Category: poetry

There were words that Mr. Nothing did not trust
the dictionary to provide an adequate definition for.
For instance, what was he supposed to say
in response to the question, “Are you happy?”
The problem is not even with that unfortunate “happy,”
but with the one who asks the question.

Mr. Nothing watched the poet tinkering with a typewriter
and Platocrates weighing white and black pebbles in his hands
while looking thoughtfully at a large clay jar standing in front
of him. And since he himself, more out of habit than necessity,
read lines full of foreign-sounding names and events that meant
nothing any more, he suddenly felt as if they were strange triplets
from an incongruous nest. He would have used the word “weirdo”
before, but after learning of its negative connotation, he settled
for “just another man.”

The poet came to the conclusion
that he lacked a good biography.
He was not a war hero, not even a child of war.
Communism also somehow missed him.

It is true that he accompanied Mr. Nothing in his exile,
but without unnecessary excesses, in the silence
of his shady nook full of unfinished books
and secretly obtained typewriters.

But then, in the midst of his tirade,
thoughtful Platocrates, setting down another white stone,
reached for a volume from a pile on his desk
and, leafing through, said,

“When the next time they ask for your name,
say it is Echecrates,
and that you were carrying the cup
by association.”

The poet would likely find better words,
but Mr. Nothing only ventured to repeat
after a song, as tormented by the myriads
of his infinitesimal desires, each inflicting
a different kind of despair, he tried in vain
to invent endearments that could get him
to the infinite springs of jasmine scent.
And as he stood at the edge of the meadow,
Platocrates suddenly spoke, somewhat out
of context, “The god compels me to be
a midwife, but forbids me to bring forth.”

A glass of water at Old Blackfriars caught Mr. Nothing’s thoughts,
while the poet’s playful banter charmed a jasmine gaze on the other side
of the table. It was the taste of the water, somewhat salty with some sip,
that reminded him of reckless words he had spoken many years ago,
that eventually got him to where he was now, annoying the bartender.
And then a figure like him appeared, with no roots in the granite
cobblestones, reached up to his cheek for a fallen eyelash and said,
“Make a wish and blow.”

“Nobody reads poetry these days.”
Mr. Nothing shifted a questioning glance
from the pages of Britannia Depicta
to the poet, who, however, seemed to be
talking to himself, bent over a notebook
with the gold-plated finial of his favourite
Carène caressing his lower lip, and asked,
“Not even poets?”