The Blind Philosopher and the God of Small Things
a collection of verse
by
Barnaby Wilde
Copyright 2012 by Barnaby Wilde
Barnaby Wilde asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Smashwords
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover picture from 'The Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges' by William Blades (1824 – 1890),
Other published works by the author.
A Question of Alignment – a Tom Fletcher novel
I Keep Thinking It's Tuesday – a Tom Fletcher novel
Animalia – a collection of quirky verse with an animal theme
Life… -- a collection of verse on a vaguely 'life' related theme
Not at all Rhinocerus – a collection of quirky verse which is only a little bit rhinoceros
Barnaby Wilde is the pen name of Tim Fisher.
Tim was born in 1947 in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, but grew up and was educated in the West Country. He graduated with a Physics degree in 1969 and worked in manufacturing and quality control for a multinational photographic company for 30 years before taking an early retirement to pursue other interests. He has two grown up children and currently lives happily in Devon.
Visit www.barnaby-wilde.co.uk for the author's blog and more information about the world of Barnaby Wilde.
On the other hand…
‘It’s all a matter of perception,’ the blind man said.
‘A book that’s black and white to some, to you can still be read.
Just because a cross eyed teacher who retains some moral scruples
Has apparently no mastery of either of her pupils
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t steal a sideways glance.
If you could only catch her eye you’d have a chance.’
‘It depends upon your viewpoint,’ he went on with sightless eyes.
‘A towel will still get wetter however well it dries.
A car that brakes in time will always stay intact, of course,
Though a laryngitic jockey may become a little hoarse
And a barn that’s built on sand will be unstable that’s for sure.’
I considered his allusions though the meanings were obscure.
‘Regard it from all angles,’ he said stroking at his beard,
‘Is a river with a waterfall a current being weird?
And when you take vacations can you really stop in Rome
While the book that you take with you stays a tome?
A present’s still a present even though it was last year.
Am I giving you an inkling, is it starting to come clear?’
‘Are you saying,’ I then asked him in my diffident shy manner,
‘That a flag can broadcast welcome yet may still be called a banner?’
‘By Jove. I think you’ve got it,’ he said tugging at his jaw,
Adding that a skidmark on the parquet was just another flaw.
Enlightenment was dawning as eventually I saw
That a jar might be another way to view an open door.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘it makes more sense to come at life obliquely.
Consider other points of view before you judge too quickly.’
‘Festina lente,’ I concurred and pondered what he’d said.
Fools rush in, it’s very true, where angels fear to tread.
There are optimists and pessimists but neither sees it all
Just remember a half empty glass is also halfway full.
(December 2000)
Just another day in paradise.
A mole, bless his soul, on patrol in his hole met a worm on the turn by the bend at the bole of the oak. Neither spoke as the worm was infirm and the mole wasn’t peckish.
A rook near a brook, took a turn on the lawn, while a tern all forlorn took a look at the rook as it walked on the grass. Moments passed.
A girl in a car adjusted her bra as she glimpsed from afar a boy with a jar full of fish from the brook. Like a scene in a book, she drove on slowly.
The boy with the fish, swished the grass with his fist and the flick of a stick that was recently his, but grew tired of all this and lay in the hay with his stick in the mud.
In the grass a bird clings and busily sings as the god of small things preens the sheen on her wings and buffs her gold rings.
A breeze in the trees ruffles the leaves, while high in the eaves bees enter and leave with consummate ease and nectar they’ve teased from the meadow below.
At the end of the day the boy leaves the hay, while the girl in the car is far far away and the birds have all flown. The mole ate the worm and the bees have all gone.
The god of small things notes all is right and knocks out his pipe as he turns out the light and locks up for the night, then he gets on his bike and goes home.to his wife.
Just another day in paradise.
(June 2003)
‘s wordfighting
Tapping at the keyboard, with a smile upon his face,
My friend the blind philosopher sat staring into space.
He seemed not to have heard me and I gave a little cough,
But his typing didn’t falter so I thought I should be off.
As I turned to leave the room he said, “No need for you to go.
Was there something that you needed, anything you want to know?”
I said, “Nothing in particular,” though feeling rather dumb.
He said, “you’re too easily contented, my innocent young chum.”
“Don’t say ‘nothing in particular’. Put your thoughts into reverse.
Find out ‘everything in general’ about the universe.
Don’t take anything for granted. Always question the absurd.
Challenge every answer given and mistrust each proffered word.”
“For example,” he said thoughtfully, pointing to his screen,
Take a look at this word ‘granery’ and tell me what it means.
I flushed with mild embarassment at his apparent slip,
But should have paused for thinking time before I loosed my lip.
“A place for storing grain,” I said, “or else a type of bread.”
He sighed and stroked his long white beard, and sadly shook his head.
“I believe you’re thinking ‘granary’,” he said, scratching at his dome.
“Whereas with an ‘e’ in place of ‘a’ it is an old folks home.”
Before I could react to this, away his fingers went
And there upon the screen appeared the letters ‘arrogent’.
“Overbearing. Haughty,” I called out from where I stood.
“With an ‘a’ instead of ‘e’, perhaps, but this one’s Robin Hood.”
I suspected he was teasing me, so this time I spoke first.
“O.K.” I said, “try this for size, let’s hear you do your worst.”
I typed in ‘mugazines’ for him . He said, fiddling with his pens,
“Glossy periodicals for those with much more cash than sense.”
He came quickly back with ‘cellulike’. I instantly replied,
“For people who enjoy the sight of fat and dimply thighs.”
‘Misfourtunes’ I typed in for him when it was next my go.
He said, “arriving at the musical halfway through the show.”
