The Wheels of Time

We mourn for the tyres on the cars of our fathers;
We tear up our clothes in a Biblical strop;
We work ourselves into Victorian lathers,
As the wheels of our childhood go clunk to a stop.

We cannot return with the squeak of an axle;
We cannot ungrind from the teeth of time's cog.
As we wait in their path, so the world's brutal facts'll
Run over us like a truck squashing a frog.

Alas for the castors that wobbled so seemly!
Alas for the wheels of our hastening youth!
Alas for all rollers that rumbled so dreamly!
They've buggered off now; that's the God's honest truth.

Bollop Grudsell