Rubaiyat On Time Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

Pride ride stall's stored before corpse falls tongue-tied.
Cruel Fate rules, baits fools, schools, thrusts dreams aside
presumptuousness proves shortcomings, schemes
to turn Time's tables undone from inside.

Once peak's attained reign's reined, demise, prepared,
mutes bugle call to rally cause impaired
pendulum swings sing gravity's grave pit,
bear market fare, anticipations pared.

Today, tomorrow, into darkness creep
yet second thoughts must wonder why we weep
for night and day play hide and seek in time
with Time which second thoughts must always keep.

Attention spans decline as time increases
its tempo til all's blurred, film's over, ceases
all relevance to distance-clarity
lucidity shutter shattered into pieces.

Take time out. Bright illusion shatters, shed
when will walks small. Mink: patchwork tatters, wed
to Cinderella's phantom pantomime
when midnight chimes take toll, ambitions shred.

Comely maiden, wizened crone, despair,
Mad as hatters, silver platters, share
term loan called in for sinner, saint, alike,
prayer bead chatters, prey greed platters bare.

Catwalk kitten, shrew flea-bitten turn
to Faustian bargain plea, but no return
can trump Time's ace at final curtain call.
Foreclosure looms, doom's waiver none may earn.

Few tracks remain from prehistoric Man
few dinosaur trace race to aeons span,
a stitch in time beyond event horizon
highlights absurdity of master plan.

Catwalk kitten, shrew flea-bitten turn
to Faustian bargain plea, but no return
can trump Time's ace at final curtain call.
Foreclosure looms, doom's waiver none may earn.

Regrets dismissed for comely miss, plain prude,
as history repeats itself reviewed
by no Court of Appeals as sentence dire
awaits prompt execution's solitude.

Alike kneel crown and clown before abyss
engulfs hope's scope as Nature takes the piss:
finite succession of infinite choice?
both pleb and prole keel over, case dismissed.

Yet what to Time is ‘inside' or is ‘out'?
for Time's dimension both can do without~
signpost skein vane? vain blown now east now west,
crow heeds no gridlock stop sign roundabout.

If outside in is spelled E.M.I.T.
and inside out spells T.I.M.E. fit
unto the day the evil thereof see
fit to a T however played one's wit.

Vainglorious is immaturity,
gifts mirage mirror of futility
reflecting on societal concern
defining on off switch in_sanity.

Some comfort find vouchsafing certainty
though blind most minds before dark door stark flee,
for insecurities behind bluff masks
still smack of shameless insincerity.

What hides behind Time's trap, no map may see,
few counter fate, discover guilt edged key
of "me and thee". When once behind its veil,
what will prevail, beneath what scrutiny?

Birth - berth, worth - earth, flip s[i]ide felicity
slapdash flashed on rage page cage Destiny
one queasy half-life swiftly swallowed up,
archive expunged frommemory.

Thrust's force attraction contradictions seeks to overcome,
Time's great equation's speaks
to recreate and recombine, stem cells'
flux mustered, mastered, peaks, weak wanes, then reeks.

Time helter-skelter headlong spins, all's rush,
"I will survive! " slays others in the crush,
MErge, surge then splurge, urge on, and then bowled out,
applause asphyxiated by {w]hole hush.

From alpha unto omega Time's hum
reels strange range wheels recycling all that come -
first cry, last cry, lies die, then die's recast
as harmony seeks equilibrium.

Cosmic signals? Static background noise?
in Time, yet out of Time, all equipoise
morphs into dust thrust through dwarf universe
collide-o-scope chromatic self destroys.

New cycles spin, unpin past wins, address
fresh challenges, evolve, adapt, contest
tired tenets, genes rewired, force fired set scene
for stranger change, to counter clumsiness.

No sense in idolizing past success
which of itself is source for future stress
to break sound barriers. Time cogs instill
sense unpinned spool spun loose, more proving less.

Time's race and place through tinted glasses chimes
In tocsin switching peer to Mr. Grimes,
Mocks influence and affluence in trice,
Exchanges virtue, vice, diced dollars dimes.

