Ever felt like the clock's ticking and you haven't achieved what you set out to do?

Like you've wasted your time, "Can kicking," and denied the existence you were born to?

Like the relentless tidal wash of time laps at the castles you built in the sand?

And the sense that sensibility and banality benignly bind your restless hands?

 

Is there some truth in the naivety of youth that was lost to you as you grew old?

Like cooling steel that was cast in the past and tempered as it grew cold?

And though that very tempering added strength enough to satisfy desire,

It also added rigidity and sadly subtracted much of the fire?

 

Can you still pretend as you attend to the long anticipated end of your journey,

That time will not step in and exercise its own inevitable power of attorney?

And in that handing over of responsibility for all you are and all you do,

The memories that you leave for others are entirely down to you?

 

Frozen in time like the terrified, petrified remnants of those hit by the pyroclastic flow,

Blindly ignoring the warning signs that daily issued from the volcano?

Or laid to rest, hands across chest in the final gentrification of a tomb?

Neither better than either except that one provides your bones with a room.

 

Our tiny little passage in history is not the mystery it may first seem,

And whilst some are born to poverty and others can afford the luxury of, "Living their dream,"

It is absolutely true that the differences between me and you are negligible at best,

So I'll concentrate on the content and leave worrying about the outcome to the rest.

 

Enough said, before I rest my head I'll extract the exact amount of joy that I require,

And invite those that I love, "In from the cold," to warm their hands at the fire,

Look life and death squarely in the eyes and tell them both honestly,

That in this journey from one to the next I'll live, laugh and love hard, regardless of the atrophy.