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St. Marks
by June LabyzonIt is Tuesday night.
This chair I sit in
looks like every other chair
in the room,
a blue metal stacking chair.
The room is large and unadorned,
musty smelling and old.
Famous poets have been here before me.
One of them is leading this workshop.
She sits in the same kind of chair
that the rest of us occupy.
A St. Christopher medal
clangs against one of the chairs
each time the writer puts
the pen to the page.
The noise is deafening.
Pretension thickens the room.
Perspiration darkens the blue of the chair.
I’m writing backhand;
feel out of place.
My mind won’t work beyond
my comprehension.
There are holes in the faces
of the bodies on the chairs.
Male spaces waiting to be
replaced when new ones arrive.
Real history written with fake history.
And still there is this chair.
Questions with no answers.
It’s just a chair in a room,
for now serving it’s intended purpose.
30 spreading rumps
on 30 metal chairs.
10/13/2013 Posted on 10/13/2013
Copyright © 2024 June Labyzon
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 10/14/13 at 12:01 AM My favorite is that second to last stanza. Also really liked the St. Christopher clanging - lots of good tension, expectation, and many thought provoking chairs. Thanks for this. |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 10/16/13 at 02:19 PM you hit the head on the nail with this one, June, as life, poetic or banal, basically boils down to rumps stewing in some chair, metallic or wooden, waiting for their turn at the mike to tell it like it is, at least for them. nothing like speaking through a mike, and waking people up with words, rather than with roosters or atom bombs. |
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