Ticking Time Bomb

Ticking time bomb, ominous expression
Laden with foreboding
Signalling some impending disaster
Primed with inexorable doom

Who set the clock ticking?
Trigger to delayed destruction
How long the time delay?
Before the inevitable calamity

Too easily we assign ‘time bomb’
To some future assault to health or fortune
As if our actions or omissions
Must lead to inevitable tragedy

Thus politicians and power brokers
Have laid up the powder
For the ineluctable explosion
Heralding the slaughter of the innocents

All this seems a little over-hyped
Threat of ticking time bomb
Used to highlight our folly
Ignoring the supressed peril

So what should be done?
Stride boldly into the minefield
Sever the fuse, eliminate the menace
Or tiptoe through hoping to remain unscathed

Perhaps we might discover
The ticking time bomb
Is a mere chimera
A threat without substance

Ken Fisher