21/05/2011

POEM :: Today and Yesterday

Today the 21st of May
For, that is what we call today
And this, like any other day
Will soon be known as yesterday

And after that the day before
And further on and several more
And then last week and month and year
To gradually disappear

Into fuzzy mists of time
And further in the slow decline
Conglomerations will be made
Of swathes of years into decades

And on to groups of centuries
Contained in weighty histories
Where groups of names that held the sway
Considered relevant today

Will chart a course from where we’ve been
The Heroes and the kings and queens
Where General Lee goes hand in hand
Lakota Sioux with Klux Klan

Al Qaida and the Taliban
The hoodie and the Morris man
Tantric to merrie Quaker
Chav to Goth to undertaker

Fisher, dogger, German bight
Butcher baker, solstice night
With all of us and our today’s
In turn will turn and march away
Into a newer yesterday

And on until its all eventually
The whole thing turns to history
And no one’s left to read or know
Or look or listen tell or show

And all is quite and all is still
And there are no more books to fill
Not even land or sky or sea
Just universal harmony

But I see just one tiny hole
So I’ll ask the reverend Richard Coles

Richard, Just how will the universe survive?
Without its weekly Saturday live

Through mighty deeds they’ve said and done
With pen and sword and word and gun

The moon the sun the clouds and sky
The lions roar the jackal’s cry

Into the void will duly fly
The atheist’s word
The movie stars and the dodo bird

And individual names will rise
On plinths of statues hollow eyed

Will watch the future fast unfold
And see their once decisive hold
Decrease in its capacity

And change in many different ways
Inhabiting the olden days
It might be found
In things they find beneath the ground

Today this poem was born

We sit in and play separate parts

This a little spinning globe