# What's a "poetic" time for a clock? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 1, 2017, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049 "2017-01-01T15:35:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/21 "2017-01-02T16:22:10Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > Are you dentist? If so, then 2:30. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/22 "2017-01-02T16:23:58Z")
You need to cover over the numbers with stickers, half with nouns printed on them and half with verbs. What time is it? Kick Ass, that’s what time it is. Although, maybe half with adverbs and half with adjectives would be more poetic. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/23 "2017-01-02T16:58:40Z")
For a literary reference, 11:32. In James Joyce’s _Finnegans Wake_, that is the time the clocks are set, as it is symbolic of both rising (you count to 10 on your fingers, and 11 is one more) and falling (32 is the speed at which objects accelerate as they fall - 32 feet per second, per second). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/24 "2017-01-02T17:38:40Z")
In Spain, five o clock in the afternoon, although we joke that now that we got summer hours it would more properly be six o clock. [Federico García Lorca](http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/la-cogida-y-la-muerte.htm), “La cogida y la muerte”, aka “Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías”, aka “Las cinco en punto”. (“Pinned and dead”, “cry for ISM”, “five o’clock”). Translation off my own cuff, with my apologies to the poet. Five in the afternoon. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. A boy brought the white bedsheet at five in the afternoon. A basket of lime already ready at five in the aftenoon. The rest was death and only death at five in the afternoon. The wind drove the cotton away at five in the afternoon. And oxyde sowed glass and nickel at five in the afternoon. The dove and the leopard now fight at five in the aftenoon. And a thigh with a devastated horn at five in the afternoon. The _bordón_\* started to sing at five in the afternoon. Bells of arsenic and smoke at five in the afternoon. Silence forms groups in the corners at five in the afternoon. The bull alone feels his heart rise! at five in the afternoon. When snowy sweat arrived at five in the afternoon. When the arena got covered in iodine at five in the afternoon, death laid her eggs in the wound at five in the afternoon. At five in the afternoon. At five o’clock in the afternoon. A wheeled casket is the bed at five in the afternoon. Bones and flutes play in his ear at five in the afternoon. The bull lowed by his forehead at five in the afternoon. The fourth\* built rainbows in his death throes at five in the afternoon. From afar gangrene approaches at five in the afternoon. A lily trumpets in the green groin\* at five in the afternoon. The wounds burned like suns at five in the afternoon, and the mob was breaking windows at five in the afternoon. At five in the afternoon. Alas, what horrible five in the afternoon! It was five in every clock! It was five in the shadow in the afternoon! _Bordón_: (music) the bass string in a stringed instrument. (medicine) a rope-like item used to keep a vein open. Fourth: bull in the afternoon. Most death-bullfights include six bulls. “lowed by his forehead” means his strength was already low, he couldn’t raise his head (or so people thought; in this case they turned out to be wrong). The green groin: the bullfighter was wearing green. The lily is a reference to the shape of the bull’s horn. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/25 "2017-01-02T19:38:39Z")
4:51. It’s asymmetrical, with both melancholy and hope. The short hand points to earth, the long hand, possibly, toward a star. ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/26 "2017-01-05T21:29:43Z")
Dramatically poetic? 08.00. > [@](#): > > We waited for the stroke of eight: > Each tongue was thick with thirst: > For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate > That makes a man accursed, > And Fate will use a running noose > For the best man and the worst. (Oscar Wilde, _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049/27 "2017-01-05T21:34:22Z")
4:00. Tea time! Break off work for a cuppa. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-poetic-time-for-a-clock/776049.md?page=1)