Anthony W. Pahl

TIME TO SMILE

I’ve sat and pondered all this month on the heavy weight of time
and wondered what I could write when my mind can’t even rhyme.
So I figured that is what I’d write – the reasons for my trials
and hope that while I’m doing that I can get some little smiles.

Now time is something man lets rule his life from when he’s born
and when his parents reward him for looking at an object on the wall
one really has to wonder what the fuss is all about
because it seems so rather strange when a baby cannot count.

I’m sure it’s all a conspiracy by evil tricksters to deceive
‘cos travelling from Melbourne to the U.S. you arrive before you leave.
But travel back the other way and the time is hard to grasp
because even without sleeping, a day is lost real fast.

They call it an International Date Line – but even though I phone
Nobody seems to answer – perhaps nobody is at home
Or could it be they spy on me and know what I am like
and all the pretty young things are hidden out of site.

And another thing that worries me is the way a clock is made,
Why is the third hand called the second? P’raps it’s used when it is made.
The little hand is called our hand and the long one is minute;
and why call them bloody hands at all – perhaps they thought it cute.

And now they’re trying to sell me a clock over the friggin’ Internet
It’s supposed to be atomic but I guess they just forget
what atoms did to Hiroshima back in nineteen forty-five.
Is that where this atomic clock is based? They’ve got a bloody hide.

Then some smart technician invented a watch that’s got no hands
If it just had bloody numbers I could almost understand
but it says it’s water resistant down to three hundred feet
I put it to you all my friends, who wants to go that deep?

And I’m pretty sure they think we’re dumb, and are a mob of loons
They try to sell the watches worn by men who walked upon the moon.
Now I ask you bloody dinkum – who’s gunna go up there
with a second hand watch thirty years old? I know I wouldn’t dare.

Now a decent clock for me is just a bloody stick
that you shove in the open ground and watch it while you sit.
Slowly count to sixty and mark where the shadow lands
You need the sun and not the moon, I’m sure you understand.

But I tell you now, fair dinkum mates; the truth is kept real hushed
The conspirators who sell the watches really have a lend of us
for a watch that’s stopped and doesn’t go is the best that you can get
it’s accurate at least twice a day unlike one that needs to be reset.

Submitted for the June 2001 IWVPA Club Theme Project, “Time”