King Arthur, I like the poem but find it a bit wordy in places like in the
second line of the first stanza.
kol tuv, Ryfkah
In a message dated 10.05.02 12:07:29 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
<< I'm not sure how close this is to being finished but I am giving it an
airing and then may sit on it for a while. Comments welcome.Regards Arthur.
(i)
An hour before my train left, I strolled
under the shadow of the great cathedral’s leap of stone.
The close streets warm and gloomy.
An antique shop, the bell tinkled, a step down,
smells of lavender and damp, polished wood bloomed.
Beneath some stairs, half-hidden,
the clock, works housed in black slate,
trimmed with ornate brass, leaf and vine,
intertwined, hands frozen at ten past three,
mute and lost where no sun shines.
Time is understood through motion observed.
Hands orbit as springs uncoil,
potential is expressed kinetically,
declines to a system in seeming stasis, but what was slate
and brass before? And still to be unwound?
The tick of escapement, reciprocal tock,
the flicker of a hair spring,
toothed wheel meshed with toothed wheel,
mechanical division of the indivisible,
Zeno’s slicing of the unsliceable.
I traced my finger through the dust,
looked at the price tag,
let it drop with a soft suck through pursed lips,
squinted at the dazzle of the day beyond
and made my way towards the trains and home.
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