Travelling in Time 24 Hours per Day

If I had a time machine I would bury it in a hole
Or burn it on the waste ground behind the car park
Or dismantle it and post each piece to a different city
Or smash it with a hammer, or several hammers
Or seal it in a vault, deep underground
Lock it tight and lose the key
Tear up the combination
Cover it in concrete three metres deep
Then change the records so that anyone who looked
Would know for sure it was in a different vault in a different place

Because if I know anything about time machines
Then their use has unintended consequences
Unpinning cause from effect
So that events have no history and all of time
Becomes madness and chaos and old night
And no one wants that to happen

So that’s what I’m going to do
But to pay for the vault and all that concrete
I’m going to nip out and get the lotto numbers
For next Saturday
(One little trip can’t do any harm)

This is week two of the Thanet Creative Writers Writers Writing Competition. This turns out to be the fourth Time Travel poem I've put up on this site.

Comments

Anstey said…
That's awesome! I followed it all the way through nodding sagely and thinking, gosh yes, that's exactly what one ought to do. I was even mulling over the logic of choosing one's own destiny (and therefore that of others). The end is TERRIFIC. I almost think you deserve a time machine... Really brilliant.
Jessica said…
Really great piece. I agree with it all, even one little trip... brilliant ending!
Neil Willcox said…
I had an alternate ending (which made it clear the narrator was froma very different history) but I think this works better. Sadly I have more to say about time travel, specifically as described in the Busted song 3000 in this post: http://nightofthehats.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/more-on-time-travel.html
ProfBenj said…
Seems like a lot of trouble to go to. Why not just give it to me, and I can just check Saturday's Calcutta Cup match score before I pop to Coral bookies to put a bet on Scotland?
ProfBenj said…
Seems like a lot of trouble to go to. Why not just give it to me, and I can just check Saturday's Calcutta Cup match score before I pop to Coral bookies to put a bet on Scotland?
kentishrambler said…
A completely different approach to the idea of time travel, which I found startling at first but then made perfect sense - with a brilliant last line!
Unknown said…
Time travel and poetry. Seems like a match made in heaven.

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