Never Have A Drunken Philosophical Debate With A Table Or With A Chair Poem by Dónall Dempsey

The chair said: 'Look...
how do you know I'm really here? '
If I were to retract
all my chairiness
that you take
as fact
you'd fall
on your arse! '

'Try it - and see! '
I'm not prepared to call the chair's
bluff.
'How do you know
I am not something
you're imagining
only existing
inside your brain? '

The table chimed in:
'Yes, what if I were
to withdraw
the absolute certainity
that I am

a table? '
'Take back all the data facts
that make me the table
that you think
I am! '

'Would you still be
able
to face a world
that may be only a figment
of your imagination? '

I say that the only thing I do know is that I don't know.
The molecules
dance before me.
These molecules I call
table.
These molecules I call
chair.
These molecules
claim they are me

or
I am them.
Talking chairs & tables
whatever can be
will be.
I only know
you've left
and we are
no longer us.

The world
just a heap of molecules
claiming to be
what they are
not.
There is just this
emptiness
where you
used to be.