Time

September 2010

#020.

No Time, No, I Mean No Time

I briefly read a history of time some time ago. I briefly understood it, well most of it, then I thought about it. Then I went into a kind of melt down because time began just after the big bang, that was my first problem. If there was no time, how could it start after, I mean, what does after, or before, or simultaneous mean if time doesn't exist yet? Yet? What on earth do I mean by yet? Well I mean that since there was no time, I can't use words like after, before or since can I? Oh, it's happened again already. Ouch! Already? I'll have to think about that. You see, I'm trying to figure out that while there was no time... There I go again, While? What's While?

OK Back to my first question. Could time have started at the same time as... erm, well what I mean is we can't put an exact moment on anything that happened before the big bang, umm: look, can you for a moment ignore the first paragraph and let me explain this or time will run out before I get half way.

Now there's another question altogether. How much time do we have before it runs out? I mean, why should it be limitless, nothing else is? Ever since a clerk at the patent office in Bern got a bit shirty with light speeding past him we've known that there's a limit beyond which even light cannot go, and that regulates the relativity of time. Go faster and time slows down, reach the speed limit and time stops, I think. You could live forever, except that no time would pass, so would you be aware that you're living a long time? Sorry, time is standing still, not moving, and because we are creatures in time we might not be aware at all, so the moment at which time stands still you will remain like that forever, like when when you were a snotty nosed kid and you make faces when the wind changes. At least until you slow down enough for time to start moving again.

Another question. If you really applied the brakes, as you slow down time gets back to normal, albeit sometime in the distant future. But if you keep on slowing down and time gets faster and faster until when you come to a halt: does all of time happen at that instant? You know you've heard of newspaper reports where people just disappeared into thin air, well reports of reports in newspapers, I used to read them in Wired Magazine, no, sorry, I meant Weird Magazine, and Twilight Zone and stuff, all absolutely true – so they said about some of it. Anyway, we don't stop do we. We're standing on the surface of a planet and that surface is travelling at fair old lick since we're not at the North or South Poles. It's a bit more than a thousand miles an hour if you're at the equator. The planet is moving around the sun. That's going at a fair old lick too. The sun is at the outer edge of one of the spirals of our galaxy which is turning, spinning around like a kids spinning top, and us at outer edge, we're really shifting along, and on top of all that, the universe is getting bigger so the galaxy is burning serious rubber away from the others, well it would be if the galaxy was on wheels.

Now, we are walking around, or driving, or we're on a train, a boat or a plane, and at the same time (that word again) the earth is spinning at whatever speed depending on where we are, at something between nothing and a thousand miles an hour, and the earth is hurtling round the sun in it's goldilocks orbit, and the sun is shifting around at the edge of the galaxy and the galaxy is hammering along and is likely to keep doing that until says hello to another galaxy.

So, what if, on top of all that spinning and shifting and spinning and shifting and spinning and shifting you were walking down the street and you saw someone being mugged, and you began to run after the mugger, and all those different movements all came together and for a moment you were not moving, for you the total movement became zero. All of time would happen all at once and you'd instantly live out the rest of your life and disappear into a small pile of dust which would fall to the ground about thirty-three centuries from later.

But you wouldn't know that, you'd just hurtle into some place where it's all happening, I really mean all of it, it's really all happening, it's so much all happening that all your tomorrows come at once, what a blast.

However, Weird Magazine and the Twilight Zone, and probably Wired Magazine, would have a field day, several in fact, as they take day trippers to the hallowed paving stones of the disappearance and others mount a vigil, with hourly searches in an attempt to find the evidence of human remains at the very scene, the actual place where all the happenings happened, provided of course, that they have TheFED's take on time!

Where were we, oh yes, the big bang, exactly when did it happen? Well, bearing in mind all that has been said here, I think there's a case for saying it happened when you chased the mugger, and since you haven't done that yet, as you're reading this so you couldn't have, therefore we are living in a time before the big bang. It's not going to happen until next year, end of March, or maybe very early April. So now we know what was before the big bang, except that it only hasn't happened yet because that time and place where it's all happening, really all happening, hasn't happened yet, but when it does all time happens at once so the big bang came out at something like 13 or 14 billion years ago, long before now so we don't know what went before the big bang, apart from the fact that someone nicked an old woman's purse.

