It chips away. It casts a pall.
The face of time affects us all.
For: https://beckybofwinchester.com/2018/11/01/the-clock-is-ticking/#more-12391
Getting Square with Time (Becky’s Timessquare Prompt)
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Tag Archives: Time
Time Is Generous in its Offerings, but Has its Limits.
Petitioning Time
The day first blooms, then flowers and fades away to night;
and though I’d choose to slow its progress if I might,
no part of nature sympathizes with my plight.
It is a futile undertaking trying to seize light.
Time feeds upon us all—the ultimate parasite.
There is no way to sate her appetite.
No clever words can save us from her cruel bite,
for she feeds with equal favor on dull and erudite.
Though we might flail and struggle, it does no good to fight.
If we try to outpace her, it is a futile flight.
All our human efforts to stay her just incite.
Time always is the winner, feeding on our fright.
Though we might choose to hoard our time—to hold it close and tight,
or hope that pills and potions might hide us from her sight,
no rituals or magic words that we might recite
can keep our fading colors perpetually bright.
No matter what initiatives we choose to expedite—
no matter what our efforts are to reignite
the light so quickly fading from our sight—
we cannot defeat time through acts of plebiscite.
The prompt word today is “Generous.”
Triple Tricky
Triple Tricky
Who knows what each new day will bring?
Three dogs wiggling outside my door–
my feeding them, them wanting more.
The world reaches out for me and more.
Those worlds imagination brings
come whining louder at my door.
Now and always at time’s door
I offer words and ask for more
than what, I know, the years will bring.
Agape once more, that final door brings me at last to face my fears.
I bring myself to cross its sill, still hoping there will be some more.
The WordPress prompt is “Tricky” and and NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a tritina–a poetic form that involves three three-line stanzas and a final concluding line. Three “end words” are used to conclude the lines of each stanza, in a set pattern of ABC, CAB, BCA, and all three end words appear together in the final line. I cheated and used two concluding lines instead of one. This poem meets both prompts. Tricky.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-seven-3/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/tricky/
Chillin’
(Click on first photo to enlarge and arrows to view all images.)
Chillin’
If I were the queen of time, in charge of all its flow,
I’d speed it at the dentist, while dessert would progress slow.
Each bite of pie, with me in charge, would take at least a minute.
An ice cream cone would last an hour while I enjoyed what’s in it.
If I controlled the seconds, the hours and days and weeks,
a hummingbird’s flight would slow way down to afford us peeks.
A fine ballet would then commence whenever they flew by––
each move so delicate and slow––detectable by the eye.
House work would vanish quickly as the clicking of a finger,
while footrubs, hugs and kisses would be the things that linger.
The time between waking and sleep would flow as swift as water
If I were grandmother of hours–time passing’s favorite daughter.
If I could slice time thick or thin and serve it out in portions,
I’d speed up each painful death as well as birth’s contortions.
I’d slow down bullets leaving guns and thus destroy their power.
I’d slow how fast the ice cube melts, the lifetime of each flower.
Sunsets would last for hours and time with friends for days,
so we’d enjoy together each evening’s parting rays.
Plane rides with their narrow seats and no room for our knees
would pass as fast as possible–as quickly as you’d please.
Time before a party would go slow to afford time
for the cleaning of the house, the cutting of each lime.
And once each flower is put in place, the buffet table done,
time’s pace would be restored again and revelry begun.
When we need more or less of it, time would be there for us.
Our favorite songs would be strung out. Braggarts would never bore us.
There’d be more time for writing, for eating and the arts.
Headaches would pass in seconds. So would anger, angst and farts!
If I controlled the hours, the world would be run smoother.
Instead of causing us much angst, time would be our soother.
If I could dole out time so it was spread on thin or thickly,
perhaps I could have managed for this poem to end more quickly!
The Prompt: Pace Oddity––If you could slow down an action that usually zooms by, or speed up an event that normally drags on, which would you choose, and why?https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/pace-oddity/
No Time Like the Present
No Time Like the Present.
(Please click on images to enlarge them.)
The two watches pictured are my two favorite ones. The first one is my one remaining working Chico’s watch, on top of a pile of bracelets in my jewelry bag. Presently, the turquoise watch is the one I wear every day, not only because I love it but also because it belonged to a friend whose partner gave it to me after she passed away. I was so touched by this and every time I look at it, I think of both of them. The “ahora” bracelet is one I have made each time I come to the beach to remind me that the most important time of all is right now. It helps me to remember to use and treasure each moment. (“Ahora” means “Now” in Spanish.)
Time’s Fool
Time’s Fool
I’ve labored now for many years trying to make time stop,
thinking if it just would pause, that I could cross its top
and go into the future or go into the past––
passing back and forwards over timelines that are vast.
For years I used up all my time thinking about this.
I never had a child or even a first kiss.
I thought if I made time my slave, then I’d have time to do
all those wished for “one day” things I’d added to the queque:
dating, travel, games of chance, gardening and cooking––
all the things that others do while I have just been looking
for the perfect formula to take me back in time.
(Or traveling to the future would be equally sublime.)
But, for my whole life, you see, I’ve been no place but here,
fiddling with gadgets and sitting on my rear.
In trying to trick time I fear that I’ve tricked only me,
for life itself is time travel, and the cost is free!
I do not mind the cash I’ve spent. I don’t regret the cost.
The only thing that I regret is all the time I’ve lost!
