Timebinders (a poem)

I'm working on a piece that's turning out to be rather long, I'm afraid. It's loosely based and expands on the subject matter this poem addresses, so I thought I'd post it as a preview (plus, I don't want to go too long without posting here, lest my many (sic) readers think I've abandoned the 'project', as Chip of The Hoover Hog has termed it).

Time Binders

Memories:

Schemers lurking round each corner, poised to spring on a wounded soul.
Fugitives from time's cremation chamber; echos of the long dead.
Shadows that hide at noonday's sun wait for the ease that evening brings;
cast their blighted spectres 'cross a gay heart, sicken a mind with dread.

Anticipation:

Inklings of a distant homeland, a time and place where loose ends join;
like an apparition in the desert, retreating from our need.
Vitality squandered in haste, rushed headlong into a pipedream.
Left parched and humbled on untilled hardpan, no grass on which to bleed.

Man is a creature spread out thin, smeared across either side of now.
Lost in warped reflection and prophecy- drunk on that heavy wine.
Where he's been, and where he's going, overrides the moment's rapture.
Crossing his eyes to see both sides clearly, he seldom toes the line.

Evolution's curse, it might seem; repercussions of complex thought:
the fight or flight response of primates, extended into time.
Half-trained apes, straddling the knife's edge; off balance and always falling
into the pit, struggling against the quicksand- gods rising from the slime.