Now what if the mugger meets one of those inspirational teachers who persuades him or her, because after nearly 14 billion years investigating we still don't know who it was, that it would be a good idea to take up the study of astrophysics and the mugging doesn't happen. So you don't chase the mugger, so you don't reach the point of no movement, so the place where it's all happening, I mean really really all happening doesn't happen. So the big bang doesn't happen next year, so we don't happen. What then?

At this point, can I ask you to reread the first paragraph, it should make more sense now, relatively speaking.

Dave Chambers
Newham Writers Workshop

Time Of Words

I woke up in fear,
The clock showed the time,
There was a glimmer of hope,
But a very strange feel,
The secret was out,
Of my turbulent past,
I could see the stars shining,
Just past the gate,
The path led the way,
But I still felt lost.

Debbie Feltz
GROW

This Month's Timely Challenge - Confused? You Will Be...

It takes time to find a rhyme that rhymes with time
There’s no rhyme nor reason why
I’m having a trying time trying to find time to make a rhyme
That goes with time, just like my time that slips away
That I’m trying to make to make a rhyme that goes with time
I may even be just in time this time for the deadline

Louise Glasscoe
High Peak Writers

Time (10x10)

Turbulent emotions
Boil under a tranquil sky
A solitary star blazes
Giving hope to the lost
A safe pathway home

Strange times indeed
Gates opening to the unknown
Secret dimensions
Realms of darkness
We live in fear

Ashley Jordan
GROW

Time

Time. I look down at my gold watch,
Time is something I haven't got,
Time for this or time for that,
Time for me? Most definitely not!

Time, it waits for no man
Time started long ago,
At least its constant every day
Not to fast, nor slow.

Time it makes everything,
Buses, trains and planes
Solar, digital or wind up clocks
Even these make little gains.

Time is precious to us all.
DON'T WASTE IT!

Bernard Weekes-Lock 28-09-2010
GROW

Time

Time stands still when I’m thinking,
Thinking about the fear that awaits me?
It’s strange how I see so many paths criss-crossed in my mind.
Like stars in a dark turbulent night,
I’m lost in a world of unknown secrets.
Longing to escape to another place,
Waiting, standing silently, plagued by my thoughts,
Where hope doesn’t exist,
Where voices don’t visit,
A stone gate remains locked forever.

Sue Rabbett
GROW

Propiquinity
or The Elastic Nature Of Time

Propiquinity:
1. A nearness in place
2. A nearness in time
3. A closeness as of relation; kindred

They had developed a problem talking, communicating-or anyway he had, since she’d grownup. A tough taciturn man he was never much in the way of words. And they were never much in the way of him. He never had much use for them anyway. He knew what he knew, and that was it pretty much. He could get across what he needed to when he needed to, used to anyhow. When she was younger it was easier. She had needed him then, had sought his counsel or comfort or company. There was a divide between them then but a bridge across it. The bridge had grown rickety, precarious, perhaps collapsed altogether. He did not know. They hadn’t seen each other for awhile.

Edward Paul knew only two things, well three, in any depth: tough, masterful, hard headed patience and racing pigeons. Born one and raised the other, he liked the gentle sound of their sound coo, their tranquil calmness when you reached in the pen. They were not as nasty in temperament as chickens. They did not squawk and flop around the pen, flapping about like other birds. Theirs was an almost feminine trust. And they always came home. No matter how far away they flew, they always came home.

Kate was coming home. She had been away to college, had finished awhile ago. He hadn’t been able to make it to her commencement. It had been on the other side of the country.

She had gone off to college four years ago, but the distance was already growing by then, normal teen stuff, aggravated by her mother. He had given her some advice when she had left.

“And if I see you in any of those “Girls gone wild” commercials on cable I’m going to kick your ass.”

She just rolled her eyes in mock exasperation,

“Yeah,” was all she said.

