the rumble of the guns.
He hears the taxi engine throbbing.
He hears the muttering of nuns.
He hears the distant sobbing.
He hears the humming generator.
He hears the sharpening of the knife.
He hears the hissing from the crater.
He hears the ambiguities of life.
There were bound to be fragments of regression,
even though stopping short of temptation.
Moments when memory would invite an aroma,
Turkish or caporal, hinting at elegance,
sophistication—the movement of the hand
that spreads a swirl of smoke. Then
watching it drift in languorous ribbons
to fade wistfully from sight.
But still the smell, lingering yet in imagination
after all these years. The gypsy skirts,
the blue guitars: Django plucking 'Tears'.
Not craving but frowning
at the persistence of a memory
that hangs in air like smoke above a table.
So here, like Eliot in middle years,
I try to stand enough words in a line
Before they tumble, verbal dominoes
With fragile power—so long as they're on edge—
The tension keeping them together held,
Like breath, only for moments at a time.
And, as with breath, the measurement of time
In moments, days, weeks, months or years
Is not enough itself to keep attention held.
There needs to be a stronger tensioned line
To draw the sceptic reader to the edge
Without collapsing all the dominoes.
Playing in pubs at darts or dominoes
Until the landlord's 'Hurry please, it's time'
Is too convivial for competition's edge,
They say, in modern life. Too many years
Slip by with nothing gained along the line
By way of status or positions held.
The older man looks back at dreams he held,
Now evanescent revellers in dominoes
Arriving at the masquerade to wait in line
To bow before the prince. Such wasted time,
Such wasted dreams, unconscious of the years
Between which expectations tried to edge
In sideways, by presenting a thin edge
To slip unnoticed where inertia held
Both court and sway, who kept through all the years
The rule to start with double-six at dominoes.
Insistence is the cruel thief of time
That could be seized to interrupt the line
Across coarse grass follow the curlew's line,
Climb to the top of Blackstone Edge
And walk a Roman Pennine causeway for a time,
Paying attention to the secrets held
Where quarry slabs are stacked like dominoes,
Cut square for roadsteads in our yesteryears.
By soldiers of the line the square was held
But at the edge they fell like dominoes.
You may reclaim the time but not the years.
The moon was put in place to
measure our months.
The moon was put in place to
rhyme with spoon.
The moon was put in place to
be howled at.
The moon was put in place for
cows to jump over.
The moon was put in place to
explain the lunatic.
The moon was put in place to
taste my tears.
Put out more clocks and let the hours chime.
A timepiece is much more than ornament—
No chance to cheat the waste of toxic time.
The hands rotate in pre-determined mime,
Metropolis insistent, driving, adamant.
Put out more clocks and let the hours chime.
Count down the treads of stairs we had to climb
To stay within our temporal tenement.
No chance to cheat the waste of toxic time.
The windows on our world are caked with grime;
With curtains drawn we need the measurement.
Put out more clocks and let the hours chime.
The clockwork is a cruel paradigm.
The pendulum mocks our predicament:
No chance to cheat the waste of toxic time.
For God-geometer the game's sublime:
The no-dice rules he made have meant
No chance to cheat the waste of toxic time.
Put out more clocks. And let the hours chime.
We fear we must expect the worst.
No other way has such a stinging resonance:
The second time repeats the first.
The way to change may be rehearsed,
The pull of known and trusted ways is too immense.
We fear we must expect the worst.
Despite the shame to be thus cursed,
We are too quick to give and take offence.
The second time repeats the first.
Resentments that have long been nursed
Are met with anger that this makes no sense.
We fear we must expect the worst.
Then hatred like a storm can burst
And leave our reconciliation in suspense.
The second time repeats the first.
The mire in which we are immersed
Leaves little else to face than stale pretence.
We fear we must expect the worst:
The second time repeats the first.
A leap day is coming.
Let's jump up and down
for a day that may dawn like the rest.
It may shine, it may pour,
there'll be problems with plumbing
they'll paint passports brown
and the bird may fall out of her nest.
Cops may break down a door
while the petulant stamp
of a child in a shop
may give rise to a smack.
And the angels may let out a curse.
In the refugee camp,
where the food aid can't stop
the disease nor hold back
all the deaths, it's no worse
today
than any other day.
But tradition allows that a
woman may flatter
a man with an offer of marriage.
I'm not one to disparage
tradition. Instead I would caution
a sense of proportion.
Hence I offer advice:
to approach paradise
don't go leaping around,
keep your feet on the ground,
for a day is a day is a day.
Now I've no more to say
today
than any other day.
© David Fisher 1962-2019