Last hour before midnight

You borrow from peter to pay paul,
The hours of each day ticking passed

But not in seconds, minutes or hours

But remembrances,

left in the wake

Of your passing,

Drifting in a sea of sand

One even Lawrence of Arabia

Could not navigate

So far out of memory

By the time you reach

The peak of the next wave

And you lost, too,

That genie already out of the bottle

Cheating you of all your wishes

The savvy sailor who defied sea sickness

Only to succumb to love,

Loose changes rattled in your pockets

Instead of gold,

That one magic moment gone

In a whirlwind

Time ticking on,

One hour bumping into the next

Until you reach that hour when

You realize you can never catch up,

And rub the bottle over and over

With a vain last wish

For the genie to come back,

For someone to fill that one missing hour

Before the clock strikes midnight

And you turn back to what you were

Al Sullivan's webpage