Bennett Built a Time Machine

Bennett Lamb’s been holed up in his shack
Working ever patiently
Clocks are ticking
Bennett’s headed back to New York, 1983

To meet himself as a younger man
Show the teenage him a perfect plan
The stocks to buy girls not to date
He knows the way to reinvent his future
Un-make mistakes, un-seal his fate

He’s going back to change his choices
Guided by his inner voices
And visions that he’d seen
Bennett built a time machine

Bennett Lamb’s been five days wide awake
He scrawled out every thought he had
Complex calculations he did make
All single-spaced on legal pads

He won’t return to watch Babe Ruth
To head off Mao or John Wilkes Booth
To warn good people in the past
Of earthquakes, locust plagues or insurrection
There’s just one die he wants recast