The third thing he knew, had come to know recently, was the plasticity of time. The flexibility of it. The way it stretched and folded over on itself. How it could be a far and distant relic, the disintegrating past one moment: the fading of faces like old photographs, the wisps and fragments of phrases from old conversations only remaining. And the next a tangible and urgent thing all around you as real as the day you first experienced it.

When she was littler she would help him with the pigeons. Her mother would have nothing to do with it. She’d spend hours with him, asking questions and enjoying the company. When he and her mother split up it had left Katie devastated. It had been hard on all of them. Her mother least of all, he thought bitterly.

They still talked from time to time, though ever more infrequently. Sometimes she called him and sometimes he called her. The pauses in conversation were longer and more frequent. Even through the silence he felt a yearning, a powerful yen, he could feel coming out of him and traveling the phone line. He thought it was the same on her end. They had a good talk maybe one in ten conversations. It was a constant struggle to stay connected. Now he would see her in person for the first time in four years.

And then suddenly time stretched, folded in on itself: and he is sitting on the porch nearly twenty years earlier. Kate is playing on the floor. She is three and can’t stop talking for the life of her. She is worse than her mother. He sits on the swing lighting a cigarette.

“What are you doin’, Dad? Dad. Are going to ‘moke a ‘moke? Are you? Is that what you’re doing?” Her voice has a sing song, cadence quality to it.

He had a small place he called home, only five acres standing off a country road in the trees, quiet and secluded. It was alee of the world, sheltered and secure, shaded and shadowed at this time of the day. The gravel drive curved up from the road, seen through a screen of small trees. This time of morning it was a cool glade, chilled in the shade, with here and there pockets of sunshine. He stood on the porch, itching to go back to the pigeon coops but not wanting to miss her arrival. It seemed important to witness her pulling up.

She came rolling up the drive a half hour later or so. A small, nervous, strained smile on her face and a radiant suppressed joy that hurt his heart a little to see. Things were much more complicated now, that she should be so cautious of expressing her feelings, seemed to him the epitome of the distance between them. We don’t get to see each other enough for a comfortable state of affairs, he thought ruefully. Also, she often looked as if she expected something from him, and he wasn’t sure what. He had to remind himself again and again that she was a woman now. And if she expected something from you, you had better understand what it was, or she was likely to get upset. The gulf widened.

“Hey Sweetie.” The small strained smile was on his face now. He was happy to see her.

“Hey.” She said, and her smile brightened.

“How you been?”

“Good. You?”

“Good.” They stood there a moment too long.

“So how’s the job hunt going?”

She looked bleak. “Nothing yet.”

“It’ll happen.”

“Yeah.” She said it without much hope.

He smiled confident and reassuring.

“It will.”

“I know.”

“Gimme a hug.” She smiled again. He rubbed her back and patted three times and let her go. She pulled back surprised, happy to the point of tears.

“That’s how you hugged me when I was a little girl.”

“Was it?” He did not remember. It just seemed the right way to do it.

“Place looks the same.”

“Yeah. I keep it up as best I can.”

“I love it.”

“Well, I’ll leave it to you when I go.”

“Don’t say that.” She said, serious and alarmed.

“I’m not going anywhere.” That was her damn mother's doing he thought. Kate seemed always afraid of loss, of being alone. The thought of losing either of her parents haunted her. Ed had always hoped she would outgrow it. She probably would; she was young yet, but it still filled him with a helpless anger and frustrated love. He knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

“I know. And you know I don’t like when you say stuff like that.”

“All right.” He wanted to feel annoyed, but he felt mostly chagrin.

They stood there a moment longer, unsure of what to say.

“So. Everything going good for you?”

“Yeah. Ok. Pretty good.” She had a slightly guarded quality as thought the question were too personal. And suddenly time stretched again: and it is six years ago. She is sixteen and has called just to talk. She begins to tell him about her period.

“Oh, honey, we don’t ever need to talk about that. Please.”

“Why?” She laughs at him.

“We just don’t. Really, if you need to talk about it, talk to your mom, please.”

