The Chair
This raw, unpainted, left-hand edge,
With multiple nails in-driven,
I regard as a wounding of sorts,
A ripping away of all fatuity, make-believe,
A stabbing down and into the truth of the matter,
And all this surely does matter…
See for yourself! It is only a raw webbing
of crude-made, brown-weave canvas after all,
Fit to hang raw in the damp of a midden
Were it not up here on the wall of this bedroom…
In fact, in all this wounding it is myself that I see,
Scarified by all my hauntings,
That which forever must lie beneath
Any smoothness of surface
(Of which there is so pitifully little),
Any garnishings of fine-minted words
Of which, from time to time,
I do seem to have been just about capable…
As I was too, it seems,
Of making this fresh conjured chair
Out of fiercely tamped,
Rough-textured brushstrokes,
Home-spun, four-square
And dependable as these words
Of pitiful description must now
Try to make it, for this is all of me.
Should I then invite you to agree?
