A Day In The Life Of Gary Parry (Philosopher And Co-Author Of: The Relevance Of The Irrelevant) Poem by Richard G Berg

Rises at six (a priori)
Sinks at seven (a posteriori)
Alarm clocks set to time zones
Where his favourite philosophers
Lived, worked, died.

Stares at the sign attached
To the bedside mirror
THERE IS NOTHING
THAT NOTHING CANNOT FIX

Smiles at his absent lovers, stuck
In the creases beside his eyes

Cleans teeth with an electric toothbrush
Whilst spinning past revolutions
In his head, pondering which brush
Hegel or Sartre would have preferred.

Flicks a coin to determine the relative
Merits of marmalade and honey
Smears his face with a textbook smile
Trots downstairs to switch on self
Phone, computer, kettle
With syllogistic slickness.

Faces mirror, his cat's uncertainty, cheap-wine-drinker's-droop
Phenomenological fears of mis-spelling
Phenomenology. Answers calls but not questions
Questions his neighbour's anagram of a wife

Doorbell pings to sting his wits

Jehovah's Witnesses smarten his doorstep with seismic grins
He announces Schopenhauer and Nietzsche as his daily sins

Pounces on a spider, disproves ontological doubts

Slams the door on hate before the deluge of bills
And interlocking of empirical wills

Rips up final demands with hasty laugh: nothing can ever be final
Passes time
By denying it.

Meets a student to greet
Her admiration for philosophers, philosophy and his work
Agrees to disagree with her in exchange for a wobbly smirk

By four he is home and ready to wink
Into marking, and mixing a fictitious drink

By seven he ponders why shelves sag in several places
By ten he is ready to read more of philosophy's traces

At midnight he thinks it dandy to think
About the next day's meetings, whether his books
Are beginning to stink.

Dream ghosts question if life's a hoax or dream
Whilst Wittgenstein's plea for silence
When in doubt, prompts an awakening
To apply
Anti-ageing cream.

Richard G Berg
October 2024