4 - A Tribute to the Fourth Doctor

 

As you may already be aware, I had the pleasure of discovering I had won a poetry competition earlier this month. The idea was basically to write a poem about Doctor Who. My initial idea was to try and summarize the essence of the Doctor as a whole, but then I started to think about making it more personal. Instead of the Doctor as a man, how about focussing on a specific incarnation? And how about making it the Fourth Doctor - he was my first, after all.

 

And so,  rather than basing the poem in the deep depths of the Universe, I set it in a quiet little café, in wet old England. An intimate encounter with the bohemian wanderer - Tom Baker. Because seeing the Doctor in space is one thing, but seeing him in your town is quite another altogether.

 

I hope you enjoy it. I've titled it, rather simply, '4'...

He's sat there in the tea shop:

An unravelled yarn

Of brooding eccentricity.

A long scarf seems to wrap,

Like a woollen, multi-coloured snake,

Around his body a dozen times;

Almost as un-tameable

As the forest of curls

Atop his time-weary head.

He contemplates a mug of tea,

Elbow on table, chin in hand,

His wide eyes two pools of deep blue.

He doesn't seem to notice me staring -

His mind no doubt on other things.

I can almost hear ancient cogs

Grinding and whirring inside that mercurial mind:

Thoughts of distant worlds and falling stars,

And the spiralling chaos

Of the infinite vortex of Time.

I take a sip of my tea -

It's cold now,

Perhaps as chilled as me,

To be in the presence of this man.

A man who acts as a mighty pillar

Holding up the foundations of the Universe,

Now sitting in a small café on a wet day,

In the corner of the Galaxy known as England.

As I contemplate my own cold tea,

I barely notice him hurrying to his feet.

It isn't until he glides past

That I catch his eye -

And a rushing thrill seizes me in an instant.

As he leaves the tea shop,

His scarf flows behind him

Like the remains of a tattered, garish cloak,

And a second later the outside world has swallowed him up,

Leaving me alone with my cold tea,

The background noise of chatter, and bland muzak.

But he has left one trace of his existence,

For next to my mug sits a yellow jelly baby,

Stealthily deposited for my delectation.

“Thank you,” I say, mostly to myself,

Snatching up and devouring the tasty sweet,

Unable to suppress a wide smile.

“Thank you, Doctor...”

 

Cory John Eadson, 2013