The Man Who Turned Himself into a Chair

 

“A chair is still a chair even when

there’s no one sitting there.”

                                  ~Hal David

 

It must be a tyranny to be so rigid.

I want no part in this travesty.

You, who were so bored with life

fled into paralysis rather than analysis.

I think of you as asleep, as it

helps me reach you with compassion.

 

Had you known doing and saying

the same things over and over

would result in this staid metamorphosis,

would you have persisted

with such analgesic repetition?

 

I have questions.

Was it not enough to be able

to leave a room at will?

When your need to feel safe

imprisoned you in unsayable stasis;

artistic equal to the plastic flower

sans scent or power to arouse,

a bulb that offers no light, then,

where art thou source of electricity?

 

Is this any way to escape responsibility

surrendering your privilege to respond.

Can anyone really be happy

with a soul swaddled as a mummy

in fetid fabric for the rest of time?

You who once loved classical music,

what can you hear through your gauze?

 

Where do you hide your likes and dislikes

now that opinions are impossible to express?

Was life so intimidating that the blood

in your veins froze into down feathers,

wings that once enabled flight

now only filling without agency.

Do you not miss the give and take

of ordinary conversation?

 

Had you become so dispassionate

that turning into a chair took the form of a relief.

Maybe it is of some benefit not to care

who sits upon you. Still,

how does one run out of things worth saying?

What aesthetic so enticing that you

became content to be part of the decor?

Did you think becoming a chair

might cause others to value you more?

 

A chair is no way to make yourself useful.

If we’re not encouraged to be ourselves

what good is it to retreat into the mise en scene?

Who aspires to be a piece of furniture, anyway?

What uniformity in being human

isn’t self-imposed?

To be alive, awake, is to be

justifiably unpredictable.

 

The truth is, I did not see it

 happening slowly over time,

as wood fossilizes

unnoticed into stone.

Your skin changed its texture

from smooth to parched burlap.

Your back became hunched.

You sprouted wooden arms.

Your bottom sagged.

And now 

by putting yourself out to pasture,

a thing entirely unto itself,

a chair in a field of flowers,

you've become both

a black sheep and lost lamb.

 

 

10/11/22

 

 

 

Lost Youth

“It is difficult to get the news from poems

 yet men die miserably every day

 for lack of what is found there,”

                                   ~William Carlos Williams

With every failure the will can fade.

I’m revealed through the things I've made.

Without an art, as a matter of fact,

the ego's left to take up the slack.

 

If great fiction is a lie

that teaches us truth,

then, who wouldn’t long again

for the imaginings of youth?

 

Because the eye is never

fooled by what is smart,

we might have arrived less

brazenly from the start.

 

Why not make your life an opus,

even a tragic 3 act play,

for the very same ingredients

make for a first rate flambé.

 

Dare to have an appetite

for far more greater things,

a vocabulary learnt by heart

is how we bear our stings.

 

You can’t woo a trick

with a poem no matter

how you try, you’ll only feel older

while not entirely certain why.

 

Every dawn’s a perfect blank

I feel a need to fill it in,

as encroaching light gradually reveals

the cages we find ourselves in.

 

Imagine you are dying

in hopes of keeping death close.

Being in and not of life

is how I’ve reaped the most.

 

Feelings are always heightened

by the prospect of their loss.

So, expect to cry your eyes out

as you reckon with the costs.

 

Why do we feel the need

to try and be ourselves?

When isn’t our very being

proof of substantial health?

 

The weeks go by like days,

yet another chorus refrain,

as tides encourage the moon

to continue to wax and wane.

 

Our lives can go by unnoticed

hidden inside our mouths

forming the same words,

issuing the same doubts.

 

A cat meets your eyes

with its all-absorbing gaze.

I’m just as alive as you are

behind this enigmatic face.

 

If we all pay for our joys

then joy comes round again

as we brace for its opposite

while others lose their Zen.

 

For those content to chat,

eat, drink and be merry,

I envy your lackadaisical view

as I’ve never been one to tarry.

 

The need to recount my life

has left me in a narrative shamble,

it leads to walking around a ruin

with a mind that tends to ramble.

 

Some die of unnatural thirst

beside a running spicket,

longing for a sprawling forest

as they clutch a sticky wicket.

 

Then one day a young stranger arrives

having gotten off on the wrong floor,

and just as I was lamenting my lost youth,

lost youth came round my door.

 

“Are you looking for me?” I asked

as he stood perplexed as myself.

“I must have the wrong apartment” he said,

as we considered the cards fate had dealt.

 

At that moment my imagination kicked in

and I watched as he put down his pack.

“I’ve come from the future to find you,” he said,

“I’m here to bring you back.”

 

I looked into his eyes and knew at once

this youth was my younger self

and wondered what he’d want with me

too old and in less than good health.

 

“I want you to tell me all you know,”

he confessed having just arrived.

“I don’t want to live and I need you

to give me a reason I should stay alive.”

 

I looked in his eyes so clear and bright

and hesitated on what to say,

then putting my thoughts aside, I spoke:

“Together we can find our way.”

 

 

10/01/22