It's Walls That Keep My Chair Poem by The Poet SPIEL

a whole truck box of tools outback
sweat and oil deep-rubbed into a tired belt
with slots matched to my two-pound hammer like fingerprints
my scratched-out tape measure
my monkey wrench
my square and grip
what i know
my power driver
the whole shebang
isn't nothing i can't put up or tear down

i've single-handed laid up barns and schools
and set my house on a stretch of sand
where they all swore nothing could stand

by myself raised headers it should've took four men to lift and never broke a sweat
i've cleared forests
honed timber
dove-tailed trusses
sat back and entertained my blues plus too many men
in just one sunday
before sun set

i like my walls just where they are
in spite of them that reckon i ought stretch out a ways
get to know a bigger piece of earth

sure
i could do it in a day
all four walls
roof floor windows
build a sprawling ranch house in idaho
retire
fill it with books i could write myself
and men i know my spine is too gawldang broke to ride

but my chair loves these walls
knows its place by these walls
and i know my place inside that chair
and i got no need for stretching

well
maybe my legs up front my chair
my gawddam tailbone
my back
it's been trouble
so i press it upside my walls to straighten it
i groan my walls
warn my chair before i land
i've paid for what i've got
what i've got is what i like

my socks
same color of my walls
my walls
the color of my air
color of my everyday soup
it's my walls confirm my stench
what's common to me
my crapped-out boots
the jeans i've wore that wrap my bends to count on months on end
my walls are what stand straight for me

i won't be going nowhere
my walls will stay right here to keep my chair for landing in
romance my pain to smell my blues
and use the tools that least spend up my spine

_____The Poet SPIEL