Time's Tortoise, Man is fable's Hare confined
In mor{t]al contradictions' double bind
Minds find inhuman, taking what it gives,
Existence undermined; mind chaff to grind.

Trust turns to rust, greed speeds, weeds overcome:
In_justice? balance? leave without a crumb,
Marooned mankind assigned to six feet deep,
Expressive jesting, questing, inquest dumb.

Time, tempter and preemptor, auctions choice
as bubble-gum exploding, empty voice,
one generation fades away, one more
takes cue to strut as peacock and rejoice.

What cheers have penetrated great divide
between one era and the next? What guide
avoided asteroid explosion set to make
tsunami sweep of human raptor's stride.

Chapter and verse of stegosaurus tracks
defensive scales turned stone - each overlaps
each other - teach that evolution strands
D.N.A. strands whose pertinence has lapsed.

E'en so is Man Tyrannosaurus Rex
soon doomed to follow tombwards, footsteps flex
ambitions greed encourages until
permafrost thaws spring-cleans Creation's decks.

Synaptic links that fiddle while Rome burns
all open options compromises, turns
through greed true opportunities to find
a timely answer to acute concerns
as CO²'s released, as methane bubbles
from time-trapped matter surface seeps and doubles
the rate at which Pole temperatures increase
with noxious compounds all compounding troubles.

Time mutates, very speedily translates
as viral spiral gyral ices cake,
spliced monkey to man key plan or, grave mistake,
downsizing, soon induces second states
that pace race, trace select, until the past
fast buries past's repasts, idols outcast,
no ‘Ergo cogito' shows ‘sum' in store,
all dwindles into nothingness at last.

Time destroys its own foundations, rule of thumb
leads ever onward, vicious spiral scrum,
where one way trip soon rips predispositions
without concession, tick tock blocked, locked, mum.

Time, true master of new master, may become
slave of slave and bat no eyelid, sire to scum,
most wayside fall, rise not, we seldom find
due diligence when wheel spins, distance run.

Time, prestidigitator, spurns prestige,
sand grains drain with Time replenished, withstands seige,
as boom goes bust dust tomb entrusts low, great,
rebuilds from scratch big bang hatch, scorns vestiges.

What footprints may be gleaned from sands of Time,
what idylls and what odysseys to rhyme
may be retained as in an amber bubble,
what climb, what fall, what forfeiture, what crime?

From timely opportunities some draw
conclusions which confusion turn when more
is known of causal wheel or karmic churn
which burns or freezes, frieze all still ignore.

Time, excellent musician, drummer, drum,
is clay, pot, playful potter, part and sum,
fobs off mocked mortals' puny pleas and adds
where it subtracts, leaves fiction, facts, both numb.

Effervescent foaming matrix grid
vibrates through tuning fork on road well hid
from sight and insight, secret intertwined
with second-thoughts which time distorts unbid.

Time, both predator, dater, turns way bread
of life to crumbs, life's water ices, - sped
past hope for scope in halter's halted, while
it onward flies, belying time well fed.

Magician fly, man's pyramids remind
our power, pomp pain hour stomp, romp turns to rind,
blossom blows, Time, heedless flows, drip, drip,
pips toast at post, tips, slips, - grain grist to grind.

Time knows no evil, coeval is with all,
thal is none, as naught, both call, recall,
pride, fall, low, tall, slow, fast, at last remains
as silent witness, stage, play, box and stall.

Time Truth distorts through lens of history,
act twists to myth then mental mirage we
believe that we believed lost legends seen
through facts manipulated.Fantasy
turns dogma unimpeachable as State
creates as spoils - vae victis! - acclimate
to bolster status quo to be destroyed
when conquests former truths repudiate.

Tempus fugit - Time flies - soon we're dust,
is it dying? is it buying time? Earth's crust
plays little part forecasting lava flow:
when time is up strength crumbles, bush combusts.

‘Festina lente', ‘hasten slowly', ~ Fate
may be amused when we'd anticipate
the way the dice is rolled: won turn or two
soon's spurned, Timeticks off temptor from gilt gate.

