I Had No Time Old Clocks to See

tomasocarthaigh

I Had No Time Old Clocks to See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9PHoad-2Qk

I had no time old clocks to see
In a hurry I could not stop
Even though to do so I desired
And enter the old clock shop
And browse the shelves of dials and watches
And stroll within its ticking stock
For I love old watches and timepieces
And their soft and strong ticks and tock.
But I had no time to see
The inside of the old clock shop there
For Prague had too much else to occupy me
And to myself I did swear
That if ever in Prague I have the time
That old clock shop I will drop by
And among the ticks and the tocks
I shall browse and watch time fly
And hands shoot round faces fast and slow
And others unwound don't tick at all
I will be like a mechanic in a car factory
Or like a dancer at a ball
And I declare in a day to come
Should I with time, and in Prague be
I shall send a little time
In that clock shop just passed there by me.

Dorcha

I liked your poem and your reading of it was excellent, but I would like to make a point about the formatting on the page. The text is centralised. I personally find it is more difficult to read a poem this way. I notice this appears to be the fashion with newer poets and yet it only happened with the advent of word processors, which makes centralising so easy. Centralising may make a pleasing design, but the point of a poem is that it should be read, and for me, anyway, this makes it a little more difficult.

Of course you are entitled to format it whichever way you like, but what has really disturbed me is reading classic poetry on the Internet which has also now been centralised, and not at all formatted as the original writer intended it. Have any of the older readers on this forum got any views on that?