Life ... (plus ten): Quirky Verse, #2

By Barnaby Wilde

A collection of verse taking a sideways view of life from birth to death and points between.
How do you know if you are middle aged? Why are there so many bottles in your bathroom? Where exactly is that safe place where all your mislaid possessions are stored? Answers to these and many other of life's mysteries may be found here.
...and where exactly do socks go when they die?

Ten further poems added, including considerations of Morris Dancing and the Immortality of Amoebas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnaby Wilde
• Release date: Dec 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465932549

Barnaby Wilde

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.

Book preview

A Senior Moment

I caught her eye across the room,

As hard as steel and cold as doom…

… And then she threw her wooden limb,

Which whacked me soundly round my chin.

And as I nursed my aching jaw,

I watched her hop across the floor,

Suspended on her zimmer frame.

But though I scrabbled as she came,

I couldn’t find my other crutch,

And suddenly I felt the clutch,

Of her false teeth upon my ear.

Although I yelled, she didn’t hear,

Her deaf aid had dropped off en route.

I grabbed for her remaining boot,

Just as that orthopaedic gear,

Was swinging at my injured ear.

I twisted hard and down she went,

Her monocle, completely bent,

Sent flying in the general maul,

To crash against the distant wall.

But even this was not the worst,

As her colostomy bag burst,

She yanked the grey wig from her head,

And whipped me with it while she said,

I’m nearly eighty four you know.

I cowered ‘neath her feeble blows,

Winded momentarily.

Her gaze, unfocused, wandered free.

One vacant mind, one empty socket,

Her glass eye in my vest pocket.

One leg, one eye, deaf, bald and fat.

This? Just another little spat,

To ease the boredom before tea.

The endless hours of dull TV,

Of sitting, staring into space,

Of waiting out our final days.

Remembering when we were young,

Forgetting to put in our tongues.

Enduring our retirement,

Daily more incontinent.

And after tea there’ll be just time,

For one more harmless little crime,

Another aggravating jape ...

…I’ll hide her eye ball in the grapes.

Tee hee hee!

(November 2000)

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Mirror, Mirror

Mirror Mirror on the wall,

Why do you make me look so small?

Why etch those lines around my eyes?

What makes you tell me all these lies?

Inside I know I truly am

A lively, tall and handsome man,

But you have robbed me of my hair

And given me a wizened air.

Whose aim is served by this untruth,

This unkind lampoon of my youth?

Inside I glow with healthy tan

But you portray me an old man.

What is this sad joke you indulge

That you must make my stomach bulge?

Why hang those jowls upon my chin

And make my legs so matchstick thin?

And then there are those other tricks,

Where left and right are intermixed,

Yet top and bottom don’t change place.

You mock with time and play with space.

Do you have no sense of shame

To stare at me with such disdain?

Reflecting only double chin

To ridicule the man within.

Do you feel no hint of guilt?

Is this the reason you were built,

To undermine my self esteem

And scoff at my delusive dreams?

Naked in the shower room

I contemplate myself with gloom.

Is this reflection really me?

Where is that boy I used to be?

But condensation brings relief,

As dimming image blurs my grief.

And if I close my eyes a bit…

…I am still young, tanned, slim and fit.

(January 2001)

Return to table of contents

Come in Number Nine, your time is up

Hey there. You with your nose in the air.

You with your feet on the ground.

Have you ever thought you might be

Living your life upside down?

When you’re in love are there wings on your heels?

Do your feet touch the pavement at all?

How do you walk with your