Tag: Mr Nothing

Mr. Nothing knew many things, but nothing of much importance.
On warm afternoons, on his way to a walk along the promenade,
he liked to stop at Castlegate and listen to the old drunk Platocrates
bantering with seagulls on the steps of Mercat Cross.
Sometimes, in a fit of good humour, he would take the poet with him,
but usually he reserved these rare moments of respite for himself
and the shoulder bag, in which he carried all the essential things
that were never of any use.

Mr. Nothing looked at the man he had become,
the man he had once wanted to be,
and the man he had a chance to grow up into,
and tried to recall the boy doomed to be one of them.
He also wondered which one best suited the poet
with his ridiculous collection of fountain pens and typewriters,
bizarre habits of making sure he shut the door properly
and attachment to words like “perhaps” and “indeed.”
They had been at odds with each other for quite a while,
and only recently, all of a sudden, they found some form
of peaceful, if not harmonious, coexistence.
Mr. Nothing provided the poet with a roof over his head,
five meals a day, and an adequate amount of sleep,
while the poet, in return, amused him on long winter evenings
with tales of his favourite personal pronouns
adrift in a salutary indeterminacy.

innocent of thought cruelties
the poet examined the truth
conditions of the utterance
questioning his intentions
towards the late mr nothing
as if there was a post-mortem
carried out by a grammarian
that might have cast a shadow
of blame on him as a creator

but it was actually mr nothing
who noticed the first signs
of weariness with the role
he played in the poet’s life
the questionable repayment
of his younger self’s debts
who had to be abandoned
after all he was just a play
on words never invented

a direct question from a reader
flustered the poet as he walked
along the lines of monteverdi
so he replied something brief
and ran before the lone barnacle
got hold of what he actually said
and mr nothing asked him later

he believed the word was ought
perhaps a call for moderation
hardly resembling his absurd will
to have an incongruous notion
of what constitutes a character
old enough to become freely
disappointed in himself

as he pored over the ancient
maps of the land of purple
mr nothing remembered
his home at the crossroads
and a whirlwind’s laughter
at those thrown into the dark

then it was a quiet night after
he recited the curse of ham
and he had no recollection
of who put a shabby book
on the bedside table instead
of the middle eastern news

over breakfast he wondered
what the difference could be
between matzah and taboon
if both could feed the hungry
or become mouldy when left
forgotten in the haversack

the ability to appreciate a little gift
from someone who barely knows
the predicaments of holding the door
for a casual passer-by never meant
to become a vanishing art cultivated
only by the ageing one mr nothing
found on yellowed pages of memoirs
forged by the poet for the sake of it

but even if he called him frivolous
accusing the poet of only playing
with words like portable atheist
propounding his own belief system
nothing less than the portentous
profundity of negative concord
would bother the unenthused poet
in the face of mr nothing’s unrest

if the stench of burning
from the eatery downstairs
painstakingly depicted
on the handmade paper
is ennobled when written
then the poet will suffer
from desperate expedients
for encouraging nonsense

if playing with the rules
of inference is empowering
the semantic nuisance
inhabiting untitled stanzas
imposed by the begetter
then one day mr nothing
will not hesitate to use
the poet’s typewriters

the disproportionality
of his features
made mr nothing
somewhat noticeable

he read the classics
and the grammarians
of forlorn lust
hidden behind
ailing women

there was something
distinctive about
his fascination
with mondays
and the colours
of fountain pen ink

only a daily dose
of vitamins and minerals
glucosamine sulfate
and odourless garlic
brought him down to earth
reminding that the creator
is sometimes a victim

occupying intentionally
blank pages the poet drew
all the bizarre encounters
with mr nothing’s doubts
from the perspicuous realm
of his own dictate

but once plain-spoken
mr nothing expressed
his distrust of the dubious
nature of his anatomy
as the metricist’s claim
to omnipotence