Tense

Written for my Chinese students, who never quite got the idea of past, present, future.

If ‘I CAN’ can, it’s done right away,

‘I CAN’ never can do it yesterday,

‘I can see, I can do, I can hear, I can feel,

‘I can go, I can stay, I can move, I can steal.’

 

If ‘I COULD’ ever could, then he’d do it last week

Because ‘I COULD’ and ‘I DID’ are best mates, (so to speak).

‘I could see, I could do, I could hear, I could feel,

I could go, I could stay, I could move, I could steal.’

 

If ‘I DID’ ever did it, the deed has been done,

‘I DID’ never does it right now, old son.

‘I did not' - 'You did too' - 'So I did, you can sue,

What I did, when I did it, I did it for you.’

 

If ‘I WILL’ or ‘I WOULD’ or ‘I SHOULD’ are your thing,

Then don’t hold your breath, it’ll happen next spring,

‘I will go, I will come, I will be, I will see,

I would stay if I could, I should get home for tea.’

 

But if ‘I HAVE DONE’ ever comes raising its head

The time has now gone, and the battle is dead.

‘I have seen, I have heard, I have said in the past

I have travelled the world, I have finished, at last.’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[stork]

Hello David,


You use humor to weave the different tenses from present to past in quite an interesting narrative thread - it has the feel of an eastern guru preaching, ancient wisdom - the pitfalls of the wrong use of tenses!

I rather like these lines:

"But if 'I HAVE DONE' ever comes raising his head
The time has now gone, and the battle is dead."


These convey that sense of finality very well.


I enjoyed this very much.


stork

[Tate Morgan]

Well this is sure different and funny as it is it danced around my head a bit as i contemplated its meanings.I must say we do what we can till we cant anymore..lets just hope we left a mark somewhere befopre we are gone