The atomic clock granted an extra second,
like some miserly, downcast and heartbroken Scrooge,
it offered no extra bonus,
such as a break from the brain
and the incessant noise of Time chipping away at our lives
with a tiny hammer, sculpting the grave before
we have had chance to crawl,
nor did it shove in a half day’s rest period in which Humanity
could look up at the stars and wonder why our feet
were firmly stuck in bronzing clay.
Instead it suggested to the scientists polishing its hardened shell
that it make a joke of it, to pass away the time,
we shall talk about time
and use more of it up
by thinking what we could do in that second at the end of the day,
granted us by Time
the hammers being polished and
Time set about stealing more.
Being an obstinate man, I refused to take mine
at the allotted moment and added it
to both the moment in which I first kissed
my first girlfriend, my wife and my children.
Finding that Time hadn’t worked out what my plan was
I stole the second back and added it with pleasure
to the feeling of exhausted relief and outpouring
of beauty in which I nestled in Sergio Aguero’s goal
against Queen’s Park Rangers
and found I could relive it over and over again
like the same pumped water going round
the fountain covering the words of Roger McGough
in Williamson Square, it was inexhaustible.
Time had no clue,
I sat and relaxed and added to it many parts of my life
that Time became a pleasure, I was not serving Time.
Finally with the allotted moment approaching,
I thought long into my future and my own demise
and as a parting gift I offered myself
a second more and watched as I smiled
surrounded by the smells and texture of Canada,
the rushing mountain air, I breathed one extra Time
to beat Time before I was out of Time.
With a few minutes to spare, I did
what I knew I could never do in life
if not granted that extra second of Time by the clock,
I laid back on the stroke of midnight,
raised a middle, discoloured finger to Time
and thought lovingly of You.
Ian D. Hall 2015