Blind Man's Buff

Blind Man's Buff

A Poem by David Lewis Paget

I remember as a child we used to

Play out in the square,

In the sleepy little village

Someone christened Uno Ware,

There was never any traffic so

Until we’d had enough,

With the cruelty of children

We’d keep playing Blind Man’s Buff.

 

It was cruel, I admit it and

Regret the very day,

The first time we invited young

Immanuel to play,

He was Russian, and had come to live

From halfway round the earth,

He was always labelled ‘It’ because

He’d been stone blind from birth.

 

His father, Andropovski was

An evil looking man,

But he’d fled before the Communists

Had come to rule the land,

He’d been in the Palace Guard, had

Given service to the Csar,

While the Bolsheviks had gathered,

He’d deserted, travelled far.

 

Immanuel was only nine

A stranger to the street,

He was not allowed to play with us

The urchins in bare feet,

But his father was a woodsman and

Away most every day,

So we gathered round his window,

Asked Immanuel to play.

 

We’d lead him out and spin him round

And say, ‘You’re it!’ and stuff,

And he’d shriek and laugh and stagger

As we played our Blind Man’s Buff,

But he very rarely caught us

We were far too quick for him,

‘Til his father, Andropovski,

Kicked our butts and took him in.

 

After that he stayed inside or

Came to sit out on the porch,

And he’d listen to us playing

We’d indulge in different sports,

Then he took a knife and whittled

Just to pass away the time,

And he made the most amazing things

For someone who was blind.

 

He’d get a picture in his head

Of what he’d never seen,

Then he’d whittle and he’d whittle

At the substance of his dream,

And they gradually got bigger as

He grew up in the dark,

He would whittle from huge logs

Once he had stripped away the bark.

 

I remember when he whittled

A whole lizard from the wood,

Well, it looked much like a lizard

I would watch him as he stood,

And he’d ask me lots of questions

About sizes and of shapes,

About elephants and zebras

About seagulls, terns and apes.

 

I would answer him directly

In exacting measurements,

Tell him how they moved, of hair and fur

Of food, and excrements,

I would draw him mental pictures

Of the things he’d never seen,

As his knife would chip and whittle,

And his face would fairly beam.

 

Then one day it just turned nasty

When a friend called Henry Goode,

Said he’d seen that wooden lizard

Snaking off into the wood,

So I asked Immanuel, I said:

‘I don’t know what he’s on,

But Henry saw your lizard move!’

Immanuel said: ‘It’s gone!’

 

He never would expand on this,

He’d shrug and turn away,

But still his knife flashed in the air,

Would chip and strip away,

Then Mrs. Brown came screaming that

She’d been down by the wharf,

Had been accosted by some man,

She said, ‘A wooden dwarf!’

 

And that was just the start of it

A mist came swirling down,

So thick we couldn’t find our way

Both in or out of town,

A flying wooden parrot then

Knocked off the Parson’s hat,

And lay there squawking feebly ‘til

The Parson stamped it flat.

 

I found Immanuel on the porch

And said, ‘Hey, what’s the game?’

He scowled in my direction, said,

‘Don’t like it? What a shame!

You thought it was good fun to tease,

Could never get enough,

When I was just the blind kid, ‘It’,

And playing Blind Man’s Buff!’

 

Our village faded from the map

That mist just kept us there,

And people whispered, ‘Where’s it gone?

That village... You know where!’

Immanuel said we’d play again

That game we loved the most,

But we’d be ‘It’, he’d whittled it,

Turned loose the Holy Ghost!

 

David Lewis Paget

© 2012 David Lewis Paget


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Featured Review

Lacing reality to imagination we see the child within the man.I was 35 when i finally could say i felt the man inside.But Only lately have i felt the sage within the man come out.Funny we are all just children in adult bodies aren't we? later we feel bad for the magi nations of the child .When we used our superiority to anothers expense. Don't worry you turned out fine.Though I dont think the world will ever find your old village again .Not in this world anyway.Funny when we are little a small town is a world.As we grow our world grows larger.Our ability to move grows exponentially.Easy to see why in days gone by humans were superstitious We lived and died within 10 miles of our birthplace .Experiences were rare and localized.I see this now in the advent of the internet .It is stirring the world to learn to turn away from superstition and embrace knowledge.That is all but the Iranians who have their own internet. More like the Captain kangaroo of the system.Or the pied piper being led by their Grand High ruler of the religion for their god. The rest of us are learning and growing .It is sad to see the once center of human knowledge the Persians laboring to get back to the 17th century suppressing thought and action along with women. Life is a never ending attempt to learn and grow.Then to pass those thoughts onto our offspring. I wonder if we will ever get past our infancy? Will we ever cast off the childishness of our imagination and embrace the new world

Posted 11 Years Ago


2 of 2 people found this review constructive.




Reviews

Speechless David. Excellent stuff.

Posted 10 Years Ago


...you are now entering the "Twilight Zone"

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

The moral of the story: never mess around with savants....

if taken too far, all things can turn "nasty". The games of children later turn into the games of adults. I think we all do a bit of escaping within our artistic creativity.
and then, many small towns suffer this very fate.
Great story.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

I enjoyed this immensely. Of course, I am in full Halloween mode these days. The spookier the better. This is imaginative, with a realism that tantalizes the reader. Excellent.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Spooky tale great moral story should feed to the cyberspace bullies. good write as usual

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Wow if I had children I'd offer them up to your knee so that they might retain the morals of your tales excellent poem sir
- Jordan

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Enjoyed this poem very much. I worked a camps for the blind in my highschool years. Took me back to the creativity of the blind. Also, brought to mind the "blindness" of the sighted.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

This one hit two parts of my youthful memories.First..just being outside to play..Kids today stay in on a computer or game boy..life was so much safer then and being out playing with friends is one of my happiest childhood memories..The other point..my mom was blind the last ten years of her life..she played the piano by ear...and no longer wrote her poetry but did play the piano//I think of her last years and want to cry..People can be nasty to the infirmed can't they..You are becoming a Whizard at this type of writing..just keep them coming..love and God bless Lyn and you..Kathie

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

So Immanuel's knife found magic did it? I don't take any thing from this but what's written--a fairy tail of justice found...

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Love the comment below, "Stephen King, take note!". I totally agree.
Decidedly suspenseful, with a twist only you can make come alive :)
~pat

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.


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798 Views
15 Reviews
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Shelved in 1 Library
Added on October 5, 2012
Last Updated on October 11, 2012
Tags: Russian, whittle, lizard, parrot

Author

David Lewis Paget
David Lewis Paget

Moonta, South Australia, Australia



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