“All right,” is all she says, exasperated and amused.

“So what’s new with you?”

“Huh?’ He snapped back to now. His reverie broken.

“Oh! I got some new pigeons.”

“Yeah?” “Want to see?”

“Sure.” They headed around back to the coops.

“They’re a couple of beauties.”

“When did you get them?”

“Couple of months ago. They’re just about ready for their first flight.”

“Today?” She seemed excited.

“Maybe,” He teased. They headed back through the bright, open backyard sunlight streamed down upon them. It was warm and diffuse, the color of honey and wrapped them in its golden glow.

“So you been staying out of trouble?”

“Ye-es.” She said impatiently.

“Ok. Good. Still with what’s his name?”

“Jim. Yes.”

“Oh.” He seemed surprised. “It’s going good then.”

“Yes.” She was angry. She knew what he meant. “I’m not my mother.”

“I know.”

“You better.”

“I do.” He said tersely.

“I love my mom, you know.”

“I know.” He felt impatience coming on. This was an old beef between them. He figured he had a right to ask. It was part of his job.

They got to the coops both a little angry now. She as hard headed as he is. Everything flexed, shifted, stretched for a moment like taffy. Margaret is standing in the kitchen, looking younger and more beautiful than he ever remembers her being. Kate is five and being pigheaded about something. “You need to do something about your daughter.” He tells Magaret angrily.

“My daughter?”

“Yeah. Your daughter.”

Magaret just laughs a sound like tinkling piano keys being run up the scale. The sound sets a rill running up his back, along his arms. His heart begins to beat a little faster. And he realizes he loves her so much it hurts.

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it. She’s yours through and through you know.”

“Well here they are.”

“They’re nice.”

“Yeah.” He smiled. It felt strained. He wanted to tell her all manner of things. About how it was. But she knew. And he resented the fact a little that they would all seem like justifications and rationalizations, of what had been and what was. The past defined the present and the future, except about the future it was yet to be seen how much. Besides, all those things, the past and the history, the joy and the pain, were all just phantoms, specters of memory now. But they seemed the most substantial thing between them.

And suddenly it is dark, night and long gone. A heat wave has just broke, and the star-strewn sky is as clear as a bitter winter’s night. They are sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of the yard. Kate is five and very, very serious and grownup in her demeanor. This amuses him because her feet are kicking and swinging like any kids. They don’t reach the ground. He points out to her the few constellations he knows.

“Oh.” They sit for awhile in easy silence.

“Do you love my mom?”

“Yes. I do.”

“And will we always be together, a family?”

“Yes,” he smiles, “always.”

Her phone rang and yanked him back to now, and the guilt he feels is sharp and new. Did he lie to her then? Were he and Margaret failing even then? He can’t remember for sure.

“That’s mom. She’s getting impatient. I gotta go.”

“You just got here. You see her all the time.” He resented some always being second to Margaret.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll come over again. Before I get a job. I promise. Right now I got to get home.” He winced a little at that. That she should not find this home anymore, that home was wherever Margaret was.

And then there is a crease, a folding in time, and it is 1999. Kate is seven. She feels confused and angry.

“When we first went away and I didn’t like anybody. I knew you would come for me. I just knew you would. So I waited and I waited for you to come and take me home. But you never did. Why didn’t you come and bring me home?”

There is a pain in his chest; a sharp wedge, like metal, that penetrates much deeper than his spine.

He walked her back to her car and then watched her leave. It took everything he had not to try desperately to get her to stay a little longer, to force the connection. One in ten wasn’t all that bad as odd’s go. But still he felt a need to cling and to keep her his baby forever. He walked back to the coops lost in thought. The day had become overcast, and the yard was dull and gray. He got out his new racing pigeon. Not that he ever actually raced them. He just liked to raise them and then see if they came back when you let them go.

