A hamster racing on a wheel,
a movie spinning on a reel,
the clock-hands march inexorably.
What they record, we cannot see
or touch, or hear, or smell, or taste,
yet it diminishes. Make haste.

*****

Richard Fleming writes: “When young, I thought about time in terms of how quickly I could run 200 metres and, later, whether I could dip under 35 minutes in a 10k road race. Yes, I was shallow then but youth and shallowness often go hand in hand: they did in my case. Grown older (let’s be honest, old) , Time has acquired a capital T and seems to have morphed into a rather unnerving companion who demands more and more of my attention every day.”

Richard Fleming is an Irish-born poet (and humorist) currently living in Guernsey, a small island midway between Britain and France. His work has appeared in various magazines, most recently Snakeskin, Bewildering Stories, Lighten Up Online, the Taj Mahal Review and the Potcake Chapbook ‘Lost Love’, and has been broadcast on BBC radio. He has performed at several literary festivals and his latest collection of verse, Stone Witness, features the titular poem commissioned by the BBC for National Poetry Day. He writes in various genres and can be found at www.redhandwriter.blogspot.com or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/