Updated

The toiling masses go with wares to hawk,
Slow-ambling through their lives, they ply their trades
To enraptured buyers whose fear pervades:
For with the tick and tock, to death they walk.

There is no choice, so they can only flock
To hide themselves from surreptitious raids:
The knowledge that each passing year upbraids.
All with an overwhelming fear of clock.

It wanders not from predetermined way;
The unsought end for endless turns of day.

It guards the place to which all lots are cast,
It mans the dark that all must find at last.

Impending death, impassive, all around:
The only certainty to which we're bound.

There, fixed that up a bit. This version is a little bit better, but it's still not quite on target. Initially, I was working with birds and flight ("flock") and notions of the mass (and its movements) in terms of death, but those both kind of flew out the window. Now, as with most of my stuff, I'm working with time, damn ephermeral time.

Sarah, in response to your post, as I promised:

Sounds good about your project. I had no idea how these thesis topics came to be. Of course, I'll expect to be able to read (edit?) a copy of that when the time comes to formally present it. After you're done with that, what does the future hold for you?

And Africa? What draws you there? Anything specific? Or is it just that some wanderlust has taken home in your veins?

The last time that Robert and I were together, we really raged against theory and extolled practice as the proper way to meet with one's ideas. It was a really good conversation. But, alas, Beakman has left the room and now resides in Somewhere, Spain, tied to the love of his life, except en español.

Erik, what're you reading these days? Still Gonzo ad infinitum? (Excuse my punning on a former post of yours.)

Chris, I know about you. I know you.