He held the pigeon in his hands tightly. He could feel its fragile hollow bones. It’s pounding heart. Its body heat was immense. Without thinking he clutched a little tighter. He felt feathers stiff and resistant against his palms. Did he really want to do this? Give it up? Inadvertently his hands tightened a little more. The pigeon squirmed some under the pressure. It was not alarmed. It knew him. His eyes were very far away and very dark, mournful. His body was intensely still. Even those that knew him would have said he looked very angry. The pigeon was very alive and very warm between his clutching hands. He was holding it too tightly. Suddenly he flung it up with both hands. He did not watch it fly away.

Thomas M Ritchie
POW

September Rain

The sky looks grey
with tears shed overnight,
leaving the garden with broken stems.

Petals like snow
cover the sodden leaves
snails no longer the enemy.

Autumn winds blow
pots overturn,
as Summer leaves with a roar.

Spinning Wheel

Time...the beauty of the thought of heaven
I see the face in front of me...a photograph
The times we had together...this follows my death bed letter
I always loved you - although I was frightened of you
You knew that...why oh why did it all go wrong?

This my prayer, I never thought I would pray
But, you are gone, and I am here, where would our love be
Without the time we had together
Remember those days, remember...
We spoke on the telephone line, and sometimes
In the middle of night....

A year went by, we spoke on the CB radio
The telephone, it was so like a chat line
On the social network of a computer
But you found me, you raised me up, you raised me up
From the depths of despair

I ran away when that blind date became real
I ran away, but you called me back
You knew, I knew, we got together
And life became a fresh,
The world I thought would last forever

You are gone now...we had a son
I had children, you took them on
We had our troubles, we got divorced
But then after the time of years sped by
We found a moment to speak, to be civil, to become
Friends again....

Time evolves like a spinning wheel
You start at the beginning, you climb through a web
You cry, you laugh, you sense, you wonder and then...
The time is back to whence it began, except
So many years later....

Two months, two months, then you were gone
I just had to write you a letter
It went away with you...I thought I could cope
But now I know, this verse just had to be written
Its like, you are still there...you are - still in my heart
And the trial of love, hate, distant betrayal of only we two knew
Can lay its head into the realms of the time of Christ
Forever....

'Time'

Constant
Laborious
Measured
It is life’s compass
Always pointing north.

Perpetually in short supply
Dreams battle duty
Just one chance
To reach for ‘that star’.

Career or family?
Love or money?
Leisure time or luxury?
We all strive for both.

Constant
Laborious
Measured
Life’s compass
Always pointing north…

Antony May
GROW and Shorelink Community Writers

The Door

Cannot see, cannot sense, from whence I was, to where I am
A time emotion, sideways time - The door appears in my mind
It is focused through an eye, the door is the eye
The archives of mind travel a distant line from inside the truth of life.
And there it is - another door in the hall where fathers art equipment is kept -
yet at night, I wake within a dream - I'm inside that door on a boat, travelling

the high seas - then I wake, then it faded -
The door was still there the last I saw it - the real door, no art equipment inside

- no father alive -
That door had a handle, it was in a council house
The angel of further life brought this door to me -
Cannot see, cannot sense, from whence I was, to where I am....
The door is my eye to life.

‘Suddenly’
(after finding the word twice in a 30 line poem)

Overleaf, next line down, ahead of a favoured
blind spot, someone has been expediting the page;
everyone expects evenly paced excitement:
a shooting star-less night to follow day,
somebody getting their ducks in a row,
(mallards probably), or the orderly rush
in and out of love. But, ‘suddenly’ turns up
and it’s too much at once, the form deriding
its purpose, as the trisyllabic slowcoach,
with sleight of word, switches the frame of reference.
No wonder, ‘suddenly’ has fled the vernacular,
to be replaced by ‘Then’ and ‘Guess what?’;
we haven’t got the time to give pigs slow release
parachutes and then teach them sky-diving

Bruce Barnes

Now, Just A Voice-Over

A famous actor I, who, with a merry band
Trod the boards up and down the land.
But I am older, and don’t look so good,
Now, my character is made of plasticine, cloth and wood.

They only want my dulcet tones
Not my acting ability;
To everyone, I am the voice of…

Bobby Bee.

I make daily honey,
And I earn good money
As I speak the childish dialogue ably;
But it’s not really me.