Pick Your Gadget: time machines, anywhere doors, and invisibility helmets. You can only have one. Which of these do you choose, and why? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/pick-your-gadget/
Time is a Wastrel
Time is a Wastrel
Vagabond lover
packs his valise
and is off at a gallop–
leaving me in his wake.
Profligate seducer,
Tied to no one
except
inevitability.
Foolish, I
should have known
even I could not keep up
with fickle time.
Serpentine
Last night I was talking to okcforgottenman in between posting pictures for the selfies prompt. He first said it didn’t sound very much like a prompt I would pursue, then advised me on which pictures seemed too staged (Yes, I removed them), and in the end suggested I add the picture of my shadow on a beach studded with jellyfish. That was a good suggestion and I posted my blog, then noticed that it was 3 a.m.!!!
This chain of events is not unusual, for I rarely try to go to sleep before 2 or 3 and sometimes even later (earlier?) but for some reason, I am always surprised at the hour. I think I said something like, “How did it get to be 3 a.m.?” Forgottenman answered, “Time is a snake,” and for once I was the one who said that would make a good prompt. Of course he agreed and issued the challenge, so here is my poem on the subject, which is not at all as original as his, which I have read. He’s now polishing it. Well, actually, he’s now out mowing his lawn but thinking about polishing it. I’ll give him 24 hours and then I’m posting with or without him. It is 3:30 p.m., September 12, 2015. I’m giving you fair warning, okcforgottenman!!!!
Yaxchilan Divine Serpent
Serpentine
Time is a snake coiled in the dark–
ready to strike, eyes on its mark.
In the sun of youth, the snake may laze
in torpor from the day’s long rays.
If it moves slowly you may not see
time progressing from A to Z,
but as you grow older, it builds up speed,
spurred onward by the urge to feed.
The snake uncoils and starts its race.
Sensing this, you join the chase.
Your goal is what you’re meant to do,
while the serpent’s goal is only you.
With luck, you are still in your prime
when you run your race pursued by time.
For later, fatigue stakes its coup
and you slow until time catches you.
Then it coils gently around your head
in hammock, easy chair or bed.
Its pulsing gyre steals you away–
that final price that life must pay.
See okcforgottenman’s poem written to this same prompt HERE.
We invite you all to write to this same prompt. If you do, please send a link to both of us!
Rings of Saturn
The Prompt: Weaving the Threads–Draft a post with three parts, each unrelated to the other, but create a common thread between them by including the same item — an object, a symbol, a place — in each part.
Rings of Saturn
I had taken off my wedding ring years before. How typical of me that I would finally put it on again after he died. I don’t know why I do these things. Perhaps it was easier to be married to a dead man, or perhaps I felt he had finally atoned for his bad behavior, but suddenly that symbol had more significance than it had come to have in life. That sainthood of departure. I’d seen it happen again and again, but I had never been one to run with the pack and so it surprised me so much when I looked down one day and saw his ring on my finger again that I took it off and it has resided in that heart-shaped jewelry box ever since. That jewelry box with the little slit-compartment for rings that my sister’s friend had brought as a hostess gift when she had come to visit during that long year after his death when everyone came out of the woodwork to come visit.
Draw a ring around the old. Ring in the new in multiples. Duplication has become such a science–the craftsman thrown out of the ring. With the new three-dimensional copier, what cannot be duplicated, if plastic is your creation material of choice? A plastic gun—complete down to the bullet in its chamber. A perfect functioning model of anything with moving parts. Can each grain of gunpowder be duplicated? One ringie dingie, two ringie dingies. Floating away on the surface of the lake of forget. Is that giving up? Ringing the final buzzer? Burning the evidence in a ring of fire? Burning bridges? A phone rings and rings in the distance. It has that ring of authenticity, but that does not mean it is real.
Ring of thieves. One by one, the days steal my life away. Time is that one thing no one has control over—even Einstein or Hawking who perhaps understood it more than anyone. Estee Lauder, Timex, Time, Incorporated–all profit by time but none have conquered it. We are all in the ring with it whether we know it or not. Others may take the black eyes or sound the buzzer, but we are all really fighting the same fight. The smoothest face still wrinkles and the most beautiful voice grows shrill with age or disappears. Buzzers go silent and the arms holding up the signs go saggy. Ring around the rosie. Ring around the rosie. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/weaving-the-threads/
NaPoWriMo Day 27: Lemonade
Lemonade
The Crystal Lite, like a marriage of Kool-Aid and crystal meth,
catches the light and glows from inside its plastic gallon container,
becoming its own advertisement for this lemonade stand,
its pre-teen proprietor standing in the scant shade
of a stop light pole
behind his fruit crate counter
with its stacks of styrofoam cups.
He has chosen his clientele—
perhaps thirsty from a long wait
in the doctor’s waiting room in the clinic
or the hospital across the street.
To his back, a retirement community with no house
more than 3 blocks from the hospital—
its inhabitants like products on a shelf waiting to be picked.
When they pass the stand,
memories of generations of such stands
perhaps flood their minds,
and thirsty or not, they stop for a cup.
I am the woman with her foot in a cast,
sitting in the passenger seat
of the car pulled over to the curb.
The woman reaching through the window of the car
is my sister, holding out the white cups
with the too-sweet yellow shining through
as though radioactive.
She was my long ago pattern for everything,
including Kool-Aid stands with 5 cent
paper bags of popcorn and ice cube slivers
floating in the Tupperware pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid,
a plate on the top to repel flies
lazy in the July heat, orbiting our sweaty heads
like precognitive sputniks
buzzing in the minds of rocket scientists.
We had not a clue.
The prompt today was to write a poem based on a picture.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 