Trust intuition, ~ method leads astray
where narrow will or shallow leads the way ~
but channelled energy may help create,
not barter aim in mind for fame today.

Contract a link between ‘pretend' ‘extend',
where end to means is never means to end,
where current flow re...volts and study churn
though true solutions may seem round the bend.

Time translates awareness catalyzed,
or role reversal, vistas reapprized,
what complicated seemed is later seen
as simple step towards great goal disguised.

Time's tide abides while mortal meets fate
which puts final touch to an unfinished stitch, ~
however phrased dust back to dust returns
spite ‘lame' excuses, game of toss and pitch.

Up tick, down tock, clock witnesses spring shoots
of causal arborescence, ‘right', ‘wrong' roots,
with hindsight shows mankind's e'er unprepared
for Past and Future playing in cahoots.

Though rhyme and reason often are withheld
till time and season pass, their winter knelled,
true timing is essential where the mind
would tap fey forces from tomorrow welled.

Who would evolve must choose from many doors,
each offers either fame or blame, doom draws,
each offers health or wealth, advance or pause
to think due link between effect and cause.

What fame is, what is doom, though, who foresees?
What choice reject, what opportunities
take for, or take as, granted, who can tell?
Time twists or undertows fate's flow men seize.

What matters and to whom? What gravities
apply when anti-mater equals tease? -
conundrums which a life-long paradox
entertains until all memories
are atomized upon a karmic breeze,
blown willy-nilly till, like honeyed bees,
they bumble on towards a homely hive,
they stumble on till patterns by degrees
from angles wide frame focus, offer keys
For who between the lines can read, chalk, cheese,
discerns - the waft and weft of substance - learns
to draw the line dividing wood from trees.

Life's littleness "ist alles in die Welt",
mocks Man's ambitions, motivations melt
to watershed necrologies.Black crêpe,
with no escape whate'er regrets are felt.

Time's muzzle muffles boast, toast, day by day,
effects' and causes' subtle interplay
through life's incessant dream theme ebb and flow
efforts prove vain, love, pain, all's bubble bray.

None may control coincidence at play,
chance flaking dates and energy away,
while winter of our discontent's stop/go
spins into vertigo, then fades away.

Self-righteous say religion shows the way,
agnostics best of both worlds want, display
their reticence as sense, pretense as plus,
few atheists would haste to piper pay.

Most blow hot, cold, quit stage to sink unheard
before they even feel life's ripples stirred,
Time can't be reined, restrained, no string and bow,
sends arrow through entanglement preferred.

What dreams, what S.O.S. some would confide
to winds of change or chance, launched on the tide
of luck with pluck, misgivings, find home port -
Time's sense of humour's shown as fickle guide.

Why worry what tomorrow, if at all,
may offer, laughter share, spurn wailing wall,
each wakes one day, hopes hollow, probate proved,
few follow winding sheet, trump final call.

Time's telomeres are finite, sands of hope -
hayride from heyday ended - surrender scope,
recount lost time expended, ghost mirage,
soft soap shan't smooth, nor soothe stressed quest's blind grope.

Bright spark, life's candle gutters, movements cease,
one cry, heart flutters, shutters, 'Rest in Peace! '
with no surcease, one sigh then curtains drawn
while legatees bread butter, fleece, apiece.

Youth's hopes are caught in Time's relentless vice,
what opportunity's repeated twice?
Life's joke's upon Creation's head, vibes jibed,
one innings freezes life's frieze in a trice.

Time takes a leaf from mirror Galadriel
showed Frodo, flawed reflection drawn to tell
much which might be or might have come to pass -
alas delusion mankind knows too well.

So grasp life's moving finger as it writes,
wait not on Time, tune tide to timing - flights
of fancy twin to flexibility-
choice may not seed again.Feed dreams' delights!

These rhymes hold no bonanza, moral plum,
Time's trick wick tireless flickers, static hum,
moves forwards egg and chicken parsec plot
as we, time-stricken, quicken final strum.