I like cartoons and digital people,
But I’ll always be, just a bee.
If I could get a cameo roll in a soap opera
I’d show ‘em who’s the actor.

I put my earphones on, and cough gently.
Where are we going today –
the grocers, the sweet-shop, the garden-party?
No! Not the cemetery!
I died on page one. Still, there’s always the re-runs!

Robert Brandon
GROW

Crime Of The Time

I look through my window at kids in the street
Who are kicking a car in;
A bunch of young sicks, just out there for kicks.
But I mind my own business, I don’t get involved.
I’m no longer shocked; I just keep my door locked
And hope while at home that they’ll leave me alone.

I never go out of my house after dark.
It just isn’t safe.
They’re all up to no good in my neighbourhood.
People dealing and stealing; they’ve knives, drugs and booze.
I’ve got too much to lose and although it may bug me
I stay home at night ‘cause I won’t let them mug me.

So I lock myself in and I watch my T.V.
Which confirms all the ills of society;
Showing violence and crime and sex all the time.
It’s a solitary life, but I still sleep at night
And by day I’m not bored
Because I’ve taught myself to do internet fraud!

Andrew Diamond
Newham Writers (Monday Group)

Oh Tall Green Tree

I looked out from my kitchen window at the tall green tree blowing in the breeze.
With branches stretched out, like welcome arms.
Protecting land and farms from harsh wind and rain, waiting for summer to return again.
Oh tall green tree, what you mean to me.
As youngsters we climbed your lofty branches, playing pirates, looking out to sea.
When we fell in love we carved our initials on you.
This was sacred to you and me.
Oh tall green tree, what you mean to me.
We had picnics under your leafy green boughs, protection from the sun, watching the sheep, listening to the lowing cows.
Oh tall green tree, what you mean to me.
You are a landmark to lost travellers, a resting place to people who have reached their journey's end. It's a comfort to be in the shade with a close friend.
Oh tall green tree, what you mean to me.

Frank Burnham
GROW

What Is The Time?

Waking up the other morning, I put my radio on, listening for the time. I also glanced at my watch on the bedsie cabinet. I then became aware of how important time is to all of us. We must take notice of our body-clocks, which rell us when we are tired and need to sleep. It also reminds us when we are hungry and thirsty. Right from the beginning it takes nine months to be born. Even then, nature decides on our arrival time. It's true some women have designer babies, but you still cannot order a delivery time. There is a time when we become teenagers and then adults. Then we have a period when we have to choose where we are going in life. Most of us spend a period of time in hospitals. Unfortunately, for some of us we go though a bereavement time. But then again we have a wonderful time watching our children growing up. Then we advance into our twilight years having progressed through a lifetime of experiences. Sadly we cannot stop. The GRIM REAPER who has no respect for anyone or any time. So why we can, try to remember to give time to other people who will have time for you. After all sharing your lifetime is what it's all about. Smile and be happy.

Frank Burnham
GROW

Time

There can be something relentless about time
Clocks ticking, alarms splitting
Everyone rushing to be somewhere else

Counting minutes, seconds, milliseconds
Counting the years and adding to fears
Of mirrors and numbers and history books

Yet each day the sun rises
Warm and golden and all the birds sing.
The earth turns and the rivers flow
Oceans, mountains and dinosaurs come and go.
There’s a rhythm within thats no beginning, no end
Eternally singing creation’s song.

So don’t be overcome by time when it bleeps and flashes and divides our lives...
Look up and out and on and on....
The Universe is endless
And We are One.

Footnote: From a workshop entitled..Time. September 2010

Lucia Birch
Stevenage Survivors

Tempus Figits

I remember a time when Mars bars were huge
When summers lasted until Christmas
I remember a time when we played ‘til it was dark
No one was worried about the time
Remember a time when the kids played in the street
I remember being told time was relative
Now I can’t remember what day it is
Or who my relatives are anymore
I don’t remember much at all now.

