FOR THE TIME BEING

what time is it mr wolf?
let's call the speaking clock
at the third stroke
the time will be...
five forty-three and twenty seconds
pip pip pip...
did ya ever ring that posh lady up?
i remember her voice
back in the eighties
droning on n on
intoning her timely update
every ten seconds
though it was the eighties
oddly it sounded like it was still the fifties
a dickensian world of black n white
i wonder what that lady sounds like now
perhaps they've replaced her with a younger model
or maybe she's still there
droning
on n on n on
time
it is sand in a glass
it is money
sometimes it drags
other times it stands still
it flies when you're having fun
it waits for no man
or woman
it is of the essence
we all spend it
a lot of us waste it
some people pass it agreeably
others try to kill it
over the years
us controlling humans
have gone to incredible lengths
to measure it
to standardise it
and then mass produce it
imposing it on the whole world
whether that world likes it or not
once time was tied to the spinning of the earth
the waxing and waning of the moon
now a gibbous moon
now a crescent
the dawning day and the darkening night
then armies of clever astronomers calculated years
divided them meticulously into months and days
hours, minutes and seconds
the months were a little irregular
especially february
but the hours, minutes and seconds
were perfect little multiples of sixty
which suited the lady on the phone very nicely
as it made her job nice and regular
of course they fudged things a tad
when time didn't quite add up
they threw in little tricks
like a leap day every four years
when the solar system refused to adhere
to tidy human demands
for these esoteric measurements
were all news to the earth
as it orbited inevitably around the sun
and indeed to all the other species that inhabited it
of course the colonial englishmen
had to have the final say
proclaiming the greenwich meridian and gmt
anchor of the world's time still
another of our exports
like our lustful language
thrust upon unsuspecting foreigners
british time can't quite make up its mind
but it keeps us pommy limeys on the hop
bst kicks us all out of bed an hour earlier
gmt gives us an hour's grace as the nights draw in
this artificial system
synchronises intercontinental human endeavour
to an amazing degree
where would air traffic controllers be without it?
but we are a slave to time
and enslave others to it
we clock in
we clock out
we fill out time sheets
we charge for our sevices by the hour
for time is money
and money is time
not quality
we set the alarm clock
next thing we know
we are leaping out of bed
to turn the blessed thing off
or hit the snooze button
we cast nervous glances wristwards
we will the hands this way and that
we set impossible deadlines
then break our backs to meet them
we set the clock deliberately fast
because we don't trust ourselves
we defy the yellow light to beat the traffic
we ignore the elements
we become oblivious to dawn and dusk
we stagger blindly from task to task
all for the sake of the old tick tock