stubby little fingers playing with the time. trying to do my head in and messing with the rhyme. heat and dust and boredom want to bring me down. and as my will escapes it makes a little sound. the lazy hours before me stretch out like days. indolence and apathy form a smoky haze. dark and leaden eyelids wrestle with the light. and any chance of enterprise has long since taken flight. a million miles. or at least it may as well be. a million miles. between you and me. calling all those who ever used my name. the existentialists and the fundamentalists. all the chatty eccentrics on their quest for infamy. and in pursuit of feminist sympathies. the big spenders and assorted spoon benders. with their open affectations and hidden agendas. i’m sure they know me though they pretend not to remember. calling all interested parties i have known. all the barefooted hippies who still brew their own. and the rustic romantics who never went home. to the dread-locked earth mothers baking their bread. and those who knew me when i was out of my head. to all these kindly and contrary folk. i’d like to alert you to my latest greatest hoax. i am reformed. i am washed clean. of all my past wrong doings. and at this inaugural viewing. please don’t applaud or feel the need. to encourage me or remark on my routine. and never ever remind me of the places i have been. though if you wouldn’t mind. could you wipe my slate clean. if luck’s a fortune. fate’s a bomb. silently ticking until you come along. no dark hearted moments and dirty little thoughts. it’s only master the clock and that time it reaches nought. it doesn’t prefer if you’re sinner or saint. it’s not impressed or deterred. and never feels faint. it just moves relentlessly forward. not back. and nothing can shake it. or make it retract. and on that day when fate has come. you discover if you lost. or you won. and if it’s all over. you get to see what it was about. and if it’s not. then it must be your shout.