‘Speculatte’ is to wonder what a Starbuck’s coffee costs
and ‘poorpoise’ is the thing you have when equilibrium is lost.
‘Pharomones’ are smells that come from old Egyptian kings.
‘Glibido’ is a ‘too much talk, no action’ sort of thing.
‘Sarchasm’ is the gulf between the author of the wit
And the reader who’s unable to make out the half of it.
By now we both were laughing, tears brimming from our eyes.
He said,” ‘foreploy’ is trying to get sex by telling bare faced lies.”
“And ‘partickle’ is foreplay, but by another name.”
(It got a little vulgar then as we warmed to our game).
He typed ‘osteopornosis’, a degenerate disease.
I typed ‘henigmatic’. Battery chickens, if you please.
‘Moneymoon’ - an oasis of tranquillity ‘twixt pleasure and the paying.
And ‘Giraffiti’ (that’s high altitude, but antisocial, spraying).
‘Failing’ had me stumped a while, but turned out to be a case
of arranging vital papers in completely random ways.
We continued with this wordy duel for several minutes more,
Then his attention drifted and I guessed that he was bored.
‘Cupbard’ I threw at him. “Closet poet,” he opined,
But his brain already occupied another place and time.
“So, my friend, remember this,” he turned and said to me.
“Words are fickle things sometimes, not all they seem to be.
A letter here, a letter there can change the sense uniquely.
Don’t accept a thing you’re told but question it completely.”
He turned back to his keyboard and I knew I’d been dismissed,
But as I slipped out from his room he left me wondering this.
I may not be as wise as him, nor understand the bigger scene,
But how does a blind philosopher see typing on a screen?
(January 2002)
Simply Saving Silences
My friend the blind philosopher was standing by a gate
Wiping beads of perspiration with a hanky from his pate.
He had rows of empty bottles lined up by him on a cart
And was steeped in concentration ‘til I stopped him with a start.
He sighed in mild frustration at the sound of my approach.
‘There is no peace for wicked men’, he muttered in reproach.
A tiny breeze tugged at his beard and fluttered at his gown.
He flipped the jam jar in his hand and held it upside down.
I wondered what was going on but was too shy to ask.
It caused me some embarrassment to interrupt his task.
He shook the bare jar gently and then replaced the lid.
I stood there in confusion whilst observing what he did.
He put his pot down carefully upon the open cart,
Then pulled his cloak around him and got ready to depart.
‘Can you tell me what you’re doing? I requested, ‘if you please’
Some susurrating sedges swaying softly in the breeze.
He paused as he was leaving, sighed and scratched his head.
‘I’m simply saving silences’, he sibilantly said.
I stood a second, stupidly, for more elucidation,
But he merely muttered to himself by way of explanation.
‘Go on,’ I prompted gently, for I didn’t understand,
His sightless eyes saw through me and he gestured with his hand.
‘The world is far too noisy,’ he said pulling at his chin.
‘How can anybody concentrate amongst this constant din?’
‘We’re continually bombarded by disharmonies of sound.
A cacophony of dissonance that resonates around,
Filling every nook and cranny, every second, day and night,
From the muzak in the toilet to the roar of powered flight.’
‘There’s the constant noise of traffic, the intrusion of TV,
The tinny whine of radios, and mobile phones (off key),
Supermarket scanners that are blipping special offers,
Plus the groaning, moaning people, all those sneezing, wheezing coughers.’
‘Those oases of tranquillity where peace and calm endure,
Are getting few and far between and every day get fewer.
So when I find a quiet spot, a truly silent place,
I always try to bottle some for use on other days.’
‘Then when I want to concentrate or simply to relax,
I shut the doors and windows; leave the CD’s in their racks;
Turn off all equipment; fetch a bottle from my wagon;
Settle in the corner and partake a Quiet flagon.’
Then he pulled his cloak around him and he set off down the hill,
With his little cart behind him and the jam jars empty still.
And he left me standing there alone and asking myself this,
‘Was he simply saving silences …
… or just taking the piss?’
(December 2001)
Twenty* things worth knowing
Said my friend the blind philosopher, whilst chewing on a plant,
“Here’s twenty things worth knowing, including some that aren’t.”
I didn’t really have the time, but wished not to seem rude,
So I settled gently at his feet and waited while he chewed.
He stroked his wispy beard until the words began to stream,
Saying, “Generally life’s not much fun, except of course ice-cream.”
And “Light is made of many hues, a lot of them are blue.”
Adding, “Snakes are mostly harmless, unless they bite at you.”
His sightless eyes glazed over. It was minutes ‘til he spoke.
When he did he said that “Hair was merely nature’s little joke.”
That “Mathematics was invented to make wrong sums come righter.”
And that “Gravity was heavy stuff, but levity was lighter.”
“Space goes on ad infinitum until you reach the edge.”
“Manslaughter’s not as funny as some people would allege.”
He said “Mostly children were invented to keep parents occupied.”
And that “Amoebas lived forever, apart from those that died.”
“Mostly history is behind us in this modern day and age.”
And “Typically, books tend to end right after the last page.”
“Sex is often better with at least two people present.”
I pondered on this latter thought, the concept not unpleasant.
“Grass grows from the bottom up, which is mostly a good thing.”
And “Candles were invented to use up odd lengths of string.”
“Oceans have evolved to reach exactly to sea level.”
He spoke in generalities. It’s detail that’s the devil.
I wondered how much longer he’d continue to expound.
He said “The biggest part of mountains lies entirely underground.”
And that “Deserts are devoid of life since camels mostly choose
to divide themselves up equally in circuses and zoos.”