Jim White
Individual

Time

From the TIME we are born
To the day that we die
The hands of Time go flying by
As Babe’s in cradles
Impatiently awaiting their feed
To young Children in class
Who’ll gain the experience they need
There’s a TIME to work
To sleep, eat and learn
And we are ever aware
That each corner we turn
May show a TIME to laugh
Or in sadness TIME to cry
But there’s TIME of caution
When we pause for thought
If the TIME spent in study
All the right answers have brought
To a mind ever keen
All the avenues to explore
In a never-ending quest for Knowledge
Questions answered by the score
Not all solutions are stored in volumes
On Library shelves gathering dust
But learned from our Elders who
When their Memories are jogged, might just
Recall the information required
Perhaps the date and venue too
On Historical events from the past
Extreme Mathematics or Animals seen in a Zoo
For Life is comprehensive
And a wealth of knowledge sublime
For who knows if we hadn’t gained it
What would we have done with all that TIME.

Dennis Shrubshall 28th November 2009.
FLOW For All

Time

Did time begin with the 'Big Bang' or when “Let there be light” was said, from a greater distance back in time?

Is time as ancient as the cosmos? I can but ask questions as my education has been sparse. In the world as we know it, its process is physics (the interaction of matter and energy.)

Where is the position of time?

As time is not a vapour, a liquid, a solid, poison, air or gas. Also time is not used by our senses, we cannot see, taste, hear, smell or touch time.

So in which pigeon hole do we place time?

Using our mind's eye we can mind travel, we allow ourselves to be whoever and whatever we wish to be in, as past, present or forward into the unknown. Time is where we exist, this nano-second, then time moves on to the next nano-second ad infinitum. Time cannot move back, only in our mind is this possible. When I ponder time, say in a brown study, my mind often turns to the prayer that ends “As it was in the beginning, it now and forever shall be." That sums up time for me.

These few words make sense about time for my intellect.

Maggie Palmer
GROW

Till The End Of Time (1)

Till the end of time
We tried to understand the motion
If wasted cannot be reclaimed

Time is habitually punctual when we are called
To hand on our allotted portion
Till the end of time

Time is primordial, pre-ordained
She along the way invented evolution
So species could be established

When life has been completed
An no-one receives any addition
Every mini-second has been allotted

Time has a secret secreted
To be revealed with the Universe's extinction
Till the end of time

The judgement cannot be faulted
God's law is perfection
Time is a secret secreted
Till the end of time

Maggie Palmer
GROW

'Till the End of Time' (2)

There is a quote, “till the end of time.”

Is this not a paradox in the understanding as to the meaning of the word “time”?

‘Time’ surely means the continued process of existence. With past, present and future thought as a whole, can ‘time’ end?

Time is used or wasted. All entities in creation have an allotted portion of time to exist, maybe a few hours for a Mayfly; for a sun, hundreds of billions of years.

History is remembered in time.

Time is the rhythmic patterns of memory.

Maggie Palmer
GROW

Time

"You are wasting your time."
I am standing at the door.
"Do you want to buy girl scout cookies?"
The knock on another door.
"Do you want to buy
a chocolate bar for Red Cross?"
"Do you want to subscribe
to the newspaper today?"
"You are wasting your time."
"Do you want to buy tickets
to the footbal game?"
"I am waiting in the line
for the bus tickets to Acapulco."
"You are wasting your time."
I am knocking on the door
for the elderly. Come in.
You don't have to sell us anything.
We are watching the tree grow.
I am meeting a child jumping a rope.
"I am done with my homework.
I have time before mom will
call me for dinner."

Marie Neumann
POW! GROW

Time

To be a child again
Playing in the street
with my friends,
Laughing, shouting, screaming.
The rope in my hands
Turning, skipping, jumping.

Where had the years gone?
Then the future beckoned
I could be anything!
Life was an adventure
Yet to be explored,
Time was endless.

My Yesterdays

When I think back to my mothers time
“knock-down-ginger” was a crime,
throwing balls across the road
where cart and horses left their load,
doors were left upon the latch
men wore caps upon their thatch
kids left school at fourteen years
joined the adults with their fears.

