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DEADLINE!

In this age of automation with its ever-changing scenes,
We are driven to distraction at the dictates of machines.
We must work as fast as they do, or we’ll end up on the breadline
So we have to race and get the task completed by the
DEADLINE!

Amid bills and rates and taxes we live in a reign of terror,
Servants of the Great Computer that can never make an error,
Ever fearful of that "Final Notice" stating, in a red line
Threats of dreadful consequences if not settled by the
DEADLINE!

When we listen to the News on radio or television,
We are told of how the major powers are heading for collision,
And the same is thrust upon us by the daily paper’s headline,
That our world is rushing headlong to a holocaustal
DEADLINE!

My mind in self-protection, has contrived a little trick
Which activates when urgency and panic make me sick,
And it shuts down all its circuits at the mention of that dread line
Which demands that any task must be completed by a
DEADLINE!

But let’s now take a few steps back and look at this directive,
And view the entire picture from a different perspective.
For all of us must some day comply with that often-said line –
And go to meet our Maker, life concluded, right on
DEADLINE!

 

Gerry Forster

© Gerry Forster 1999