I remember how it was
over-awed by the boss.
over-worked and under-paid
laws and rules were then obeyed,
now I sit and ponder on
wonder where the time has gone
so many changes in my day
have swept my childhood clean away.

Given Time

From tiny seeds
a flower has grown
the petals open wide.

It brightens up
the shady patch
where other plants had died.

I took my time
the sun was high
I dug and turned the earth.

And now
I look with wonder
my seeds had given birth.

Time

I am the pause in the heartbeat
The pulse amid the stars
I part chaos from rhythm
The link from near to far

I am the hesitation
Before the breath is drawn
And I am the equation
To divide dusk by dawn

I am the dancing shadow
Spinning from black to white
I am the conscious dream that
Separates day and night

I am the provocation
The urge to strike the drum
I am that I am, I am
And I cause to become

Ashley Jordan
GROW

Once Upon A Time

“Once upon a time,”
Heard with anticipation;
Producing new realities
In my imagination.
Tales of magic and of fantasy
Of paupers and of kings;
Some colourful, some frightening,
Of wondrous happenings.
Tales of dragons and of maidens
And of giants and of knights;
Even tales of Robin Hood
And all his merry men in tights.
Tales of witches and of fairies
And of noble deeds, so bold;
Each with a happy ending
From a timeless land of old.
A world that’s very different
To our one of drugs and crime;
So why not come and live with me
In “Once upon a time.”

Andrew Diamond
Newham Writers (Monday Group)

Time

Time isn't relative. It's imperative
Time passes without permission
Time will beat you into submission
Don't say, "Ihaven't got time!"
Because my friend it's a sign
If you aren't careful it'll pass you by
use it carefully before the well runs dry.

Jim White
Individual

Finding Time

We often wish some time we'd find
As if, like gold, it could be mined
Tucked away in the garden shed
Or breeding dust under the bed

So now here's a News Exclusive
For those who think that time's elusive
Time doesn't hide, it can't be sought
It can be neither sold, nor bought

I will a precious secret share
Until it's made, Time isn't there
Tell all the world, spread it around
You must make time, it can't be found.

Ashley Jordan
GROW

Seasons Change – War Remains

A verdant summer
Camouflage of soldiers
In a jungle war
Green leaves fall
And turn to dust
The dust of a soldier
In a desert war

Jan Hedger
GROW

Enduring Love

Love, blossomed pink
on the fair skin
of the sweet lass
awaiting;
The young man, late
rushes in haste
the violets crushed
in his hand;
Arm in arm
they strolled
along the promenade;
The girl
and her soldier
Precious times
together
in 1939.

A broad smile, beamed
from the woman
with a ring of violets
in her hair;
The weary soldier
steps down
from the train
returning her wave;
Meeting eyes
they embraced
oblivious to the crowd;
The bride to be
and her groom
A future life
to live together
in 1945.

Jan Hedger
GROW

Goin’ To Uni’

I waved you goodbye as you left on the train
Tears in my eyes, heart aching with pain
They said you were clever, that you needed to go
That we were too young, our love too shallow
Didn’t understand, what we felt for each other
Me dad, your father, me mam, your mother
Childhood sweethearts for ever together and never to part
You’d been the secret I’d kept in my heart.

We’d met in the park, you was playing cricket
I’d rolled up me frock and stood in as wicket
Go away little girl, your mates had cried
I’m not little! I’m ten I’d lied
You’d smiled, leave her alone and let her stay
Don’t be rotten lads, let her play
I’d batted and ran and bowled you all out
HOWZAT! For a girl, I’d cried with a shout
We’d grown up together, you and I
Into local comp girl and grammar school boy.

I watched till your train went out of sight
Your parents oblivious to my sad plight
It’s been a whole ten minutes! You said you’d phone
Why, oh why do I feel so alone?
It was only last night I helped you pack
Now all that’s left is an empty track.

A year has passed, now I’m on the train
I showed em’ this girls got a brain
Cos’ I buckled down and got a scholarship too
And that my sweet darlin’ is one up on you!

Jan Hedger
GROW

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Time

September 2010